U6 1865 - 1898: Modern America

Flashcard deck · A.P. U.S. History · 1865 - 1898 - Modern America · History

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Covers Gilded Age topics including Carnegie, Rockefeller, Plessy v. Ferguson, the Dawes Act, Populist Party, Jim Crow laws, and Wounded Knee for AP US History.

Terms in this deck

Carnegie, Andrew

Steel magnate who built U.S. Steel into the nation's largest corporation and promoted the Gospel of Wealth to justify industrial capitalism.

Transcontinental railroad

A rail line spanning the continent, completed 1869, connecting East and West and spurring economic growth and western settlement.

The Grange (Patrons of Husbandry)

A cooperative organization founded in 1867 that united farmers to combat high railroad rates and promote agricultural education and reform.

Technological innovation

The rapid development of new inventions and processes — steel, electricity, telephones, railroads — that transformed American industry and daily life.

Mechanization of agriculture

The use of machinery such as steel plows, reapers, and steam tractors to dramatically increase farm output while reducing labor needs.

Buffalo (American bison) decimation

The near-extinction of bison herds by the 1880s due to commercial hunting, destroying the economic and cultural base of Plains Indians.

Farmers' Alliance

A large agrarian organization of the 1880s–1890s that united farmers to fight railroad monopolies and falling crop prices through collective action.

"New South"

Post-Civil War movement led by Southern boosters to industrialize and modernize the South while maintaining white supremacy and racial hierarchy.

Ghost Dance

A spiritual movement among Plains Indians in the late 1880s that expressed resistance to white encroachment and hope for cultural renewal.

Steel industry

Mass production of steel using the Bessemer process, enabling construction of railroads, skyscrapers, and bridges and driving industrial expansion.

Mining boom

Rapid influx of settlers to western areas following discovery of gold, silver, or other minerals, creating boomtowns and spurring economic growth.

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 Supreme Court case that upheld racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine, legalizing Jim Crow.

Dawes Act

1887 law breaking up tribal lands into individual allotments to assimilate American Indians and destroy communal land ownership.

Reservation system

U.S. government policy confining American Indians to designated land areas, stripping tribal sovereignty and displacing Native peoples.

Industrial capitalism

An economic system where private businesses use capital, machinery, and wage labor to produce goods for profit on a large scale.

Sharecropping

A labor system where freed people and poor whites farmed land owned by others, giving a portion of crops as rent, trapping many in debt and poverty.

Gilded Age

The period roughly 1870–1900 marked by rapid industrialization, great wealth for a few, and widespread poverty and corruption beneath the surface.

Wounded Knee Massacre

1890 U.S. Army massacre of Lakota Sioux, effectively ending armed Indian resistance on the Great Plains.

Washington, Booker T.

Black leader who promoted vocational education and economic self-reliance over immediate civil rights, typified by the Atlanta Compromise of 1895.

Jim Crow laws

State and local laws enacted after Reconstruction enforcing racial segregation and disenfranchising Black Americans across the South.

Cattle drives

Long overland drives of cattle herds from Texas to rail depots in Kansas, peaking in the 1870s–80s and creating boomtowns like Dodge City.

Boomtown

A rapidly growing town that emerged in the West around railroads, mining, or cattle industries, often declining just as quickly.

Monopoly

Control of an entire industry or market by a single company, eliminating competition and allowing the company to set prices.

Homestead Act

1862 law granting settlers 160 acres of public land if they farmed it for five years, encouraging mass migration to the West.

Battle of Little Bighorn

1876 battle where Lakota and Cheyenne warriors defeated Lt. Col. Custer's forces, a major moment of Indian resistance to U.S. expansion.

Westward expansion

The large-scale movement of settlers into lands west of the Mississippi after the Civil War, driven by land, mining, and ranching opportunities.

Barbed wire

Cheap fencing material invented in 1873 that enclosed the open range, transforming western land use and ending the era of open cattle drives.

American Indian assimilation

Government and cultural effort to absorb Native peoples into white American society by eliminating tribal languages, customs, and land.

Populist Party (People's Party)

A third party formed in 1892 representing farmers and laborers demanding government regulation of railroads, silver coinage, and political reform.

Rockefeller, John D.

Oil tycoon who created Standard Oil, pioneering vertical integration and trust formation to monopolize the petroleum industry.

Pendleton Civil Service Act

1883 law establishing merit-based exams for federal jobs, a major step in replacing the spoils system with professional civil service.

Political machines

Powerful urban political organizations that traded favors and jobs for votes, dominating city governments and often serving immigrant communities.

Gospel of Wealth

Andrew Carnegie's idea that the wealthy have a social responsibility to use their fortunes for public good through philanthropy.

Strikes

Work stoppages by employees to pressure employers into meeting demands, a primary labor tactic that often led to violent confrontations in this era.

"New" immigration

The wave of immigrants arriving after 1880 primarily from Southern and Eastern Europe (Italians, Poles, Jews, etc.), differing culturally from earlier immigrants.

Vertical integration

A business strategy where a company controls all stages of production, from raw materials to finished product, to maximize efficiency and profit.

Consumer culture

The rise of mass-produced goods, department stores, and advertising that transformed how Americans — especially the middle class — spent money.

Social Darwinism

The idea that society, like nature, rewards the "fittest" individuals, used to justify extreme wealth inequality and oppose government reform.

Gilded Age politics

Era of intense partisan competition, high voter turnout, rampant corruption, and weak presidential leadership between 1877 and 1900.

Nativism

Hostility toward immigrants, favoring native-born citizens, and pushing for immigration restrictions based on race, religion, or ethnicity.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

First nationwide labor strike in U.S. history, triggered by wage cuts; violently suppressed by state and federal troops.

