APUSH Period 6 (1865–1898) covers the Gilded Age — roughly 13% of the exam. The dramatic economic transformation, class conflict, and the tension between laissez-faire ideology and growing corporate power generate frequent LEQ and DBQ prompts.
Industrialization and Big Business
Transcontinental Railroad (1869) — connected Atlantic and Pacific coasts; enabled settlement of the West; built with Chinese immigrant labor (Central Pacific) and Irish immigrant labor (Union Pacific); opened markets. Vertical integration — controlling all stages of production (Carnegie's steel: iron ore mines → blast furnaces → steel mills → railroads); eliminated middlemen, reduced costs. Horizontal integration / Trusts — controlling multiple companies at same production stage (Rockefeller's Standard Oil controlled 90% of US oil by 1882); trusts used to evade state anti-monopoly laws. Social Darwinism — Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner: applied Darwin's survival of the fittest to economics; wealthy "naturally selected"; government should not interfere with economic competition; justified laissez-faire and opposed labor/poor relief.
Labor and Class Conflict
Knights of Labor (1869) — first major national union; inclusive (skilled + unskilled, women, Black workers); 8-hour workday, equal pay; declined after Haymarket Affair (1886). American Federation of Labor / AFL (1886) — skilled workers only; bread-and-butter unionism (wages, hours, conditions); Samuel Gompers; more durable than Knights. Homestead Strike (1892) — Carnegie Steel; Pinkertons and state militia broke strike; set back steel unionism for decades. Pullman Strike (1894) — Eugene Debs's American Railway Union; federal government injunction (courts used against labor); troops broke strike → Debs jailed → became socialist.
Populism and Political Reform
Farmers' Alliance — cooperative movement against railroad rates and debt; evolved into Populist Party. Populist (People's) Party platform (1892) — graduated income tax, direct election of senators, government ownership of railroads, silver coinage (inflation to help debtors). Election of 1896 — Bryan (Democrat-Populist fusion) vs. McKinley (Republican); Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech; McKinley won; ended agrarian Populism; confirmed corporate Republican dominance.
The West and Native Americans
Dawes Act (1887) — broke up tribal lands into individual allotments (160 acres/family); "surplus" land sold to whites; aimed to assimilate Native Americans; destroyed tribal culture and reduced Native land from 138 to 78 million acres by 1900. Battle of Wounded Knee (1890) — US Army massacred ~250 Lakota Sioux; effectively ended armed Native resistance on the Plains. Homestead Act (1862) — 160 acres to settlers who farmed it for 5 years; encouraged Western settlement; many farms failed (drought, railroad debt).
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