The Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Industry, cities, workers and reform in the United States, about 1870 to 1920
In fifty years the United States changed from a country of farms and small towns into the world’s largest industrial economy. Railroads crossed the continent, steel mills and oil refineries made a few men fabulously rich, and millions of immigrants crowded into fast-growing cities. Workers went on strike, farmers formed their own political party, and reformers known as Progressives pushed the government to regulate big business, clean up politics and protect children, workers and consumers. By 1920 the country was also a world power, and women had won the vote.
The course picks up where the Civil War and Reconstruction left off. Start with Industrialization; more units are on the way.
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Industrialization and the Gilded Age
Railroads, steel, oil and electricity after 1865; Carnegie, Rockefeller and Morgan; child labor; and the first laws to rein in big business. Includes a timeline, a “Captain or robber baron?” activity, primary sources and a quiz.
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All six units are ready, and the course is complete. Work through them in order, from industrialization to World War I.
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Industrialization and the Gilded Age
Railroads, steel, oil and electricity, and the tycoons who built them.
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Immigration and the Growth of Cities
New arrivals from Europe, Asia and Mexico, tenements, political machines and the first skyscrapers.
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Labor and Unions
The Knights of Labor and the AFL, and the strikes of 1877, 1892 and 1894.
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Populism and the Farmers’ Revolt
The Grange, the People’s Party, the Omaha Platform and the election of 1896.
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The Progressive Era
Muckrakers, trust-busting, food and drug laws, and votes for women.
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America as a World Power
Hawaii, the war with Spain, the Panama Canal and World War I.
The Era at a Glance
A few landmark dates. Each unit covers its part of the story in more detail.
- 1869 The first transcontinental railroad is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory.
- 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner publish The Gilded Age, the novel that gave the era its name.
- 1877 The Great Railroad Strike spreads across the country.
- 1882 Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first federal law to bar immigrants by nationality. It built on the Page Act of 1875, which had already kept out most Chinese women.
- 1886 The Haymarket bombing in Chicago, and the founding of the American Federation of Labor.
- 1890 The Sherman Antitrust Act becomes law.
- 1892 The new People’s Party adopts its Omaha Platform. Ellis Island opens to immigrants.
- 1898 The United States wins the Spanish–American War and takes Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
- 1901 Theodore Roosevelt becomes president after William McKinley is assassinated.
- 1906 Congress passes the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.
- 1913 The 16th Amendment allows a federal income tax, and the 17th provides for direct election of senators.
- 1917 The United States enters World War I.
- 1920 The 19th Amendment is ratified, barring states from denying women the vote because of sex.