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US History Unit 6: Period 6: 1865–1898

After the Civil War, industrial capitalism, immigration and western expansion transformed the nation and created new conflicts.

Covers: Industrialization and big business, labor unions, immigration and urbanization, the Gilded Age, western settlement and Native resistance, Populism

Study guide

After the Civil War, the US became the world's leading industrial power. Railroads, including the transcontinental railroad (1869), created national markets. Steel, oil and other industries grew enormously; Andrew Carnegie used vertical integration in steel, and John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil used horizontal integration to build a monopoly. Business leaders were praised as self-made men or criticized as "robber barons." Social Darwinism justified inequality, while Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth urged philanthropy. The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) tried, weakly at first, to limit monopolies.

Workers faced long hours, low pay and dangerous conditions. Labor unions formed: the Knights of Labor welcomed most workers, while the American Federation of Labor organized skilled workers for higher wages. Major strikes, including the Great Railroad Strike (1877), the Haymarket Riot (1886), the Homestead Strike (1892) and the Pullman Strike (1894), were often crushed by courts and troops. "New immigrants" from southern and eastern Europe and from Asia filled factories and cities; nativists pushed back, as in the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). Cities grew rapidly, with tenements, political machines like Tammany Hall, and settlement houses like Jane Addams' Hull House.

In the West, the Homestead Act, railroads and mining drew settlers. Native nations lost land through wars, the near extinction of the buffalo, reservations, and the Dawes Act (1887), which broke up tribal land and pushed assimilation; the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) marked the end of armed resistance. Farmers squeezed by falling prices, debt and railroad rates organized the Grange and Farmers' Alliances, then the Populist Party, whose Omaha Platform demanded free silver, government ownership of railroads and a graduated income tax. Politics in this "Gilded Age" was close, corrupt and focused on tariffs and civil service reform, as in the Pendleton Act (1883).

After Reconstruction, Southern states passed Jim Crow segregation laws and used poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses to keep Black men from voting. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court upheld segregation under the doctrine of 'separate but equal.' Ida B. Wells campaigned against lynching. Black women's clubs, united in the National Association of Colored Women (1896) under Mary Church Terrell, promoted education and 'racial uplift.' In his Atlanta Compromise speech (1895), Booker T. Washington urged Black Southerners to accept segregation for now in exchange for economic progress.

Boosters like Henry Grady promoted a 'New South' of railroads, textile mills, and iron and steel. Even so, the region stayed mostly rural and poor, tied to sharecropping, tenant farming and crop-lien debt. Railroad abuses led to the Interstate Commerce Act (1887), which created the first federal regulatory agency. In 1896 the Populists joined the Democrats behind William Jennings Bryan's 'Cross of Gold' call for free silver, but William McKinley won with support from business and urban voters.

Henry George's Progress and Poverty, which proposed a single tax on land, and Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward attacked the gap between great wealth and widespread poverty. The Social Gospel movement urged churches to address urban poverty.

Key ideas

• Railroads created national markets and powered industrial growth.
• Business leaders used vertical and horizontal integration to dominate industries.
• Workers organized unions, but major strikes usually failed.
• New immigrants and nativist backlash reshaped cities.
• Western expansion devastated Native nations, and struggling farmers formed the Populist movement.

Formulas and rules

Common mistakes

• Confusing vertical integration (controlling every stage of production) with horizontal integration (buying out competitors).
• Thinking the Sherman Antitrust Act was effective right away; courts used it against unions too.

Words to know

Transcontinental railroad

The 1869 rail line linking the East and West coasts.

Vertical integration

Controlling every stage of production, as Carnegie did in steel.

Horizontal integration

Buying out competitors in the same industry, as Rockefeller did in oil.

Monopoly

One company controlling an entire industry.

Robber barons

A critical name for ruthless Gilded Age business leaders.

Social Darwinism

The idea that wealth and poverty reflected "survival of the fittest."

Gospel of Wealth

Carnegie's belief that the rich should use their fortunes for public good.

Sherman Antitrust Act

The 1890 law banning monopolies that restrain trade.

Knights of Labor

An inclusive union that welcomed most workers.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

A union of skilled workers focused on wages and hours.

Pullman Strike

The 1894 railroad strike broken by federal troops.

New immigrants

Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe arriving after 1880.

Chinese Exclusion Act

The 1882 law banning Chinese immigration.

Political machine

A city party organization that traded favors for votes, like Tammany Hall.

Settlement house

A community center helping immigrants, like Hull House.

Dawes Act

The 1887 law breaking up tribal land into individual plots.

Populist Party

The farmers' party of the 1890s that demanded free silver and reform.

Gilded Age

Mark Twain's term for the era's surface wealth hiding problems.

Sample practice questions

5 more questions like these, from level 1 to 5, are in the practice set.