APUSH Unit Packet
Unit 4: Forging an Industrial Society
Directions:
For each chapter, answer each question thoroughly and use each vocabulary term in a
complete sentence and in proper context (do NOT write its definition). Make sure to label
each chapter, number each answer, and underline each vocabulary term. Your finished packet
will be due on the day of the unit exam.
Due January 26th
Chapter 23—Political Paralysis in the Gilded Agem 1869-1896:
1. Explain how radical Republicans’ efforts to change Southern racial attitudes and culture and establish a
base for their party in the South ultimately failed. In what ways did the South’s determined resistance and
the North’s waning resolve contribute to this failure?
2. Describe how rights granted to African Americans in the 14th and 15th Amendments were progressively
stripped away through segregation, violence, SCOTUS decisions, and local political tactics. Use specific
examples
3. In what ways did labor and management battle for control over wages and working conditions? Give
examples of how workers directly confronted corporate power.
4. Examine how the growth of corporate power in agriculture and economic instability in the farming sector
inspired activists to create the People’s (Populist) party,
5. Explain how the emergence of an industrial culture in the US led to restrictions on immigrants and
minorities.
6. Analyze how Gilded Age politics were intimately tied to big business. Describe how they addressed the
following issues:
a. Tariffs
b. Currency
c. Corporate expansion
d. Laissez-faire economic policies
7. Explain how Gilded Age politics, focused on national economic issues, engendered numerous calls for
reform. What types of reform were proposed?
8. To what extent did corruption in government, especially related to big business, energize the public to
demand increased popular control and reform of local, state, and national governments?
9. Discuss how increasingly prominent racist and nativist theories were used to justify violence as well as
local and national policies of discrimination and segregation.
10. HTS—Comparison: How do the political debates about tariffs, currency, and the government’s role in the
economy during the Gilded Age compare with those in the late 18 th and early 19th centuries?
Vocabulary:
“waving the bloody shirt,” Tweed Ring, Credit Mobilier scandal, panic of 1873, patronage, Compromise of
1877, Civil Rights Act of 1875, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, Chinese Exclusion Act,
Pendleton Act, Homestead Strike, grandfather clause
Chapter 24—Industry Comes of Age, 1865-1900:
1. Explain how large-scale production fueled the development of a “Gilded Age” marked by an emphasis on
consumption, marketing, and business consolidation. Give specific examples.
2. Analyze the relationship between government subsidies for transportation and communication systems
and the opening of new markets in North America.
3. Describe how technological innovations and redesigned financial and management structures (i.e.
monopolies) sought to maximize the exploitation of natural resources and a growing labor force.
4. Explain how business leaders consolidated corporations into trusts and holding companies. What
arguments did they use to defend these actions?
5. Describe how workers organized local and national unions and directly confronted corporate power.
6. Discuss how some southern leaders called for a “New South” by promoting the industrialization of some
segments of the southern economy.
7. Examine the impact of transcontinental railroads on the US economy and the movement of people/goods.
8. Analyze how cultural and intellectual arguments justified the success of those at the top of the
socioeconomic structure as both appropriate and inevitable. What arguments were used by other leaders
who called for the wealthy to help the less fortunate?
9. HTS—Contextualization: Explain how the Industrial Revolution provided the historical context for both
the rise of big business and the labor movement in the Gilded Age.
Vocabulary:
Interstate Commerce Act, vertical integration, horizontal integration, trust, Standard Oil Company, interlocking
directorates, Social Darwinists, Sherman Anti-Trust Act, National Labor Union, Knights of Labor, Haymarket
riots, American Federation of Labor, closed shop
Chapter 25—America Moves to the City, 1865-1900:
1. Discuss how some segments of American society enjoyed lives of extravagant “conspicuous consumption”
while many others lived in relative poverty as cities grew substantially in both size and in number.
2. Describe how cities dramatically reflected divided social conditions among classes, races, ethnicities, and
cultures, but presented economic opportunities as factories and new businesses proliferated.
3. In what ways did new immigrants seek to both “Americanize” as well as maintain their unique identities?
4. In what ways did African Americans and women take advantage of new career opportunities, even in the
face of widespread social prejudices? How did they challenge their prescribed “place” and articulate
alternative visions of political, social, and economic equality?
5. Explain how political machines provided social services in exchange for political support in urban
atmospheres where the access to power was unequally distributed.
6. How did settlement houses help immigrants adapt to the new language and customs?
7. How did women’s clubs and self-help groups empower women to call for (and work for) social and political
reform?
