AP U.S. History
APUSH 4.9: Development of an American Culture
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16 questions on Topic 4.9: Romanticism, Transcendentalism (Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller), the Hudson River School, early American writers, and regional and popular culture. Includes source questions.
16 questions across 4 sections. After every answer you’ll see why each choice is right or wrong, not just the one you picked.
Sample questions
Open a question to see the answer choices and the correct answer.
Which statement best describes American culture between 1800 and 1848?
- A. Americans mixed European styles with themes of their own landscape, democracy and history ✓
- B. American artists mostly copied classical Greek and Roman subjects with no American content
- C. Americans rejected every European influence and built an entirely new set of art forms
- D. Culture was controlled by the federal government through official arts programs
Correct answer: A. The CED stresses a blend: writers and painters still drew on European Romanticism, but they turned it toward American subjects like the frontier, nature and self-government.
Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) mainly reflected
- A. an effort to make Spanish the official language of the new western territories after the Louisiana Purchase
- B. Southern demands for textbooks that defended slavery
- C. a federal law requiring every school to teach British spelling
- D. a push to give the new nation its own standard language, separate from Britain's ✓
Correct answer: D. Webster used American spellings (color, center) and American words to build a distinct national identity in language.
Romanticism, as it shaped American writers and artists, stressed
- A. strict logic, scientific measurement and fixed social rules handed down by tradition
- B. loyalty to the monarchy and the Church of England
- C. copying ancient texts exactly without personal expression
- D. emotion, intuition, nature and the individual over pure reason ✓
Correct answer: D. Romantics reacted against Enlightenment rationalism, valuing feeling, the sublime in nature and individual experience.
Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau believed that
- A. truth could be found through intuition and nature, not just churches ✓
- B. cities and factories were the best places for spiritual growth
- C. people should obey church leaders and the government without question in moral matters
- D. only formal scientific study could reveal truth about the world
Correct answer: A. Transcendentalism held that each person could reach spiritual truth directly, by looking inward and to nature, and it prized self-reliance.
Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience" (1849) grew out of his refusal to pay a poll tax because
- A. he wanted Massachusetts to secede and join Canada
- B. he opposed tax-supported public schools and wanted Massachusetts to shut them down
- C. he believed taxes should only be paid in gold coin
- D. he would not fund a government that allowed slavery and war on Mexico ✓
Correct answer: D. Thoreau spent a night in jail in 1846 rather than fund policies he thought immoral, arguing conscience outranks law.