Everything you need to master Unit 6 — the Second Industrial Revolution, the robber barons and the rise of big business, the labor movement and major strikes, the New Immigration and nativist backlash, urbanization, and the Populist revolt against the Gilded Age.
8–10% of the AP exam
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Unit 6 covers Period 6: The Gilded Age, 1865–1898 — from the end of Reconstruction to the eve of the Spanish-American War. The Second Industrial Revolution transformed America: railroads tied the continent together, factories produced unprecedented wealth, and cities grew explosively as immigrants flooded in. But this prosperity came with massive inequality, brutal labor conditions, political corruption, and devastating violence against Native peoples in the West.
The College Board wants you to understand the rise of industrial capitalism (Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, trusts, monopolies), the resulting labor movement (Knights of Labor, AFL, Haymarket, Homestead, Pullman strikes), the New Immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and the nativist backlash (Chinese Exclusion Act), and the rise of Populism as a farmer-led response to industrial inequality. You'll also study the closing of the frontier and the destruction of Native life (Dawes Act, Wounded Knee).
Unit 6 makes up roughly 10–17% of the AP US History exam — heavily tested because it establishes modern American capitalism, labor relations, urban politics, and immigration debates.
Key terms preview
A taste of what you'll find in The Essentials and Flashcards.
Transcontinental Railroad
Completed 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah; bound the nation together and accelerated westward settlement.
Robber Barons
Industrial leaders like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, and Vanderbilt — 'robber barons' to critics, 'captains of industry' to admirers.
Trust
Business arrangement (perfected by Rockefeller's Standard Oil) where one entity controls multiple corporations through stock — creating monopolies.
Sherman Antitrust Act
1890 first federal law against monopolies; initially used more against unions than corporations, later basis for trust-busting.
Chinese Exclusion Act
1882 first major federal law restricting immigration by race; banned Chinese laborers and barred Chinese from naturalization.
Populism
1890s farmer-led political movement (People's Party); demanded free silver, government ownership of railroads, income tax, and direct election of senators.
1. Industrial capitalism produced unprecedented wealth — and unprecedented inequality
The Second Industrial Revolution made America the world's largest economy and turned Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan into the richest men in history. But it also produced 12-hour workdays, child labor, slums, and corruption on a scale that made Mark Twain coin the term "Gilded Age" — gold-plated on the outside, rotten beneath.
2. Labor and Populism mounted serious challenges to laissez-faire capitalism
Workers organized into the Knights of Labor and the AFL, struck at Homestead and Pullman, and demanded shorter hours and better wages. Farmers organized into the Populist Party demanding free silver and government regulation. Both movements failed in the short term but laid the groundwork for Progressive Era reforms.
3. The Gilded Age transformed who was American and where they lived
The New Immigration (Southern and Eastern Europeans, plus Asians) reshaped American cities; the Great Migration of Black Americans north began; the frontier closed; and Native peoples were forced onto reservations through the Dawes Act and military violence. American identity itself was reshaped — even as nativist laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act tried to limit who could be included.