SAQs for APUSH Topic 6.11 — Reform in the Gilded Age

Five questions designed to help students review for the annual exam and that relate to various attempts to address the gender, racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic inequalities that abounded between 1870–1900.

1. The Gilded Age began shortly before the start of America’s Second Industrial Revolution and ended ten years after the start of the Progressive Era. It also overlapped the Era of Reconstruction. When did the Second Industrial Revolution begin? When did the Progressive Era begin and when did it end? Same question for the Era of Reconstruction
2. During the Gilded age, gender, racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic inequalities abounded. Some Gilded Age ‘reformers’ attempted to address these inequities. What reform(s) did each of the following Gilded Age reformers call for? Jane Addams (with her work at Hull House and with the related Settlement Movement), Jacob Riss (with his photographs and publication of How the Other Half Lives); Andrew Carnegie (with his philanthropy and publication of The Gospel of Wealth), Jacob Coxey (with his march to Washington D.C. and attempt to speak in front of the Capital, Washington Gladden (with his founding of the Social Gospel Movement); President James Garfield (with his signing of the Pendleton Act), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony (with their founding of the National American Woman Suffrage Association), Samuel Gompers (his founding the American Federation of Labor,) the western farmers (with their founding of the Populist Party), and Annie Wittenmyer and other Christian women (with their founding of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union).
3. Give one reason why Congress’ passage of the Sherman Anti Trust Act isn’t often viewed as evidence of reform in the Gilded Age.
4. Give one reason why Congress’ passage of the 18th Amendment isn’t often viewed as evidence of reform in the Gilded Age.
5. Give one reason why Congress’ passage of the 19th Amendment isn’t often viewed as evidence of reform in the Gilded Age.
6. There were reasons for the inequalities that existed during the Gilded Age. One reason often cited makes use of the terms “Social Darwinism” and laissez-faire capitalism. What is Social Darwinism? What is laissez-faire capitalism? Name and briefly describe one major similarity and one difference between laissez-faire ideology and Social Darwinism.