Immigration (Gilded Age)

The massive influx of millions of immigrants — especially from Southern and Eastern Europe — that transformed American cities and labor markets after 1880.

Middle class

A growing social class of white-collar workers, professionals, and managers whose emergence reshaped American culture and consumption in the Gilded Age.

Knights of Labor

A broad labor union founded 1869 that welcomed workers of all races and skills, advocating for the eight-hour workday and worker cooperatives.

Sherman Antitrust Act

1890 law, the first federal legislation to limit monopolistic business practices, though weakly enforced in this period.

Laissez-faire capitalism

An economic philosophy opposing government interference in business, dominant in the Gilded Age and used to resist labor and regulatory reform.

Horizontal integration

A strategy where a company absorbs or merges with competitors in the same industry to dominate the market and eliminate competition.

Labor unions

Organizations of workers formed to collectively bargain for better wages, hours, and working conditions against powerful industrial employers.

Interstate Commerce Act

1887 law creating the first federal agency (ICC) to regulate railroad rates and practices, responding to farmer and shipper complaints.

Civil Service Reform

Efforts to replace the spoils system with merit-based government hiring, leading to the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883.

Tenements

Overcrowded, poorly maintained apartment buildings in urban immigrant neighborhoods that housed the industrial working class.

Gompers, Samuel

Founder and long-time president of the AFL who championed "bread and butter" unionism focused on wages, hours, and working conditions.

Patronage (spoils system)

The practice of rewarding political supporters with government jobs regardless of qualifications, fueling corruption in Gilded Age politics.

Tammany Hall

The Democratic Party political machine in New York City that wielded power through patronage, serving immigrants while engaging in widespread corruption.

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 law banning Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States, the first major federal restriction on immigration by race.

Urbanization

The rapid growth of cities driven by industrialization and immigration, transforming American society and culture in the Gilded Age.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

A craft union federation led by Samuel Gompers that focused on skilled workers and practical gains like wages and hours rather than broad reform.

Homestead Strike

1892 violent confrontation between Carnegie Steel workers and Pinkerton agents, a turning point showing the limits of union power.

Pullman Strike

1894 nationwide railroad strike triggered by wage cuts at Pullman's company town, crushed by federal troops under President Cleveland.

Trust

A business arrangement where competing companies transfer control to a central board of trustees, creating a near-monopoly over an industry.

Muckrakers

Investigative journalists who exposed corporate corruption, political scandals, and social injustice, laying groundwork for Progressive reform.

Tribal sovereignty

The inherent right of American Indian nations to govern themselves as distinct political entities, systematically denied by U.S. government policies.

Nicodemus, Kansas

An all-Black town founded in 1877 by formerly enslaved people seeking land and independence in the West, exemplifying Black western migration.

Monetary policy debate (gold vs. silver)

Political conflict over whether the dollar should be backed only by gold or by silver too, pitting creditors against debtors and farmers.

Settlement houses

Community centers established in poor urban neighborhoods by reformers to provide social services and education to immigrants and the poor.

Open range ranching

The practice of grazing cattle on unfenced public land across the West, dominant before barbed wire and land enclosure ended it by the 1890s.

Bell, Alexander Graham

Inventor of the telephone in 1876, which transformed communication and exemplified the technological innovation reshaping the Gilded Age economy.

Women's suffrage movement

The organized campaign by women to gain the right to vote, gaining momentum in the Gilded Age through state campaigns in the West.

Social Gospel

A Protestant reform movement applying Christian ethics to social problems like poverty, child labor, and inequality in industrial cities.

Hull House

Settlement house founded by Jane Addams in Chicago in 1889 that provided services to immigrants and became a center of Progressive reform activity.

Addams, Jane

Social reformer who co-founded Hull House and became a leading voice for immigrant rights, labor reform, and women's suffrage.

Temperance movement

A reform campaign to reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption, often linked to women's activism and social reform of the Gilded Age.

Election of 1896

Presidential contest between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan, centering on gold vs. silver, marking the collapse of the Populist Party.

Edison, Thomas

Inventor who created the phonograph, incandescent lightbulb, and electrical power systems, transforming American industry and daily life.

Laramie (Treaty Violations)

Pattern of U.S. government breaking treaties with American Indians to seize land, violating agreements like the Fort Laramie Treaties.

Chinese immigrant communities

Communities built by Chinese immigrants in the West — such as Chinatowns in Seattle — contributing to railroads, mining, and laundry businesses.

Colored Farmers' Alliance

An organization of Black farmers in the South parallel to the Farmers' Alliance, advocating for Black agricultural workers' economic and political interests.

Free Silver

The political demand, championed by farmers and the Populist Party, to coin silver freely to increase the money supply and raise crop prices.

Realism (literary/artistic)

An artistic and literary movement depicting everyday life and social problems honestly, reacting against romanticism and idealism.

Robber barons

Pejorative term for powerful industrialists like Carnegie and Rockefeller who amassed vast wealth through ruthless business practices and exploitation.

Bessemer process

A cheap method for mass-producing steel by blowing air through molten iron, making steel affordable and enabling industrial expansion.

Twain, Mark

Author who coined the term "Gilded Age," satirizing the era's materialism and political corruption in his novels and essays.

Remington, Frederic

Artist who romanticized the American West in paintings and sculpture, reflecting popular cultural ideas about the frontier and western identity.

Bryan, William Jennings

Democratic and Populist orator who championed free silver and delivered the famous "Cross of Gold" speech at the 1896 Democratic convention.

Panic of 1893

Severe economic depression triggered by railroad overbuilding and bank failures, leading to massive unemployment and intensifying labor and agrarian unrest.

Government subsidies

Financial support from the federal government — land grants and loans — given to railroad companies to spur construction and western development.

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