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Quiz about Oh no Were Running Out
Quiz about Oh no Were Running Out

Oh, no! We're Running Out! Trivia Quiz


Americans faced a variety of shortages in the nineteenth century, some brief, some long-term. Don't panic, but hoard a little just in case, while in this quiz we explore some things that were running out.

A multiple-choice quiz by littlepup. Estimated time: 7 mins.
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  9. USA in the 19th.Century

Author
littlepup
Time
7 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
370,603
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
464
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. Every well-dressed middle-class American man needed a top hat. Early in the nineteenth century, most top hats--and other styles too--were made of felt, formed from the fur of this abundant native animal. But by the 1830s, the over-trapped animal was no longer abundant, and hatters scrambled to find alternatives, generally settling on silk. What was this animal, almost driven to extinction by fashion? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. It was used for heating and cooking, fueling railroads and steamboats, as well as building homes, fences, bridges, railroad tracks and even roads. Iron furnaces needed it to smelt ore, and blacksmiths used it for their forges. So when Americans looked out over the new prairies and deserts of the west and saw there was far less of it on the land they would be settling, compared to the land already settled, they realized a shortage was coming, if they couldn't find alternatives. What was this all-purpose material? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. During the Civil War, the Federal blockade of southern ports created many wartime shortages of both luxuries, like silk, and necessities, like medicines. Southern military doctors advertised in the newspapers to purchase local herbs, as a substitute for foreign medicines. Dogwood bark was one of the things they wanted, to replace South American cinchona bark. What was it primarily used to treat? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. This bird once outnumbered any other species of bird in North America, and was easy to hunt and good to eat. Though some people in the mid nineteenth century noticed its numbers and range were declining, others argued that it was as prolific and abundant as ever. By the time the two sides agreed there was a problem, the highly social bird no longer had flocks big enough to encourage breeding, and it became extinct in the twentieth century as the last few specimens died without offspring. What was this bird? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. At the start of the Civil War, people began hoarding coins because the metal in them became worth more than the face value. Stores scrambled for ways to give change by offering their own private tokens, while people turned to paper stamps for small payments, but stamps in a pocket or purse became a sticky mess when carried in humid weather. In 1862, what did the U.S. Treasury offer as a solution for the coin hoarding problem? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. In 1872, horses were suddenly in drastically short supply across the U.S. Photos and drawings show crowds of men in harness, hitched to city horse cars, trying to substitute for the missing animals. Fire engines couldn't get to fires without horses to pull them, and even steam trains suffered, as there were no horses to transport coal to the tracks.

Within months the crisis passed, but economic problems lingered longer. Why were horses suddenly unavailable?
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. In 1861, both sides had no problem finding military volunteers for the Civil War. But as the war ground on, enthusiasm faded and volunteers were in short supply. Both sides used a carrot-and-stick approach to fill the ranks, drafting reluctant soldiers but also rewarding volunteers with bounties. What were bounties? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. The price of this commodity was soaring in the deep south in the 1850s. Some politicians suggested a flood of cheap imports from Africa would lower the price, but importation from that continent had been illegal for decades. Other Southern politicians, whose constituents produced the commodity, liked the high prices, and they opposed any loosening of the restrictions on importation. Others didn't want the laws changed on general principle. In the end, no importation was allowed and prices continued to rise until the Civil War.

What was this commodity that the Deep South wanted a cheaper, more abundant supply of?
Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. In the 1850s, whales became scarcer as they were over-hunted for their valuable products: oil and spermaceti for light and lubrication, as well as whalebone that stiffened corsets. People already knew that petroleum from the ground could be used to substitute for increasingly expensive whale oil, though refining out the bad odor was an ongoing problem. But not much was available. Just as whales became scarcer in the late 1850s, petroleum suddenly became more abundant. What made it more available? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. After being farmed for decades, sometimes centuries, the once-fertile soil of the East Coast was running out of nutrients. Some farmers gave up and moved westward to fresh land, but others recognized that fertility could be restored by adding lime, manure, gypsum, marl or other substances. One of the best substances for increasing crop yields was guano from islands off the coast of Peru. The American Guano Company, formed in 1855, and its competitors harvested and shipped thousands of tons to the US. What was guano? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Every well-dressed middle-class American man needed a top hat. Early in the nineteenth century, most top hats--and other styles too--were made of felt, formed from the fur of this abundant native animal. But by the 1830s, the over-trapped animal was no longer abundant, and hatters scrambled to find alternatives, generally settling on silk. What was this animal, almost driven to extinction by fashion?

