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Overview of APUSH Period 6 (1865-1898)

May 8, 2025

APUSH Period 6: 1865 to 1898

Post-Civil War Western Expansion

  • Economic opportunities in the West:
    • Mining, farming, and cattle industry.
    • Government policies: Homestead Act (160 acres of land), Pacific Railroad Act (Transcontinental Railroad).
  • Government's role:
    • Facilitating migration West.
    • Removing Native Americans, forcing them onto reservations.
    • Land grants and subsidies to railroad companies.

Conservation vs. Corporate Interests

  • Conservation Movement:
    • Department of the Interior (1849): Manages and conserves federal land and resources.
    • US Fish Commission (1871): Preserves fisheries.
    • John Muir and the Sierra Club (1892): Advocates for conservation.
  • Contrast with Native American policies:
    • Violent conflicts: Sand Creek Massacre, Battle of Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee.
    • Assimilation policies: Dawes Severalty Act (1887), Native American schools.

Industrialization

  • Large-scale production, technological advancements.
  • Key figures:
    • Carnegie (Steel) and Rockefeller (Oil) using horizontal and vertical integration.
  • Business strategies:
    • Establishment of monopolies, trusts, and pools.
    • Social Darwinism and laissez-faire policies.
  • Regional differences:
    • West: Economic and population growth.
    • North/Midwest: Industrializing.
    • South: Attempted industrialization, largely agricultural.

Labor Movement

  • Emergence of labor unions:
    • Knights of Labor (1869), declined after Haymarket Riot.
    • American Federation of Labor (AFL, 1886): Focus on skilled workers, practical issues.
  • Labor movement outcomes:
    • Successes: Confrontation of corporate power, rise of union leaders.
    • Failures: Strikes defeated (Homestead, Pullman), internal divisions, hostility from corporations/government.

Farmers' Challenges & Organization

  • Issues: Falling prices, unfair railroad practices, high machinery cost, tight money supply, high tariffs.
  • Key groups:
    • Grange Movement: Social/educational activities, lobbying for reforms.
    • Farmer Alliance and Populist Party: Political reform, government involvement in economy.

Gilded Age Politics

  • Mark Twain's "Gilded Age" metaphor: Surface prosperity conceals deep issues.
  • Big Business influence, laissez-faire policies.
  • Beginning of government regulation:
    • Interstate Commerce Act, Sherman Antitrust Act.

Migration Patterns

  • Internal and external migration:
    • Westward movement due to Homestead Act, railroads.
    • Urbanization, African American migration (Great Migration).
    • Immigration from China (limited by Chinese Exclusion Act) and "new immigrants" from Southern/Eastern Europe.
  • Nativism:
    • Anti-immigrant sentiment, American Protective Association, literacy tests.

Urbanization Challenges

  • Class, race, ethnicity divisions in cities.
  • Poverty, tenement housing, child labor.
  • Efforts to address urban issues:
    • Gospel of Wealth, Settlement House Movement, Social Gospel Movement, Socialist critiques.

Social and Civil Rights Movements

  • Women's suffrage:
    • National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA), key figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
  • African American leaders:
    • Booker T. Washington: Vocational skills, Tuskegee Institute.
    • Ida B. Wells Barnett: Anti-lynching campaign and women's rights activism.

This is an overview of Period 6 in APUSH, summarizing key events, policies, and movements that shaped the United States during this era.

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