The Progressive Era in the United States witnessed the rise of numerous Black women's clubs, local organizations that advocated for...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• The Progressive Era in the United States
  • witnessed the rise of numerous Black women's clubs,
    • local organizations that advocated for racial and gender equality.
• Among the clubs' leaders
  • [?] Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin,
    • founder of the Women's Era Club of Boston.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start from the beginning:

The first sentence tells us:

• 'The Progressive Era in the United States witnessed the rise of numerous Black women's clubs'
  • During this historical period, many Black women's clubs were formed
  • Notice the past tense verb "witnessed" - we're talking about history
• 'local organizations that advocated for racial and gender equality'
  • This describes what these clubs were - organizations fighting for equal rights

Now we move to the second sentence, which starts with:

• 'Among the clubs' leaders...'

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• was (singular, past)
• were (plural, past)
• are (plural, present)
• have been (plural, present perfect)

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues:

• 'Among the clubs' leaders ______ Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, founder of the Women's Era Club of Boston.'

Now let's understand what this structure is telling us:

• The sentence is naming one person: Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin
  • She's being identified as one of the leaders
  • 'founder of the Women's Era Club of Boston' gives us more information about her
• 'Among the clubs' leaders' is a phrase that tells us WHERE to locate Josephine
  • It means "if you look at the group of leaders, she was one of them"
  • The word "leaders" here is part of this descriptive phrase, not the main subject

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The sentence has flipped word order - normally we'd say:
  • "Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was among the clubs' leaders"
• But it's been inverted to:
  • "Among the clubs' leaders [was] Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin"
• The true subject is Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin - one person, so we need a singular verb
• For tense, we're discussing the Progressive Era (history), and the first sentence used past tense "witnessed"
  • So we need past tense here too

So we need was - singular to match "Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin" (one person), and past tense to match the historical context.

The correct answer is A.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Subject-Verb Agreement in Inverted Sentences

Sometimes sentences flip the normal word order, placing the subject after the verb instead of before it (called inverted sentence structure in grammar terms). This often happens when a sentence begins with a prepositional phrase. To find the right verb:

Step 1: Identify the true subject

• Normal order: "Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was among the clubs' leaders"
  • Subject: Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (singular)
  • Verb: was
• Inverted order: "Among the clubs' leaders was Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin"
  • The prepositional phrase "Among the clubs' leaders" comes first
  • Subject is still: Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (singular)
  • Verb must still agree: was

Step 2: Don't be distracted by prepositional phrases

• "Among the clubs' leaders" contains the plural word "leaders"
• But "leaders" is the object of the preposition "among" - it's not the subject
• The verb must agree with the actual subject (Josephine), not with words in prepositional phrases

In our question:

• Subject = Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (one person = singular)
• Context = Progressive Era (past)
• Correct verb = was (singular, past)