Passage Discussion

[BarryM800]

I've difficulty comprehending the sentence starting on line 29 - "their distrust was largely a reaction against the prevailing attitude in the 1830s that the railroad was an unqualified improvement." What does "that the railroad was an unqualified improvement" refer to, "distrust," "reaction," or "prevailing attitude"? It sounds to me "that the railroad was an unqualified improvement" is a distrust itself, but it's difficult for me to analyze the structure of this sentence grammatically. Thanks!

[BarryM800]

Upon further review, I'm gonna answer my own question. Guess I was confused by the word "unqualified." I previously only thought of the word's general meaning as "not qualified." But "unqualified" actually has a second, if not an opposite, meaning: without qualification/reservation, total. So the clause "that the railroad was an unqualified improvement" is indeed modifying the closest noun just preceding it, i.e., "prevailing attitude," and that prevailing attitude is a positive one.

[SamM102]

Exactly! Well done!