In mid-February 1917 a women’s movement independent of political affiliation erupted in New York City, the stronghold of the Socialist Party in the United States. Protesting against the high cost of living, thousands of women refused to buy chickens, fish, and vegetables. The boycott shut down much of the City’s foodstuffs marketing for two weeks, riveting public attention on the issue of food prices, which had increased partly as a result of increased exports of food to Europe that had been occurring since the outbreak of the First World War.

By early 1917 the Socialist party had established itself as a major political presence in New York City. New York Socialists, whose customary spheres of struggle were electoral work and trade union organizing, seized the opportunity and quickly organized an extensive series of cost-of-living protests designed to direct the women’s movement toward Socialist goals. Underneath the Socialists’ brief commitment to cost-of-living organizing lay a basic indifference to the issue itself. While some Socialists did view price protests as a direct step toward socialism, most Socialists ultimately sought to divert the cost-of-living movement into alternative channels of protest. Union organizing, they argued, was the best method through which to combat the high cost of living. For others, cost-of-living or organizing was valuable insofar as it led women into the struggle for suffrage, and similarly, the suffrage struggle was valuable insofar as it moved United States society one step closer to socialism.

Although New York’s Socialists saw the cost-of-living issue as, at best, secondary or tertiary to the real task at hand, the boycotters, by sharp contrast, joined the price protest movement out of an urgent and deeply felt commitment to the cost-of-living issue. A shared experience of swiftly declining living standards caused by rising food prices drove these women to protest. Consumer organizing spoke directly to their daily lives and concerns; they saw cheaper food as a valuable end in itself. Food price protests were these women’s way of organizing at their own workplace, as workers whose occupation was shopping and preparing food for their families.

1. The author suggests which of the following about New York Socialists' commitment to the cost-of-living movement?

(A) It lasted for a relatively short period of time
(B) It was stronger than their commitment to the suffrage struggle.
(C) It predated the cost-of-living protest that erupted in 1917.
(D) It coincided with their attempts to bring more women into union organizing.
(E) It explained the popularity of the Socialist party in NYC.


2. It can be inferred from the passage that the goal of the boycotting women was the

(A) achievement of an immediate economic outcome
(B) development of a more socialistic society
(C) concentration of a widespread consumer protest on the more narrow issue of food prices.
(D) development of one among a number of different approaches that the women wished to employ in combating the high cost of price.
(E) attraction of more public interest to issues that the women and the socialist considered important.


3. Which of the following best states the function of the passage as a whole?

(A) To contrast the views held by the Socialist party and the boycotting women in the cost-of-living issue.
(B) To analyze the assumption underlying opposing viewpoints with the NY socialist party of 1917
(C) To provide a historical perspective on different approaches to the resolution of cost-of-living issue.
(D) To chronicle the sequence of events that lead to the NY socialist party's emergency as a political power.
(E) To analyze the motivations behind the socialist party's involvement in the women's suffrage movement.


4. According to the passage, most New York Socialists believed which of the following about the cost-of-living movement?

(A) It was primarily a way to interest women in joining the Socialist Party.
(B) It was an expedient that was useful only insofar as it furthered other goals.
(C) It would indirectly result in an increase in the number of women who belonged to labor unions.
(D) It required a long-term commitment but inevitably represented a direct step toward socialism.
(E) It served as an effective complement to union organizing.