The United States during the Gilded Age

Advanced Placement United States History

Unit Test Study Guide

Reading: American Passages, Chapters 15- 19

Voices of the American Past, Volume II, various readings & homework/class assignments.

Reconstruction
• Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan
• Wade-Davis Bill
• Impact of assassination on Reconstruction
• Andrew Johnson’s plan for reconstruction/Presidential Reconstruction
• Tenure of Office Act
• Radical Republicans (who, goals, reconstruction plan)
• Requirements included in the Reconstruction Act of 1867
• Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
• Election of 1868 and 1872 elections (candidates, issues and results)
• African American goals during reconstruction
• 14th Amendment
• 15th Amendment
• Rise of women’s suffrage movement
• Life of blacks in South during reconstruction
• Share cropping
• Tennant farming
• “black codes”
• Carpet Baggers
• Scalawags
• The Ku Klux Klan
• The Redeemers
• Freedmen’s Bureau
• Grant presidency and ‘civil service reform’
• Scandals of the Grant Presidency
• Credit Mobiler
• Jay Gould
• Jim Fisk
• Tweed Ring
• Grant’s Indian policies
• Ely Parker
• Transcontinental Railroad
• The Redeemers
• Election Results of 1876
• Compromise of 1877
• End of Reconstruction

Politics of the Gilded Age

• “Waving the bloody shirt” (who used and message it sent)
• Scandals which plagued the Grant administration? Describe each.
• Credit Mobilier – what was it?
• Who were the stalwarts, mugwumps and half-breeds?
• What was the primary purpose of the Pendleton Act
• Thomas Nast (reason for his fame)
• Political Machine and Political Boss
• How did Political Machines maintain power in cities?
• How were city elections often corrupted by ‘Machine’/’Boss’ politics
 • “Boss” Tweed and Tammany Hall
• Liberal Republicans of 1872.
• Panic of 1873 – what caused this, what impact did it have upon the economy?
• Crime of ’73!
• Settlement of the Hayes-Tilden election & provisions of the Compromise of 1877
• Key issues that dominated politics during the Gilded Age
• Hard Money vs. Soft Money?
• What was the main sources of government revenue?
• Who and why was a protective tariff supported? Who and why was it opposed?
• What were the differing positions regarding the issue of civil service?
• What were the provisions of the Pendleton Act of 1883?
• Who were the candidates in the 1884 election? What was the key issue? Who won the election?
What scandal was prominent?
• New political bosses in the late 1880s?
• What was the goal of the Greenback Party? Who supported this party?
• Cleveland’s position toward government surplus and tariff
• What was the most important source of revenue for the federal government in the 1890s?
• What caused the Panic of 1893? What conditions did it create?
• What was the general economic situation of the United States during the Gilded Age?

Industrialization
• The federal government’s contribution to the rapid growth of the Railroad Industry?
• Ways which railroad industry and railroad expansion stimulated the American economy and effect the
nation
• Why did railroads form pools? What were rebates used by railroads?
• Practices of the railroad barons which caused public opposition?
• Why were farmers particularly distressed by the railroad?
• What were the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887?
• Railroads impact upon time in the United States
• Federal government’s attempts to regulate industry
• What factors lead to the rapid development of industry in the United States
• Inventions and impact of Thomas Edison?
• New communication development of the era? Who established this new medium?
• Carnegies background
• What was the Bessmer Process? What did new process of forging steel allow?
• Andrew Carnegie’s system of vertical integration
• Why did monopolists use the strategy of horizontal integration? What was that tactic? How did it impact
competition?
• How did Rockefeller make Standard Oil the nation’s dominant oil company?
• Define a trust?
• Define Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth
• Justification of trusts such as Standard Oil and Armour (meat packing)
• First use of oil in industry.
• J.P. Morgan and use of interlocking directorates
• How did Herbert Spencer modify the theory of Charles Darwin?
• The ideas of “Social Darwinism” advocated by men like Carnegie and Rockefeller
• What was the theme of Horatio Alger’s writings?
• What ideas did Henry George express in Progress and Poverty?
• Impact of industrialization upon American workers
• Why did the proportion of women working in clerical jobs increase?
• What was the NLU and who was its leader? What goals did it pursue?
• What prompted railroad workers to strike in 1877? What occurred during the strike? How did the Hayes
administration respond? What new union was created as a result of this strike?
• Who was the leader of the Knights of Labor? What tactics did it use? What did it believe about the
government?
 • What occurred at Haymarket Square? How did it impact the Knights of Labor?
• Difference in between the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor
• Which labor union focused on the philosophy of “bread and butter’” unionism?
• Who was the leader of the American Federation of Labor? What was his background?
• What methods did he use?
• What occurred during the Homestead Strike in 1892?
• What were “Yellow Dog” contracts
• What was a “Closed Shop”
• How did President Cleveland respond to the 1894 Pullman strike?
• How did J.P. Morgan help reshape the economy and reorganize the railroads?
• What was the significance of the Supreme Court’s decision in the U.S. v. E.C. Knight? What law was
weakened?
• What work did Henry Demarest Lloyd publish and what was its message?