Answer: Beaver

European beaver populations had already suffered a massive decline for the same reason, so American beavers had to supply two continents with fur for head wear. Good conservation practices have since allowed the beaver population to rebound, and the busy creatures are now widespread again across the U.S.
2. It was used for heating and cooking, fueling railroads and steamboats, as well as building homes, fences, bridges, railroad tracks and even roads. Iron furnaces needed it to smelt ore, and blacksmiths used it for their forges. So when Americans looked out over the new prairies and deserts of the west and saw there was far less of it on the land they would be settling, compared to the land already settled, they realized a shortage was coming, if they couldn't find alternatives. What was this all-purpose material?

Answer: Wood

Thanks to forest conservation efforts and substitutes for wood, there are more acres of woodland in the US now than in 1900, though the thousands of acres of giant virgin-forest trees are long gone.

People discovered many ways to save wood. Coal replaced wood or wood-based charcoal for most steam engines and iron and steel production. Bridges became steel. Plank roads were abandoned for gravel or asphalt, and barbed wire replaced miles of wooden fences. Gas took over some heating and lighting, while electricity handled the rest. More efficient building techniques meant that even wooden houses and barns used less material. Besides the age-old option of brick, the biggest buildings became concrete and steel. Where wood was the best answer, such as railroad ties, it was treated to make it last as long as possible.
3. During the Civil War, the Federal blockade of southern ports created many wartime shortages of both luxuries, like silk, and necessities, like medicines. Southern military doctors advertised in the newspapers to purchase local herbs, as a substitute for foreign medicines. Dogwood bark was one of the things they wanted, to replace South American cinchona bark. What was it primarily used to treat?

Answer: Fevers, especially malaria

Though doctors did not know that mosquitoes spread malaria, they knew it was common in the low lying land where soldiers often camped, and quinine made from cinchona bark was an effective treatment--or had been, until the blockade cut off supplies. Francis Peyre Porcher of South Carolina researched and wrote a massive collection of information on "Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests", suggesting not only indigenous substitutes for medicines, but for dyes, spices, oils and other articles also.
4. This bird once outnumbered any other species of bird in North America, and was easy to hunt and good to eat. Though some people in the mid nineteenth century noticed its numbers and range were declining, others argued that it was as prolific and abundant as ever. By the time the two sides agreed there was a problem, the highly social bird no longer had flocks big enough to encourage breeding, and it became extinct in the twentieth century as the last few specimens died without offspring. What was this bird?

Answer: Passenger pigeon

Huge flocks of passenger pigeons darkened the skies as they took hours to pass overhead, and they emptied forests or fields of nuts and grains wherever they decided to settle. They resembled mourning doves in appearance, but were far more gregarious in habit.

Individual birds were relatively tame and could even be knocked down with clubs, because their survival strategy was in their numbers. But even they could not out-reproduce relentless hunters. The last known member of the species, named Martha, died in 1914 in the Cincinnati, Ohio zoo.
5. At the start of the Civil War, people began hoarding coins because the metal in them became worth more than the face value. Stores scrambled for ways to give change by offering their own private tokens, while people turned to paper stamps for small payments, but stamps in a pocket or purse became a sticky mess when carried in humid weather. In 1862, what did the U.S. Treasury offer as a solution for the coin hoarding problem?

