Period 6 Overview

Preparation

• Use the speed review sheet to help follow along.
• Circle any people, events, vocab that need focus.
• Check off topics you've mastered.

The Gilded Age

• Characteristics: Rapid economic growth, industrialization, corruption after the Civil War.
• Key Industrialists:
  • Andrew Carnegie: Vertical integration in steel.
  • John D. Rockefeller: Horizontal integration in oil.
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt: Railroads.
  • J.P. Morgan: Banking.
• Business Practices:
  • Trusts consolidated power and monopolized industries.
  • Social Darwinism justified wealth.
  • Philanthropy: Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth."
• Government Policies:
  • Laissez-faire policies.
  • Pro-business Republican presidents.
  • Political contributions to figures like William McKinley.
• Political Corruption:
  • Political machines traded votes for favors.
  • William "Boss" Tweed and Tammany Hall.
  • Reform: Pendleton Civil Service Act, Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Labor Unions and Strikes

• Labor Movement:
  • Knights of Labor: Open to all workers, declined post-Haymarket Riot.
  • American Federation of Labor: Focused on skilled labor, wages, working conditions.
• Major Strikes:
  • Great Railroad Strike of 1877, Pullman Strike, Homestead Strike.
  • Federal troops often suppressed strikes.

Social Reforms

• Reform Movements:
  • Social Gospel Movement: Address poverty and homelessness.
  • Settlement Houses: Jane Addams' Hull House.
  • Photojournalism: Jacob Riis' "How the Other Half Lives."
• Technological Innovations:
  • Electricity, typewriter, telephone improved jobs and communication.
  • Growth of streetcar suburbs.
• Leisure and Middle Class:
  • Increased leisure activities: sports, theater, amusement parks.

Immigration and Urbanization

• Immigration Patterns:
  • African American Migration: Move from Jim Crow South to the West.
  • Old Immigrants: Ireland, Germany.
  • New Immigrants: Southern, Eastern Europe, Asians (Chinese Exclusion Act).

The South Post-Civil War

• Economic Conditions:
  • Continued reliance on agriculture.
  • Henry Grady's "New South": Diversification and industry.
• Racial Issues:
  • Jim Crow laws, upheld by Plessy v. Ferguson.
  • African American responses: Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington.

Western Expansion

• Settlement:
  • Homestead Act, completion of Transcontinental Railroad.
  • Industries: Mining, cattle ranching.
• Native American Conflicts:
  • Great Plains buffalo decimation, conflicts like Sand Creek Massacre.
  • Assimilation efforts: Helen Hunt Jackson, Carlisle School, Dawes Act.

Farmers and the Populist Movement

• Economic Struggles:
  • Low crop prices, high shipping rates, debt.
  • Formation of Farmers' Alliances, Populist Party.
• Political Platform:
  • Omaha platform supported bimetallism, direct senatorial elections, graduated income tax.
  • William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech.

Exam Preparation

• Causation: Causes of big business rise, effects of westward expansion.
• Comparison: Gilded Age reforms vs. Period 4, Gilded Age immigrants vs. pre-Civil War immigrants.
• Change and Continuity: Economic changes, New South transformations.

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