AP U.S. History Period 6: 1865-1898

• Period 6 in AP U.S. History covers 1865-1898.
• Period 6 is referred to as "The Challenges of the Era of Industrialization".
• The United States transformed from a rural society into an industrial, urban nation, causing economic, political, and social changes.
• The U.S. economy expanded rapidly in the late 1800s due to industrialization.
• The industrial expansion after Reconstruction is known as the "Gilded Age".
• The nation's wealth increased, but was unequally distributed; business owners became rich while workers lived in slums.
• Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives (1890) showed the contrast between the wealthy and the poor.
• The rapid industrial expansion transformed American culture, work, and leisure.
• New class and ethnic divisions became apparent, especially in growing cities.
• Cities became industrial production centers and attracted immigrants.
• Agriculture became more mechanized, reducing the need for rural workers.
• New York remained the largest American city, as other cities in the Midwest and Northeast grew rapidly.
• The South and the West transformed significantly between the Civil War and the 20th century.
• White southerners created laws that relegated African Americans to second-class status.
• Government policies encouraged settlers to move west.
• The Midwest became a major agricultural region with a politicized farmers' movement.
• Clashes between settlers and American Indian groups resulted in the demise of autonomous native peoples.

Economic Development

• Economic opportunities and government policies encouraged the development of the West after the Civil War.
• Farmers became involved in mechanized agriculture and formed local and regional organizations to resist railroad power.
• Economic opportunities drew settlers to the West, threatening American Indians.
• The reservation system, buffalo destruction, military actions, and assimilation policies limited Indian options.
• Promoters of a "New South" encouraged industrialization and modernization, however the South remained agrarian with sharecropping and tenant farming.
• Limited industrial growth in the "New South" offered few opportunities for African Americans. "Jim Crow" policies relegated African Americans to second-class citizenship.
• Innovations in technology after the Civil War allowed for access to natural resources, essential for the expansion of industrial production that defined the Gilded Age.
• The U.S. experienced unprecedented changes in production as large-scale industry replaced older forms, accompanied by international communication networks and pro-business government policies.

Economic Growth

• The U.S. experienced unprecedented economic growth, though it wasn't evenly distributed, leading to a growing gap between the wealthy and the poor.
• Conflicts over wages and working conditions at industrial worksites led to setbacks for workers.
• Urban centers grew dramatically and migrants flooded into American cities, creating a new urban culture.
• Large-scale immigration generated varied responses, with immigrants negotiating between cultures.
• Social Darwinism emerged, contrasting with reformers who sought to aid immigrants.

Corporate Model

• The spread of the corporate model and business consolidation led to a managerial revolution, requiring managers, clerical workers, salespeople, and accountants.
• The urban industrial economy required support services like healthcare, education, and legal services.
• The expansion of the middle class and leisure time led to a new consumer culture.
• Some business leaders believed the wealthy had an obligation to improve society.
• Reformers and intellectuals challenged the social structure, and women broke Victorian-era gender expectations.
• Critics of corporate power pushed for government regulation, opposed by industrial leaders.
• Political issues, mainly economic, dominated the Gilded Age like tariffs and currency.
• Corruption was prevalent, and farmers sought political solutions outside the traditional two-party system.

Westward Expansion Development

• The Greenback Party, founded in 1878, sought an expansion of the currency supply by issuing paper money.
• The Grange, or the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, is a farmers' organization that pushed for state laws to protect farmers' interests, regulating railroad freight rates.
• Granger Laws are laws that came about because of the Grange, and were initially upheld by the Supreme Court, but later reversed.
• The telephone was invented, and allowed corporations to develop nationally and internationally.
• Pacific Railroad Acts promoted government bonds and land grants to railroad companies to complete rail lines to the Pacific Ocean.
• The transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869.

Westward Expansion Social Development

• Chinese immigrants were initially drawn to North America by the gold rush in California.
• The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was the first discriminatory federal law that targeted a national group.
• Boomtowns rapidly grew in the West during the post-Civil War period.
• The Indian Peace Commission was established in 1867 to negotiate an end to warring on the Great Plains.
• The Battle of Little Bighorn: The discovery of gold in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory in 1874 brought a new wave of settlers. Sioux won
• Custer's Last Stand resulted in the death of General George Custer along with 225 of his men.
• Wounded Knee: The last "battle" of the "Indian Wars" was a massacre at the Lakota reservation near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota in 1890.

New South

• The most prominent spokesman for a “New South” was Henry Grady, advocating a mixed economy.
• Plessy v. Ferguson: The Supreme Court decided that racial segregation did not violate the equal protection provision.

Technological Innovation

• Steel production was key to the industrialization of the United States.
• Bessemer Process: The development of the Bessemer process by the Englishman Henry Bessemer greatly reduced the cost of steel.

Rise of Industrial Capitalism

• Managerial Revolution: Large corporations developed management systems that separated top executives from managers.
• Andrew Carnegie dominated the steel industry by investing in all aspects of steel production.

Horizontal Integration

• Entails the merging of companies that create the same or similar products. This process can lead to a monopoly.
• Foreign trade: Foreign trade was rapidly expanding in the Gilded Age.
• The decades after the Civil War, often referred to as the Gilded Age, saw the growth of a well-to-do class.
• Child labor: Because wages for working-class men remained relatively low, families often had to supplement their incomes with children and women entering the labor force, depressing overall wages.
• The Knights of Labor, founded in 1869, welcomed all members, regardless of race, gender, or level of skill.
• The American Federation of Labor differed from the Knights of Labor in that it included only skilled workers.
• The "Exoduster” Movement: Starting in the late 1870s, a movement of approximately.
• New York City: In New York City, the wealthy moved uptown; elsewhere, they moved away from the urban core.
• Tenement housing: Despite modest increases in wages, the working class and the poor were often crowded into substandard tenement housing in slumlike neighborhoods.
• "Free labor" ideology: The “free labor” ideology of the pre-Civil War era put forth the idea that working for another person was a temporary condition.
• Social Darwinism: Social Darwinism was one attempt to defend the new social order.
• Settlement houses existed in the United States, usually run by women, these houses offered classes and helped victims of domestic abuse.
• A class of white-collar employees became essential to the successful functioning of industrial capitalism.
• New York's Central Park was the most important park project of the nineteenth century.
• "Gospel of Wealth:" Andrew Carnegie asserted that the rich have a duty to live responsible, modest lives and to give back to society.

Gilded Age

• Henry George was a writer, economist, and politician who was critical of the persistence of poverty. His proposed solution was "single tax"” on the value of land.
• Anarchism and Socialism: Alternative ideologies of capitalism began to spread amongst Americans.
• Laissez-faire promoted economic growth.
• The Sherman Antitrust Act was the first attempt by Congress to keep monopolistic practices in check.
• The Populist Party was able to harness growing discontent following the Panic of 1893 and gave a voice to a radical program for change.
• "Cross of Gold” speech: William Jennings Bryan ran for president in 1896 and endorsed the call for the "free and unlimited coinage” of silver.
• Civil-service reform: Civil-service reform became a major issue in the late nineteenth century.
• The Pendleton Act Congress finally passed the Pendleton Act in 1883 to set up a merit-based federal civil service.
• "Political machines:" Politics in major cities came to be dominated by "political machines."
• The Temperance Campaign movement to ban alcohol from American society.