Answer: Paper postal currency without sticky backs

Postage currency, or postal currency, looked similar to an oversize stamp but was meant for spending rather than sticking to a letter, so it had no gum on the back. The little bills, about two and a half inches across, came in five, ten, twenty-five and fifty cent denominations, and competed with similar fractional notes that had been previously issued by state governments or private companies. Fractional paper currency continued to be issued by the U.S. Treasury until 1876.
6. In 1872, horses were suddenly in drastically short supply across the U.S. Photos and drawings show crowds of men in harness, hitched to city horse cars, trying to substitute for the missing animals. Fire engines couldn't get to fires without horses to pull them, and even steam trains suffered, as there were no horses to transport coal to the tracks. Within months the crisis passed, but economic problems lingered longer. Why were horses suddenly unavailable?

Answer: Contagious equine influenza sickened or killed thousands of horses

It was called an epizootic rather than an epidemic because it spread among animals rather than people, but the devastating influenza swept down from Canada and across the U.S. from east to west. Almost all horses in its path became ill, though most eventually recovered after a period of rest. Fortunately, a vaccine can prevent equine influenza today.
7. In 1861, both sides had no problem finding military volunteers for the Civil War. But as the war ground on, enthusiasm faded and volunteers were in short supply. Both sides used a carrot-and-stick approach to fill the ranks, drafting reluctant soldiers but also rewarding volunteers with bounties. What were bounties?

Answer: Extra cash payments

Bounties were offered on the national, state and sometimes local level, and could be as high as $100 or more, many months' pay for a private. Unfortunately, bounties encouraged bounty jumpers, who enlisted just for the cash, deserted, then repeated under an assumed name. The government soon learned to pay bounties in installments.
8. The price of this commodity was soaring in the deep south in the 1850s. Some politicians suggested a flood of cheap imports from Africa would lower the price, but importation from that continent had been illegal for decades. Other Southern politicians, whose constituents produced the commodity, liked the high prices, and they opposed any loosening of the restrictions on importation. Others didn't want the laws changed on general principle. In the end, no importation was allowed and prices continued to rise until the Civil War. What was this commodity that the Deep South wanted a cheaper, more abundant supply of?

Answer: Slaves

The evil of the African slave trade, which had been outlawed in the U.S. in 1808, might have returned if some Deep South plantation owners had had their way. The political opposition created strange bedfellows, but managed to block any changes. Slave owners in the Upper South, who sold their excess slaves downriver and didn't want cheap African competition, joined with those who were against all forms of slavery but who certainly didn't want to see more Africans kidnapped into bondage. Even the Confederate constitution banned the African trade, to reward the upper south states with high prices.
9. In the 1850s, whales became scarcer as they were over-hunted for their valuable products: oil and spermaceti for light and lubrication, as well as whalebone that stiffened corsets. People already knew that petroleum from the ground could be used to substitute for increasingly expensive whale oil, though refining out the bad odor was an ongoing problem. But not much was available. Just as whales became scarcer in the late 1850s, petroleum suddenly became more abundant. What made it more available?

Answer: People discovered they could drill for it, rather than collect only what seeped naturally from the ground

People already knew how to drill for water and salt brine, and had even noticed a flammable sludge coming out of their salt brine wells. In hopes of finding oil as a main product, the newly formed Seneca Oil Company hired Edwin Drake to drill on the property of the company's owner, George H. Bissell, in Pennsylvania. Bissell had previously been selling oil that seeped from the ground, but he hoped to extract more.

The inexperienced Drake hired William Smith and his sons to do the actual drilling.

The group struck oil on August 27, 1859, and soon an oil rush was on among the surrounding landowners.
10. After being farmed for decades, sometimes centuries, the once-fertile soil of the East Coast was running out of nutrients. Some farmers gave up and moved westward to fresh land, but others recognized that fertility could be restored by adding lime, manure, gypsum, marl or other substances. One of the best substances for increasing crop yields was guano from islands off the coast of Peru. The American Guano Company, formed in 1855, and its competitors harvested and shipped thousands of tons to the US. What was guano?

Answer: Sea-bird excrement

Guano from the Peruvian islands was especially valuable because the dry climate preserved the rich nutrients it contained. Bat guano from damp caves and other bird deposits lost much of their nitrogen by comparison. With the Guano Islands Act of 1856, Congress allowed individuals to claim uninhabited islands as US territory long enough to harvest guano, without obligating the US to retain the territory after the guano was gone.
Source: Author littlepup

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