Sources for America’s History: Printed Page 505

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

  1. Question

    Compare Populists, progressives, and socialists by identifying similarities in the ways they diagnosed society’s problems and the reforms they championed. In what ways did their ideologies differ?

  2. Question

    What change in the form and function of government did reformers in this period advocate? How did their ideas of government’s proper role differ from earlier conceptions of government’s power and responsibilities?

  3. Question

    Assess populism by comparing its reforms (Document 20-1) with the views expressed by Terence Powderly and the Knights of Labor (Document 17-2). What common cause do you see between them? Why do you think both failed as reform movements?

  4. Question

    To what extent did questions of race and ethnicity help or hurt reform movements? Compare the works of Du Bois and Rayner in this chapter with those of Booker T. Washington (Document 18-3), Antanas Kaztauskis (Document 17-3), Marie Ganz (Document 19-3), and the account of the Negro parade (Document 19-4).

  5. Question

    Compare Du Bois’s approach to reform for African Americans to the proposal Booker T. Washington advanced in his Atlanta speech (Document 18-3). How might you explain their different emphases? What role did class and geography play in shaping their divergent ideas?