APUSH P6

1. Industrialization & Big Business

• Gilded Age — Term (by Mark Twain) describing late 1800s as era of wealth + corruption beneath surface prosperity.

• Second Industrial Revolution — Rapid industrial growth after Civil War — steel, oil, electricity, railroads.

• Transcontinental Railroad (1869) — Railroad connecting East and West coasts; built by Irish & Chinese laborers.

• Vertical Integration — Control of all production steps (ex: Carnegie Steel).

• Horizontal Integration — Buying out competitors to control market (ex: Rockefeller’s Standard Oil).

• Monopoly / Trust — One company dominates an entire industry (Rockefeller, Carnegie).

• Social Darwinism — Belief that business success = “survival of the fittest”; justified inequality.

• Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) — Law to break up monopolies and trusts; weakly enforced at first.

2. Labor & Unions

• Homestead Strike (1892) — Strike at Carnegie’s steel plant; broken by private security (Pinkertons).

• Pullman Strike (1894) — Railroad strike crushed by federal troops (disrupted mail service).

3. Urbanization & Immigration

• New Immigrants — Immigrants (1880–1920) from Southern/Eastern Europe (Italians, Jews, Poles); often poor & Catholic/Jewish.

• Ellis Island (1892) — Immigration processing center in NYC.

• Tenements — Overcrowded, poor urban apartment buildings.

• Political Machines — Party organizations that controlled cities by exchanging favors/votes (ex: Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed).

• Settlement Houses — Community centers to aid immigrants (ex: Hull House, founded by Jane Addams).

4. The West & Native Americans

• Homestead Act (1862) — Gave settlers 160 acres of free land if they farmed it for 5 years.

• Dawes Act (1887) — Broke up Native tribes, gave land to individuals; tried to force assimilation.

• Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) — Sioux, led by Sitting Bull, defeated U.S. Army (Custer’s Last Stand).

• Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) — U.S. Army killed 300 Sioux; ended Native resistance.

• Ghost Dance Movement — Native religious revival promising restoration of lands/life; led to Wounded Knee.

5. Farmers & Populism

• Grange Movement — Farmers’ group advocating for cooperative buying and regulation of railroads.

• Populist Party (People’s Party) — Political party advocating for farmers + working people:

  • Free silver (bimetallism)

  • Direct election of senators

  • Income tax

  • Railroad regulation

• Panic of 1893 — Economic depression caused by railroad overbuilding and bank failures.

• William Jennings Bryan — Populist/Democrat leader; famous for “Cross of Gold” speech (1896).

6. Government, Politics & Reform

• Laissez-faire — Government should stay out of business/economy.

• Interstate Commerce Act (1887) — Regulated railroads to prevent unfair rates; created ICC.

• Pendleton Act (1883) — Created merit-based civil service exams (ended spoils system).

• Munn v. Illinois (1877) — Supreme Court upheld state regulation of grain warehouses (pro-farmers).

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) — Legalized “separate but equal” segregation.

7. African Americans & Civil Rights

• Jim Crow Laws — State laws enforcing segregation in South.

• Ida B. Wells — Journalist who led anti-lynching campaign.

• Booker T. Washington — Advocated accommodation and vocational education for Black advancement (Tuskegee Institute).

• W.E.B. Du Bois — Advocated immediate civil rights and higher education for Black Americans (Niagara Movement).

Quick Themes for SAQs / DBQs:

• Big Business vs. Labor — rise of monopolies, labor strikes, weak regulation.

• Urbanization & Immigration — new immigrants, political machines, settlement houses.

• Westward expansion = displacement of Native Americans + frontier farming struggles.

• Populism — Farmers' reaction to railroads, banks, industrialization.

• Segregation solidified in South post-Reconstruction (Jim Crow).