New York stood at the center of the momentous processes that recast American society in the nineteenth century. Once a modest seaport, the Line city early took the lead in developing new forms of commerce and mass production; by 1860 it was both the nation's premier port and its largest manufacturing city. The appearance of new social classes was both cause and result of industrial development and commercial expansion. Wealth from investments in trade and manufacturing ventures supported the emergence of an urban bourgeoisie; the expansion of capitalist labor arrangements brought into being a class of largely impoverished wage workers. The resulting divisions fostered, on each side, new and antagonistic political ideas and social practices.

We know most about the male participants in these conflicts, workingmen and employers. Politically, bourgeois men upheld their right to protect, improve upon, and increase the private property on which rested, they believed, their country's welfare. In return, many workingmen affirmed a belief in the superior abilities of those who worked with their hands—as opposed to the idle, acquisitive, parasitical owners of property—to direct American society in accordance with republican values of social equality, civil virtue, and yeomanry that they inherited from the Revolution.

Class transformation was related to, but not synonymous with, the thorough-going transformation of the gender system in the first half of the nineteenth century: that is, the changes in all those arrangements of work, sexuality, parental responsibilities, psychological life, assigned social traits, and internalized emotions through which the sexes defined themselves respectively as men and women. Women of the emerging bourgeoisie articulated new ideas about many of these aspects of their lives. Designating themselves moral guardians of their husbands and children, women became the standard-bearers of piety, decorum, and virtue in Northern society. They claimed the home as the sphere of society where they could most effectively exercise their power. In their consignment to the household as the sole domain of proper female activity, women suffered a constriction of their social engagements; at the same time, they gained power within their families that also vested them with greater moral authority in their own communities. While the cult of domesticity spoke to female interests and emerged from altered relations between men and women, it also contained within it conflicts of class. As urban ladies increased their contacts with the working poor through Protestant missions and charity work, they developed domestic ideology as part of a vision of a reformed city, purged of the supposed perfidies of working-class life. Domesticity quickly became an element of bourgeois self-consciousness. In confronting the working poor, (soy reformers created and refined their own sense of themselves as social and spiritual superiors capable of remolding the city in their own image. From the ideas and practices of domesticity they drew many of the materials for their ideal of a society that had put to rest the disturbing conflicts of class.

1. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with discussing

A. the authority possessed by middle-class women in New York both in public and in private
B. the transformation of New York into an industrial and commercial center of activity
C. social conflict in New York, in terms of class and gender, as a result of economic expansion
D. the social values of the middle class in New York, particularly the cult of domesticity
E. the attempt of the middle class in New York to reform the working class



2. The author states, "We know most about the male participants in these conflicts" primarily in order to

A. challenge past studies because they have largely ignored the female participants
B. preface a debate over the motivating factors for class conflict
C. propose possible reasons as to why only men's roles have been examined
D. emphasize the impact that class conflict had on industrial development
E. allude to a later discussion of the women who were active in such conflicts



3. According to the passage, middle-class men were similar to working-class men in that each group

A. perceived the other to be an obstruction to industrial and commercial expansion
B. placed a great deal of weight on private ownership and the entrepreneurial spirit
C. responded to the changing economy with both excitement and aversion
D. felt threatened by the activity of women who sought to lay claim to the home
E. considered itself responsible for the well-being and prosperity of the country



4. According to the passage, bourgeois women did which of the following by taking charge of the home?

A. Both enlarged the scope of their authority and circumscribed their power
B. Portrayed their challenge to male authority as an act necessary to preserve morality
C. Reconstructed the duties of parents as well as the role of children
D. Increased their missionary activity intended to assist the working class
E. Set out to reform the city, in particular the working class



5. Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

According to the passage

A. certain Americans felt that property ownership was in the best interest of the whole country
B. some men who engaged in manual labor believed that those in wealthier classes did not contribute to society
C. the Republican party, which was formed after the American Revolution, believed strongly in social equality



6. Select the sentence that gives a specific arena where the two major social changes discussed in the passage became integrated.





7. Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

Based on the facts about social change described in the passage, which of the following could be an accurate characterization of someone living in New York City in the nineteenth century?

A. A wealthy woman who believes in service to the poor as an important element in leading a truly virtuous life
B. A factory worker who is able to find friends who respect his belief in old-fashioned values
C. A woman, married to a successful investor, who is validated after questioning unethical choices her husband makes