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Question 18
Both the number and the percentage of people in the United States involved in nonagricultural pursuits expanded rapidly during the half century following the Civil Warwith some of the most dramatic increases occurring in the domains of transportationmanufacturingand trade and distributionThe development of the railroad and telegraph systems during the middle third of the nineteenth century led to significant improvements in the speedvolumeand regularity of shipments and communicationsmaking possible a fundamental transformation in the production and distribution of goods
In agriculturethe transformation was marked by the emergence of the grain elevatorsthe cotton pressesthe warehousesand the commodity exchanges that seemed to so many of the nations farmers the visible sign of a vast conspiracy against themIn manufacturingthe transformation was marked by the emergence of a new factory systemin which plants became largermore complexand more systematically organized and managedAnd in distributionthe transformation was marked by the emergence of the jobberthe wholesalerand the mass retailerThese changes radically altered the nature of work during the half century between 1870and 1920
To be surethere were still small workshopswhere skilled craftspeople manufactured products ranging from newspapers to cabinets to plumbing fixturesThere were the sweatshops in city tenementswhere groups of men and women in household settings manufactured clothingorcigars on a piecework basisAnd there were factories in occupations such as metalwork where individual contractors presided over what were essentially handicraft proprietorships that coexisted within a single buildingsBut as the number of wage earners in manufacturing rose from 27million in 1880to 45million in 1900to 84million in 1920the number of huge plants like the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia burgeonedas did the size of the average plantThe Baldwin Works had 600employees in 18553000in 1875and 8000in 1900By 1920at least in the northeastern United States where most of the nations manufacturing wage earners were concentratedthreequarters of those worked in factories with more than 100employees and 30percent worked in factories with more than 1000employees
1The word domainsin line 3is closest in meaning toAfields
Blocations
Corganizations
Doccupations
2What can be inferred from the passage about the agricultural sector of the economy after the Civil War
ANew technological developments had little effect on farmers
BThe percentage of the total population working in agriculture declined
CMany farms destroyed in the war were rebuilt after the war
DFarmers achieved new prosperity because of better rural transportation
3The word fundamentalin line 7is closest in meaning to
Apossible
Bbasic
Cgradual
Dunique
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