AP US History Unit 6 Cheatsheet: Industrialization and the Gilded Age, 1865-1898

Large-scale production drivers:

• Technological innovation (mechanization, new processes)
• Abundant natural resources
• Pro-growth government policies (subsidies, tariffs)
• Expanding communication networks

Business growth & consolidation:

• Trusts & holding companies — placed legally separate firms under common control (no formal merger) to reduce competition, control prices, concentrate wealth
• Redesigned financial/management structures
• Advanced marketing techniques
• Larger, more diverse labor force

Real wages & living standards:

• Prices of goods decreased
• Workers' real wages increased
• New access to goods/services
• BUT: wealth gap between rich and poor grew dramatically

Workforce changes:

• Expanded industrial workforce
• Increased child labor
• Diversity through internal and international migration

Labor-management battles:

• Workers organized local and national unions
• Direct confrontation with business leaders
• Disputes centered on wages and working conditions

Key tension: Workers sought fair wages and safety; employers sought maximum production and profit. Strikes and organizing reflected workers' power to resist consolidation.

Laissez-faire view:

• Competition promotes long-term growth
• Oppose government intervention during downturns
• Market self-corrects

Alternative perspectives:

• Agrarians & Populists: called for stronger government regulation of economy
• Social Darwinists: justified wealth inequality as natural and inevitable
• Gospel of Wealth: wealthy have moral duty to help less fortunate through philanthropy
• Socialists, utopians, Social Gospel advocates: championed alternative economic visions

Financial instability: Panics and downturns fueled these competing ideologies.