The Age of Progress and Modernity Practice Test

A historian writing about the late nineteenth-century “Age of Progress” argues that Europeans increasingly equated modernization with measurable efficiency: rail timetables standardized time, electric lighting extended work and leisure, and mass-circulation newspapers created shared urban culture. The historian notes that these changes also intensified anxieties about crowding, pollution, and the loss of older local rhythms. Which development best supports the historian’s claim about standardized time as a feature of modernity?

In an overview of the Age of Progress, a scholar argues that modernization created new social questions: rapid urbanization strained housing, sanitation, and family life, while industrial accidents and unemployment highlighted the risks of wage dependence. The scholar concludes that these pressures helped drive early welfare measures and labor protections. Which policy most directly addresses the risks of wage dependence described by the scholar?