Urbanization and Immigration

• Innovations that aided urban development and growth of large cities
• Immigration into the United States prior to 1880 was from
• Where were the “New Immigrants” from (regions and countries)
• Religious groups that grew dramatically due to the “New Immigration”
• Why did the “New Immigrants” leave their homeland for America?
• Differences between the “New Immigrants” and previous immigration
• Why did “Nativists” fear/distrust/dislike the “New Immigrants”
• Reasons Chinese immigrated to the United States in mid-1800’s
• Why Chinese were target of labor hostilities and racial prejudice
• The Chinese Exclusion Act- what were its provisions and how did it impact Chinese immigration?
• Settlement House movement, Jane Addams and Hull House- how did it help immigrants?
• Morrill Land Grant and education
• Literary movement of authors like Twain, Crane and London focused upon
• Writings of Horatio Alger. His general theme.
• Social Gospel
• Work of Jacob Riis which portrayed squalid conditions in urban slums? What did this work describe?
• What was the Social Gospel? Who advocated this belief?
• What was the viewpoint of the American Protective Association?
• Define Nativism? What were the goals of nativist? What were the most visible nativist groups?
• What were the different opinions regarding the New Immigrants?

The Disappearing West

• What were the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862? How did it impact the West?
• How did the Transcontinental Railroad effect the West? How was the government involved in the
railroad?
• What immigrants played a large role in the building of the railroad?
• Define Grant’s “Peace Policy”
• How had the buffalo been significant to the Plains Indians? What caused the near extinction of the
buffalo?
• What was the purpose of the reservation system? What impact did the reservation system have upon
Native American culture?
• What trail ran through Souix lands? Why did the government agree to abandon protecting it? What
were the provisions of the Treaty of Fort Laramie?
• Factors that lead to the defeat of the Plains Indians
• The aims of the Ghost Dance Movement?
• What occurred at Wounded Knee?
• What discovery lead to the conflict that led up to the Battle of Little Big Horn
• What occurred at Little Big Horn, and how did it change United States military policy?
• Accomplishments of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse?
• Who lead the Apache Resistance? How was this resistance campaign carried out?
 • Why did the Nez Perce have to leave their lands in the Northwest? Who lead the Nez Perce as they
attempted to escape? Where were they going? What outcome did they come to?
• How did the army finally subdue Indian resistance
• What policy was instituted by the Dawes Act? What was the act’s intent?
• How did the Dawes Act deviate from previous Native American land policy?
• What was Benevolent Assimilation and the purpose of Indian Schools?
• What impact did the Dawes Act have upon amount of Native American lands?
• What was Helen Hunt Jackson’s book A Century of Dishonor recount
• What was the “safety valve” theory
• How did the federal government aid settlement of the Great Plains?
• What region of the country was Cattle Country?
• How did a cowboy’s life differ from the mythology of cowboys? How did cowboys reflect national
diversity?
• What ended the cattle boom?
• What was the greatest problem facing farmers in the West
• What were the provisions of the Homestead Act
• What was the first organization to work on behalf of farmers?
• What activities did the Grangers carry out?
• Why did farmers support free and unlimited coinage of silver?
• What factors contributed to the end of the open range?
• What was the Farmers Alliance? How was it organized? What did it attempt to achieve?
• Why did farmers seek government assistance from railroad companies? What did the government do?
• What was the concept of the cooperative in agrarian America?
• What dilemma confounded farmers in the late nineteenth century?
• What were the grievances of farmers and targets of their complaints?
• What role did Annie Diggs and Mary Elizabeth Lease play in the Alliance?
• Fredrick Jackson Turner thesis about the impact on the development of America
• Finding of the Census Bureau in 1890
• Main points of Walter Prescott Webb from ‘The Great Plains’

Politics of the 1890’s

• Thomas “Czar” Reed and his economic policies
• What did the high tariffs enacted by the McKinley Bill lead
• What was the McKinley Tariff’s and its effect upon farmers?
• How did the “Billion-dollar Congress” use the federal government surplus? What did it pass and how did
the public respond to the “Billion-dollar” Congress?
• Who was the leader of the Republican Congress in the early 1890’s?
• What did the Sherman Anti-Trust Act state? What immediate impact did it have?
• What were the signs of political unrest in the 1890s?
• What were the problems facing farmers in the late nineteenth century?
• What was Coxey’s Army? What did it attempt?
• How did Pullman attempt to establish work and community?
• What event precipitated the 1894 Pullman strike?
• How did the Pullman strike end? Why did President Cleveland intervene?
• What part did Eugene Debs play in the strike? What was the significance in the Supreme Court’s ruling
in In re Debs?
• What did the Populist party advocate (goals) & who joined to create the Populist party
• What were aims listed in the Populist Party platform (Omaha Platform)?
• Who were the candidates in the 1892 presidential election? How did each campaign?
• Why was the Populist party weakened after 1892?
• Why did the Populist advocate Free Silver?
• What was the final outcome of the southern populist revolt?
• What caused the Panic of 1893? What economic conditions did the United States suffer as a result of
this panic?
• How did Cleveland attempt to deal with the economic slump?
• What was the greatest problem Cleveland faced in his second term?
• Why did the Democrats nominate William Jennings Bryan in 1896?
• Who did the Populists nominate?
• What was the role of Mark Hanna in the election?
• Who were McKinley’s supporters?
• How was McKinley able to defeat Bryan in the 1896 election
• What did Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech call for? What belief of Bryan’s did this speech
express?
• Significance of the Election of 1896? What were the results of the election?
• Which regions supported McKinley? Which region supported Bryan?
• What weakened the farmers movement at the end of the 1890’s?