APUSH Period 6: 1865-1898 Overview

Post-Civil War Expansion

• Economic Opportunities in the West: Mining, farming, cattle industry.
• Government Policies:
  • Homestead Act: 160 acres of land available cheaply.
  • Pacific Railroad Act: Route for the Transcontinental Railroad.
  • Role of Government: Removal of Native Americans, land grants, and subsidies to railroad companies.

Conservation Movement

• Growing concern over natural resources.
• Key Organizations and Individuals:
  • Department of the Interior (1849).
  • US Fish Commission (1871).
  • John Muir and the Sierra Club (1892).
• Conflict between conservationists and corporate interests.

Native American Policy

• Violent Conflicts:
  • Sand Creek Massacre, Battle of Little Big Horn, Battle of Wounded Knee.
• Assimilation Policies:
  • Dawes Severalty Act (1887): End tribal land ownership.
  • Native American schools for cultural assimilation.

Industrialization

• Large-scale production, technological innovations, improved communications.
• Industry Leaders:
  • Andrew Carnegie (Steel) and John D. Rockefeller (Oil).
  • Techniques: Horizontal and vertical integration, monopolies, trusts.
• Philosophies:
  • Social Darwinism and laissez-faire policies.

Regional Economic Differences

• West: Economic and population growth.
• North and Midwest: Industrialization.
• South (New South): Attempts at industrialization, predominance of agriculture, tenant farming, and sharecropping.

Labor Movement

• Workers' Organizations:
  • Knights of Labor (1869): Open to all workers.
  • American Federation of Labor (AFL, 1886): Focused on skilled workers, "bread and butter" issues.
• Strikes and Unions Challenges:
  • Homestead Strike (1892), Pullman Strike (1894).
  • Division among workers and hostility from corporations.

Farmers' Issues and Movements

• Challenges:
  • Falling crop prices, unfair railroad practices, high machinery costs, tight money supply.
• Organizations:
  • Grange Movement, Farmer's Alliances, Populist Party.
• Populist Platform:
  • Government ownership of railroads, free coinage of silver, income tax, political reforms.

Government and Politics

• Gilded Age: Mark Twain's term for hidden corruption.
• Government Regulation:
  • Interstate Commerce Act, Sherman Antitrust Act.

Migration

• Internal and External Migration:
  • Settlers moving west, urbanization, African-American migration (Great Migration).
  • Immigration from China and Southern/Eastern Europe.
• Nativism:
  • Chinese Exclusion Act, American Protective Association, literacy tests.

Urbanization Challenges and Responses

• Urban poverty, ethnic enclaves, tenement housing, child labor.
• Responses:
  • Gospel of Wealth, settlement house movement, Social Gospel movement.
• Reform Movements:
  • Women's Suffrage: National American Women Suffrage Association.
  • African American Rights: Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

Conclusion

• Period 6 highlights significant transformations in American society due to industrialization, urbanization, and westward expansion.