8. In what ways were prominent nativist theories used to justify violence and local/national policies of
discrimination?
9. Discuss how critics challenged the dominant corporate ethic in the US and offered alternate visions of the
good society through utopianism and the Social Gospel.
10. HTS—Synthesis: Having read about the controversies surrounding immigration in the late 19 th century
and the attempts of social reformers to address the controversies, apply any insights you may have to
previous historical contexts or circumstances. That is, how, if at all, are the Gilded Age debates about
immigrants in the US analogous to ones from colonial times to the Civil War?
Vocabulary:
New immigrants, settlement houses, liberal Protestants, Tuskegee Institute, land-grant colleges, yellow
journalism, National American Woman Suffrage Association, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, realism,
naturalism, regionalism
Chapter 26—The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865-1896:
1. Examine how the desire for access to Western resources led to the following:
a. Environmental transformation of the region
b. New economic activities
c. Increased settlement in areas forcibly taken from Native Americans
2. Explain how the efforts of settlers, who sought new economic opportunities or religious refuge in the
West, were boosted during and after the Civil War with the passage of new legislation promoting national
economic development. Cite examples.
3. In what ways did US government interaction and conflict with Hispanics and Native Americans increase as
territorial boundaries of the US expanded and the migrant population increased? In what ways did these
interactions and conflicts alter these groups’ cultures and ways of life and raise questions about their
status and legal rights?
4. Analyze how farmers adapted to the new realities of mechanized agriculture and dependence on the
evolving railroad system. By creating local and regional organizations, how did they attempt to resist
corporate control of agricultural markets?
5. Why did the People’s (Populist) Party call for political reform and a stronger government role in the
American economic system? What were some of their demands/proposals?
6. Describe how competition for land in the West among white settlers, Native Americans, and Mexican
Americans led to an increase in violent conflict.
7. Explain how the US government generally responded to Native American resistance with military force.
Cite specific examples.
8. Describe how the following reduced the number of Native Americans and threatened their culture and
identity:
a. US military action
b. Destruction of the buffalo
c. Confinement of Native Americans to reservations
d. Assimilation policies of the US government
9. HTS—Causation: How many causes of Populism can you identify? What do you think was the primary
cause of Populism? Find evidence in this chapter that supports your choice.
10. HTS—Argumentation: When writing about the transformation of the West from 1865-1896, the authors
proclaim that “probably never before in human experience had so huge an area been transformed so
rapidly.” Develop a historical argument that supports, modifies, or refutes this statement.
Vocabulary:
Reservation system, Battle of Little Big Horn, Battle of Wounded Knee, Dawes Severalty Act, Populists, Pullman
strike, fourth party system, Gold Standard Act
Chapter 27—Empire and Expansion, 1890-1909:
1. In what ways did businesses and foreign policymakers increasingly look outside the US borders in an effort
to gain greater influence and control over markets and natural resources in the Asia, Latin America, and
the Pacific region?
2. What were the arguments used by Americans to advocate for overseas expansionism? How did they lead
to new territorial ambitions and acquisitions in the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific?
3. Explain how the following contributed to arguments that Americans were destined to expand their culture
and norms to others, especially nonwhite nations of the world:
a. Perception in the 1890s that the western frontier was “closed”
b. Economic motives
c. Competition with other European imperialist ventures of the time
d. Racist theories of white superiority
4. Describe how the US victory in the Spanish-American War led to the following:
a. US acquisition of island territories
b. Expanded US economic and military presence in the Caribbean and Latin America
5.
6.
7.
8.
c. Engagement in a protracted insurrection in the Philippines
d. Increased involvement in Asia
Examine how questions about America’s role in the world generated considerable debate and prompted
the development of a wide variety of views and arguments between imperialists and anti-imperialists.
What were the positions of each side?
HTS—Periodization: What event or series of events in the late 19th century would you select as the
turning point(s) in US foreign policy (i.e. moving from isolationist to being more interventionist)? Cite
supporting evidence.
HTS—Comparison: How many similarities and differences between US expansionism in the 1840’s and
1890’s can you identify?
HTS—Interpretation: Read “Varying Viewpoints” (p. 633). Describe how models of historical
interpretation about late-19th century and early-20th century American imperialism have changed over
time.
Vocabulary:
Big Sister policy, Great Rapprochement, McKinley Tariff, Teller Amendment, Rough Riders, Anti-Imperialist
League, Foraker Act, Insular Cases, Platt Amendment, Open Door note, Roosevelt Corollary, Root-Takahira
Agreement