AMSCO 6.10 Development of the Middle Class

Overview

AMSCO Topic 6.10, "Development of the Middle Class," covers how Gilded Age industrialization created a large, distinctive American middle class between 1865 and 1898. The chapter traces the explosion of white-collar jobs, Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth, women entering the workforce, the birth of suburbs, big changes in education, and the rise of popular culture (newspapers, vaudeville, jazz, and spectator sports). The big idea for APUSH Period 6: corporations needed managers and clerical workers, education expanded, and the new middle class had leisure time and money to spend, which fueled a growing consumer culture.

This is the optimistic flip side of Unit 6. While labor unions battled robber barons and immigrants crowded into tenements, millions of Americans were quietly moving into better-paying office jobs and buying homes in the suburbs.

The Expanding Middle Class and White-Collar Work

Industrialization created millions of new white-collar jobs, which are salaried positions that don't involve manual labor. By 1910, white-collar and salaried jobs made up more than a fourth of all nonagricultural employees.

Since colonial times, a small middle class of self-employed doctors, lawyers, merchants, and artisans had existed between the wealthy elite and the mass of small farmers. Big corporations changed the scale entirely. They needed:

• Middle management to coordinate between chief executives and factories
• Scientists and engineers to handle advanced technologies
• Salespersons, accountants, and clerical workers for sales and marketing departments

These new middle-class employees then demanded services from other middle-class workers: doctors, lawyers, public employees, and storekeepers. The middle class essentially grew itself.

The Gospel of Wealth

Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" argued that the rich had a moral responsibility to use their fortunes for civic philanthropy, helping others better themselves and improving society. Carnegie defended unregulated capitalism, saying that even though it might be "hard for the individual," it was "best for the race."

He practiced what he preached, giving away more than $350 million to fund libraries, universities, concert halls, and other public institutions. Other business leaders joined civic organizations and charitable institutions to tackle problems caused by rapid urbanization.

Critics attacked the philosophy as paternalistic and rooted in the bogus racial science of the era. For the exam, know both sides: philanthropy genuinely expanded educational opportunities and improved urban environments, but it also let the wealthy decide what "improvement" looked like.

Working Women in the Gilded Age

By 1900, one out of every five adult women was in the labor force. Most were young and single. Only 5 percent of married women worked outside the home, since both men and women at the time believed a woman's proper role (if the family could afford it) was raising children at home.

Key patterns to remember:

• Some women with access to higher education broke into professions as doctors, lawyers, and college professors.
• As demand for clerical workers grew, women moved into formerly male jobs: secretaries, bookkeepers, typists, and telephone operators.
• When occupations like nursing and teaching became feminized (majority women), they usually lost status and paid lower wages.
• Factory work for women clustered in industries seen as extensions of the home: textiles, garments, and food processing.

Suburbs and Urban Development

The American residential pattern flipped the European model. In Europe, higher-income people lived near city business districts while the poor lived on the outskirts. In the United States, the wealthy and middle class fled to the "healthier" suburbs, and by 1900, suburbs ringed every major American city. The single-family home with an ornamental lawn became the hallmark of middle-class status, making America the world's first suburban nation.

Why the Suburbs Grew

• Low-cost, abundant land made buying a home cheaper
• Inexpensive rail transportation made commuting easy
• New construction methods like wooden, balloon-frame houses cut building costs
• Some people wanted all-White communities because of ethnic and racial prejudice
• Many simply wanted grass, privacy, and detached houses

Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York's Central Park in the 1860s, went on to design suburban communities with curved roads and open spaces, what he called "a village in the park."

Private City vs. Public City

At first, private enterprise shaped American cities, providing streetcars and utilities for profit. Over time, disease, crime, waste, and water and air pollution convinced reformers and city governments to take on public responsibilities: water purification, sewerage systems, waste disposal, street lighting, police departments, and zoning laws. In the 1890s, the "City Beautiful" movement pushed grand plans for tree-lined boulevards, public parks, and cultural attractions. The tension between private good and public good in urban development stayed an open question.

Changes in Education

Education expanded dramatically at every level, and the literacy rate hit 90 percent of the population by 1900.

Public Schools

• Elementary schools kept emphasizing the "3 Rs" (reading, writing, arithmetic) and taught traditional moral values through McGuffey's readers, in use since the 1840s.
• New compulsory education laws required children to attend school, dramatically boosting enrollment.
• Kindergarten, a concept borrowed from Germany, became popular as interest in early-childhood education grew.
• Tax-supported public high schools spread. They started with college-prep curricula but became comprehensive, adding vocational and citizenship education for an urban society.

