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Credit Sprint's Guide to U.S. History, Period 6: The Gilded Age, 1865 to 1898

AP® weight 10–17%CLEP® Exam II

Industrial capitalism transformed the nation. Railroads, steel and oil created huge fortunes and a new working class, immigrants crowded into cities, farmers organized protests, and politics debated how government should respond.

The nine periods of U.S. history11491–160721607–175431754–180041800–184851844–187761865–189871890–194581945–198091980–nowAP® periods run in overlapping blocks of years

What you need to know

  • Railroads built a national market. The transcontinental railroad (1869) linked East and West. Rail corporations used land grants and sometimes corruption such as Crédit Mobilier.
  • Industrialists such as Carnegie (steel), Rockefeller (oil) and Morgan (finance) used vertical and horizontal integration and trusts. Social Darwinism and the Gospel of Wealth justified inequality; critics called them robber barons.
  • Workers organized in unions such as the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Strikes such as Haymarket (1886), Homestead (1892) and Pullman (1894) were often met with force.
  • The "new immigration" from southern and eastern Europe and Asia filled factories. Nativists pushed for restriction: the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). Cities grew with tenements, political machines and new skyscrapers.
  • The West was settled through the Homestead Act, railroads and mining. Native Americans lost land through wars, the Dawes Act (1887) and boarding schools. Wounded Knee (1890) ended major armed resistance.
  • Farmers faced falling prices and debt. The Grange and the Populist Party demanded free silver, regulation of railroads and a graduated income tax. William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech marked the 1896 election, which William McKinley won.
  • Reconstruction's end brought Jim Crow laws and disfranchisement. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld "separate but equal." Booker T. Washington urged economic progress; W.E.B. Du Bois demanded full rights.
  • Government mostly favored business, but the Interstate Commerce Act (1887) and the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) began regulation. The Pendleton Act (1883) started civil service reform.

Exam traps

Watch forThe Gilded Age is not only about big business. Exam questions also test labor, immigration, farmers and Jim Crow.
Watch forThe Populists wanted inflationary free silver and regulation. They were not against government, but wanted it to act for farmers.
Watch forPlessy upheld segregation. Brown v. Board (1954) later overturned it in schools.

Key terms

  • Transcontinental railroad: The 1869 rail line that linked the East and West coasts.
  • Vertical integration: Controlling every step of production, from raw materials to sale (as Carnegie did).
  • Horizontal integration: Buying out competitors to control one stage of an industry (as Rockefeller did).
  • Trust: A combination of companies run together to limit competition.
  • Social Darwinism: A belief that the rich succeeded because they were the fittest.
  • Gospel of Wealth: Carnegie's idea that the rich should use their wealth to benefit society.
  • Robber barons: A critical name for business leaders who used harsh methods to build fortunes.
  • Knights of Labor: A national union of the 1880s that welcomed skilled and unskilled workers.
  • American Federation of Labor: A union of skilled craft workers led by Samuel Gompers, focused on wages and hours.
  • Haymarket Affair (1886): A Chicago labor rally that ended in a bombing and hurt the Knights of Labor.
  • Homestead Strike (1892): A violent strike at Carnegie's steel plant, broken with the help of armed guards.
  • Pullman Strike (1894): A railroad strike that ended when the federal government used troops and an injunction.
  • New immigration: Arrivals after 1880 from southern and eastern Europe, many of them Catholic or Jewish.
  • Chinese Exclusion Act (1882): The first law to ban immigration based on nationality.
  • Political machine: A city organization that traded jobs and services for votes, such as Tammany Hall.
  • Tenement: A crowded city apartment building for the poor.

Practice questions

Five of the 52 Period 6 questions in Credit Sprint. Every choice is explained in the app.

1. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 most directly
  1. isolated western farmers from eastern markets
  2. ended the need for canals and rivers in every region
  3. linked national markets and sped up settlement of the West
  4. reduced the role of the federal government in business
Show answer

linked national markets and sped up settlement of the West. Rail lines cut shipping times, tied Plains farms and mines to eastern factories and cities, and encouraged large-scale migration.

2. The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) was weakened in its early years because
  1. courts interpreted it narrowly
  2. President Cleveland refused to sign the bill
  3. businesses voluntarily broke themselves into small firms
  4. Congress repealed the law within a year of passing it
Show answer

courts interpreted it narrowly. The Supreme Court's decision in United States v. E.C. Knight (1895) limited its reach, and the law was applied to strikes such as the Pullman boycott.

3. The Wounded Knee massacre (1890) is often seen as the end of
  1. the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War
  2. the American colonial era in North America
  3. the Mexican-American War along the southern border
  4. large-scale armed Native resistance on the Great Plains
Show answer

large-scale armed Native resistance on the Great Plains. Soldiers killed hundreds of Lakota, many of them women and children, after the buffalo were gone and reservations had weakened Native nations.

4. Jacob Riis's photographs in How the Other Half Lives (1890) helped reform efforts by
  1. exposing crowded, unsafe tenement conditions in New York City
  2. celebrating the achievements of industrial capitalists
  3. describing homestead life on the Great Plains
  4. arguing that immigration should end immediately
Show answer

exposing crowded, unsafe tenement conditions in New York City. The images and writing shocked middle-class readers and fueled housing reform, helping inspire Progressive activists.

5. Social Darwinism was used by some Gilded Age thinkers to argue that
  1. workers should be paid according to need and not performance
  2. government should break up large corporations immediately
  3. the rich had succeeded because of natural fitness
  4. all people deserve equal wealth by nature
Show answer

the rich had succeeded because of natural fitness. Writers such as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner applied survival of the fittest to society, which helped justify laissez-faire policy.