America at the Turn of the Century adapted from the Library of Congress

By 1900 the American nation had established itself as a world power. The West was won. The frontier was no more. The continent was settled from coast to coast. Apache war chief Geronimo had surrendered in 1886. Defeat of the Sioux at the battle of Wounded Knee in 1891 had brought the Indian Wars to a close. By 1900 American Indians were on reservations and the buffalo were gone. Homesteading and the introduction of barbed wire in 1874 had brought an end to the open range. The McCormick reaper had made large-scale farming profitable. In 1900, the U. S. was by far the world's largest agricultural producer. The first transcontinental rail link had been completed in 1869. Three decades later, in 1900, the nation had 193,000 miles of track, with five railroad systems spanning the continent.
The world's first oil well had been drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. By 1900, major oil fields were being tapped in Kansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. The supply of American oil seemed limitless. John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust dominated the world's petroleum markets. It controlled more than 90 percent of the nation's refinery capacity.
At the turn of the century, the strength of a nation's industry was measured by the number of tons of steel it produced. In the 1880s Andrew Carnegie had constructed the world's largest steel mill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By 1900, the United States was the largest steel producer in the world, turning out 10,000,000 tons a year.
Henry Ford had built his first gasoline engine car in 1892 and the world's first auto race was held in Chicago in 1896. With the founding of the Ford Motor Company in 1903, the age of the automobile was underway.
By 1900, telephones were in wide use. Cities were being electrified. Moving pictures were a curiosity. Guglielmo Marconi was conducting experiments that would lead to the development of the radio, and the Wright brothers were at work on a heavier-than-air flying machine.
Cities were growing. New wealth and devastating fires produced a boom in urban construction. Architects Richardson, Hunt, McKim, Mead, and White flourished. Sullivan pioneered the skyscraper and his protégé, Frank Lloyd Wright, was beginning his career in Chicago.
This was a time of both confidence and ferment. In the cities and the states, political "Progressives" were coming to power, experimenting with reforms such as women's suffrage, direct election of United States senators, the initiative, recall, the Australian ballot, primary elections, and laws setting minimum wages, work standards, and regulated rates for common carriers and services. Followers of the Progressive movement believed in the perfectibility of man and his society.
Republican William McKinley of Ohio was elected president in 1896 and re-elected in 1900. He had been preceded by Democrat Grover Cleveland. McKinley looked every inch a president. Young reporter William Allen White said of him after an interview: "He was the statue in the park speaking." A dignified, reserved man, McKinley was the last of the old-style, low-key presidents. McKinley was the last of five Civil War veterans to serve in the White House, signaling the end of the post-war era. He was also the fifth of the six Ohio presidents to serve during the fifty-year period 1868-1908. McKinley is generally considered to have been a good but weak man. He would be followed—and overshadowed—by Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt, who was vice-president when McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Later, Roosevelt would be elected president in his own right.
The ascendancy of Ohio and the Midwest in national politics demonstrated that the United States was no longer a nation oriented to the Atlantic seaboard. It stretched, as the anthem, America the Beautiful, put it, "from sea to shining sea."
1
Select all the correct answers.
Read the sentence from "America at the Turn of the Century."

At the turn of the century, the strength of a nation's industry was measured by the number of tons of steel it produced.

Which three sentences correctly paraphrase the sentence?

A nation's industry was considered powerful only if it managed to produce a large quantity of steel (Library of Congress).
A nation's industry was considered powerful by the number of tons of steel it produced (Library of Congress).
At the turn of the century, the number of tons of steel helped determine the strength of a nation (Library of Congress).
The quantity of steel produced helped determine the strength of a national industry (Library of Congress).
In the late 19th century, it was the amount of steel produced that showed how powerful a nation's industry was (Library of Congress).
Reset Submit