A People’s History of the United States
The Socialist Challenge
1. Why is the suffrage movement included in a chapter called “The Socialist
Challenge”?
2. Emma Goldman argued that “the cause of the SpanishAmerican war was the price
of sugar…..” How could that be?
3. In a letter to the New York Herald in 1900 characterizing the U.S. government’s
conduct of the SpanishAmerican war, Mark Twain refers to the United States as
“Christendom.” Why? Why does he refer to battles as “pirate raids”? How might the
war have had the effect of filling America’s “soul full of meanness”?
4. What was the topic of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle? What might have
accounted for its popularity?
5. For Jack London, what details/evidence/facts may have led him to the conclusion
that the “capitalist class has mismanaged…criminally and selfishly mismanaged”?
6. Of the following, who cannot be considered a muckraker? Explain your rejections
as well as your choice. 1. Ida Tarbell 2. Lincoln Steffens 3. Henry Frick 4. Upton
Sinclair ● Are there other muckrakers whom Zinn mentions who are not in the list
above? Explain.
7. How was Taylorism a response to the concerns of big business (concerns raised
by the financial collapse of 1907)?
8. Which of the following was not a year that marked the beginning of an economic
collapse: 1819, 1857, 1873, 1907, 1837, 1861, 1893, 1929
9. Why did Clara Lemlich call for a general strike?
10. Why was it particularly impressive that the shirtwaist workers went on strike at
the time that they did?
11. How did workingclass culture sustain strikers?
12. Why did 146 Triangle Shirtwaist Company workers die in the fire of 1911?
13. What reasons/factors might explain the following disparities: ● In 1910, women
were 20 percent of the labor force but 1 percent of union members. ● In 1910, black
workers made 33 percent of the earnings of white workers.
14. How did the leadership of the IWW differ from that of the AFL? Does the
difference in membership between the IWW and AFL explain the difference in
tactics and goals between the two organizations? If not, then what does explain the
difference?
15. “…the IWW became a threat to the capitalist class, exactly when capitalist
growth was enormous and profits huge.” Is this a coincidence? Defend your answer.
16. Discuss the First Amendment in relation to the laws that the Wobblies were
fighting against with their “free speech” tactics.
17. What were Dr. Shapleigh’s concerns about the living conditions of the Lawrence
workers?
18. What event precipitated the walkout that led to the Lawrence Strike of 1912?
19. What role did the IWW play in the Lawrence strike, and why? What role did the
government play, and why?
20. Why did the managers of the American Woolen Company finally decide to begin
negotiations with the strikers?
21. Why did school boards want their female teachers to be single and celibate?
22. Why were workers attracted to socialism? Why did businessmen find socialism
the greatest of threats? Why would women workers be skeptical of socialism? Why
would they be skeptical of feminism? Why would black workers be skeptical or
socialism? Why would skilled workers be antagonistic to socialism?
23. Why was Helen Keller a socialist but not a suffragist?
24. What irony did Helen Keller invoke in her response to the Brooklyn Eagle?
25. Why did Mother Jones work so hard to end child labor?
26. If William Trotter’s actions in a Boston church in 1903 reveal him to be a “radical
militant then what is the definition of a “radical militant”? Did the NAACP promise to
be a militant organization?
27. For each group below, explain how a Progressive piece of legislation, policy, or
amendment benefited that group. Were any of the groups helped more than others?
Were any left out? 1. Farmers 2. Skilled labor 3. Small businesses 4. Manufacturers 5.
Consumers 6. Unskilled labor 7. Blacks 8. Monopolies 9. Women
28. What were the electoral gains that the Socialist party made in 1911?
29. Why might the Rockefellers want to buy coal mines?
30. Why did the coal strike at Ludlow “culminate” in a “massacre”?
31. From 1854-56, Kansas was engulfed essential in a civil war between pro and
antislavery forces. From September 1913 to April 1914, Colorado was similarly
engulfed in violence that the New York Times referred to at the time as “the war in
Colorado.” Standard history books reference to the violence in Kansas as “Bleeding
Kansas.” Why do history books not apply a similar epithet to the violence in
Colorado?
32. If the 26 (or so) deaths at Ludlow on April 20, 1914 were called the “Ludlow
Massacre,” why not also refer to the deaths of 146 women in the Triangle fire of
1911 as the “Triangle Massacre”?