Period 6 (1865-1898)

🏙 The Gilded Age (1870s–1900)

A period of rapid industrialization, economic growth, and widespread political corruption. Named sarcastically by Mark Twain—it looked "gold" on the outside but was corrupt underneath.

Key Terms & Explanations:

• Industrialization: Growth of factories, mass production, and mechanized labor.
  
  

• Robber Barons: Wealthy industrialists like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt, criticized for exploitative practices.
  
  

• Vertical Integration (Carnegie): Controlling every step in production—from raw materials to sale.
  
  

• Horizontal Integration (Rockefeller): Buying out competitors to monopolize an industry.
  
  

• Trusts: Legal arrangements that allowed companies to control entire industries.
  
  

• Social Darwinism: The belief that economic success was a result of "survival of the fittest"—used to justify inequality.
  
  

• Gospel of Wealth: Carnegie's idea that the rich had a duty to use their wealth for social good.
  
  

🏛 Gilded Age Politics

Characterized by laissez-faire government, corporate influence, and machine politics.

Key Terms & Explanations:

• Laissez-faire: Government hands-off approach to the economy—favored by big business.
  
  

• Political Machines: Organizations that traded favors (like jobs or housing) for votes.
  
  

• Boss Tweed: Leader of Tammany Hall in NYC—used graft and patronage to stay in power.
  
  

• Thomas Nast: Political cartoonist who exposed Tweed’s corruption.
  
  

• Spoils System: Giving government jobs to political supporters—reformed by the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883) after President Garfield’s assassination.
  
  

• Sherman Antitrust Act (1890): First federal law attempting to limit monopolies, though weakly enforced at first.
  
  

👷 Labor Movements & Strikes

Workers responded to poor conditions with unionization and protests, though often with limited success.

Key Terms & Explanations:

• Knights of Labor: Inclusive union led by Terence Powderly; declined after the Haymarket Riot (1886) turned public opinion against labor.
  
  

• American Federation of Labor (AFL): Led by Samuel Gompers, focused on practical issues like wages and hours for skilled workers.
  
  

• Great Railroad Strike (1877), Homestead Strike (1892), Pullman Strike (1894): Major strikes crushed by federal troops—demonstrated government support for business.
  
  

• Bread and butter issues: Basic demands—higher pay, better hours, safer conditions.
  
  

🛠 Urbanization & Reform Movements

Cities grew rapidly—often overcrowded and unsanitary. Reformers tried to address urban issues.

Key Terms & Explanations:

• Social Gospel Movement: Christian-based push to improve social conditions (poverty, slums).
  
  

• Jane Addams: Opened Hull House in Chicago to help immigrants and the poor.
  
  

• Settlement Houses: Community centers providing education, health care, and childcare.
  
  

• Jacob Riis: His book How the Other Half Lives exposed tenement living conditions.
  
  

• New Technologies: Electricity, elevators, and communication tools like the telephone created new jobs and middle-class growth.
  
  

• Streetcar Suburbs: Enabled wealthier urban dwellers to move outside city centers.
  
  

🌎 Immigration & Internal Migration

Massive movement of people into and within the U.S. during this period.

Key Terms & Explanations:

• Old Immigrants: Mostly from Northern/Western Europe (e.g., Ireland, Germany).
  
  

• New Immigrants: From Southern/Eastern Europe (e.g., Italy, Poland, Russia)—often Catholic or Jewish, faced more discrimination.
  
  

• Ellis Island: Main entry point for European immigrants in NYC.
  
  

• Chinese Exclusion Act (1882): First major U.S. law to ban immigration by race/nationality.
  
  

• Great Migration (early phase): African Americans moved from the rural South to Northern cities to escape Jim Crow and seek opportunity.
  
  

🌾 The New South

Effort to modernize the Southern economy after the Civil War, though racial oppression deepened.

Key Terms & Explanations:

• Henry Grady: Promoted the idea of a “New South” with industrial growth.
  
  

• Jim Crow Laws: State and local laws enforcing racial segregation.
  
  

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Supreme Court upheld “separate but equal” facilities.
  
  

• Booker T. Washington: Urged African Americans to gain economic self-sufficiency; founded Tuskegee Institute.
  
  

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

🚂 Westward Expansion & Native American Policy

The federal government promoted settlement, often at the expense of Native peoples.

Key Terms & Explanations:

• Homestead Act (1862): Offered free land to settlers willing to farm it for 5 years.
  
  

• Transcontinental Railroad (completed 1869): Linked East and West, fueled migration and commerce.
  
  

• Sand Creek Massacre (1864) and Wounded Knee (1890): Examples of U.S. military violence against Native Americans.
  
  

• A Century of Dishonor (1881): Book by Helen Hunt Jackson exposing U.S. mistreatment of Native Americans.
  
  

• Dawes Act (1887): Divided tribal lands into private plots to encourage assimilation; undermined tribal sovereignty.
  
  

• Carlisle Indian School: Boarding school to "civilize" Native children—taught English and Christianity.
  
  

🌽 Populism

A political movement by farmers who were struggling economically and demanded reform.

Key Terms & Explanations:

• The Grange / Farmers’ Alliances: Organized to fight high railroad rates and falling crop prices.
  
  

• Populist Party: Called for bimetallism (using silver and gold to back currency), direct election of senators, income tax, and railroad regulation.
  
  

• Omaha Platform (1892): The Populist Party's key policy list.
  
  

• William Jennings Bryan: Populist-supported Democratic candidate in 1896; gave “Cross of Gold” speech favoring silver.
  
  

• Election of 1896: Bryan lost to William McKinley, marking the decline of Populism but the rise of progressive ideas.