Higher Education

Demand for white-collar workers drove a sharp increase in colleges. Enrollment jumped from 50,000 students nationwide in 1870 to more than 600,000 by 1920. Funding came from several sources:

• The federal Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 gave land grants to states to establish colleges focused on agriculture, mining, engineering, science, and industry. These affordable state schools became valuable research centers.
• Wealthy philanthropists founded or expanded colleges. John D. Rockefeller funded the start of the University of Chicago.
• Advocates of women's education founded colleges like Smith, Bryn Mawr, and Mount Holyoke. By 1900, 71 percent of colleges admitted women, and women made up more than a third of all students.
• Supporters of education for African Americans founded more than 50 colleges and universities, including Fisk, Howard, Morehouse, and Meharry Medical College.

The curriculum modernized too. Charles W. Eliot, Harvard's president starting in 1869, cut required courses and introduced electives to make room for modern languages and sciences. Johns Hopkins University, founded in Baltimore in 1876, was the first American institution to specialize in advanced graduate studies, following the German model of research and free inquiry. Colleges also added social activities, fraternities, and intercollegiate sports.

Social Sciences and the Professions

Applying the scientific method and evolutionary theory to human society created new fields: psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science. Names to know:

• Richard T. Ely of Johns Hopkins studied labor unions and trusts, then attacked laissez-faire economics as dogmatic and outdated.
• W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard, used new statistical methods to study urban crime and advocated for racial equality, integrated schools, and higher education for the "talented tenth" of African Americans.
• Evolutionary thinking shaped sociologist Lester F. Ward, political scientist Woodrow Wilson, and historian Frederick Jackson Turner.

The professions changed too. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. argued the law should evolve with the times rather than stay locked to old precedents. Lawyer Clarence Darrow argued that criminal behavior could come from an environment of poverty, neglect, and abuse, challenging the belief that criminals were born or simply chose crime. These shifts helped fuel the progressive legislation of the 20th century, which connects directly to reform in the Gilded Age.

Growth of Popular Culture

Middle-class leisure became big business. Four factors drove it: shorter working hours, improved transportation, billboard and print advertising, and the decline of restrictive Puritan and Victorian values that frowned on "wasting" time on play.

Popular Press

Joseph Pulitzer's New York World became the first newspaper to top a million in circulation around 1890, mixing sensational crime stories with crusading exposés of corruption. William Randolph Hearst pushed scandal and sensationalism even further. Mass-circulation magazines like the Ladies' Home Journal sold for as little as 10 cents thanks to advertising revenue and new printing technology.

Amusements and Music

• Vaudeville variety shows drew the biggest theater audiences.
• Traveling circuses like Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey ("The Greatest Show on Earth") used the railroad network to move acts town to town.
• Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show brought Sitting Bull and markswoman Annie Oakley to urban audiences.
• Streetcar companies built countryside parks at the end of their lines to keep cars full on Sundays.
• By 1900, most large cities had an orchestra or opera house; John Philip Sousa's marches filled small-town bandstands.
• African American innovators in New Orleans created jazz (Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden), combining African rhythms with European instruments. Scott Joplin sold nearly a million copies of his "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) sheet music, and blues music expressed the pain of the Black experience. All three spread north to Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago.

Sports

• Baseball became the national pastime. By 1909, President Taft started the tradition of throwing out the first pitch. Owners organized teams into leagues much like the trusts of the era. Jim Crow laws and customs kept Black players out of all-White big-league baseball from the 1890s until 1947.
• Football began as a college game; the first game was Rutgers vs. Princeton in 1869.
• Basketball was invented in 1891 at Springfield College in Massachusetts, with the first pro league organized in 1898.
• Amateur sports split by class and gender: women were limited to croquet and bicycling, golf and tennis grew at athletic clubs, and the very rich played polo and yachted. Private clubs generally discriminated against Jews, Catholics, and African Americans.

Key Terms to Know

Practice and Next Steps

Pair these AMSCO notes with the Fiveable course guide for Topic 6.10: Development of the Middle Class, which frames the same content the way the exam tests it. Then keep moving through the full set of APUSH AMSCO notes, starting with 6.11 Reform in the Gilded Age, where the middle class and intellectuals you just studied start pushing for change.

To check your understanding, drill Period 6 multiple choice with guided practice questions and try writing a response in FRQ practice with instant scoring. The Gospel of Wealth and the growth of the middle class are classic SAQ and DBQ material.