AP®︎ US History Unit 6: Notes & Study Guide
Prepare for your quiz, test, or the AP exam with a comprehensive review on Unit 6 of AP US History – Period 6 (1865–1898).
Unit 6: Period 6 (1865–1898)
This unit focuses on the rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigration that transformed the U.S. during the Gilded Age. It also explores social tensions, labor struggles, and political debates over the role of government and reform.
Begin with Topic 6.1: Contextualizing Period 6To review Unit 6, go through each of the 14 topics below.
Everything you actually need to know for your Unit 6 test, pulled directly from the AP® U.S. History curriculum.
Contextualizing Period 6
Contextualizing Period 6
- What Industrial Capitalism Was in Period 6
- Why Industrial Capitalism Grew So Fast
- How Big Business and Agriculture Changed
Westward Expansion: Economic Development
Westward Expansion: Economic Development
- How the West Became Part of a National Market
- Federal Policies and Infrastructure That Drove Settlement
- The Main Engines of Western Economic Growth
Westward Expansion: Social and Cultural Development
Westward Expansion: Social and Cultural Development
- Why People Moved West and What They Built
- Who Lived in the West
- Conflict Over Land, Resources, and Sovereignty
The “New South”
The “New South”
- What the New South Was
- How the Southern Economy Changed and Stayed the Same
- How White Supremacy Was Rebuilt Under Jim Crow
Technological Innovation
Technological Innovation
- How Technological Innovation Drove the Second Industrial Revolution
- The Big Technologies That Expanded Production
- Networks That Created a National Market
The Rise of Industrial Capitalism
The Rise of Industrial Capitalism
- What Industrial Capitalism Was After the Civil War
- How Big Business Worked
- How Corporations Consolidated Power
Labor in the Gilded Age
Labor in the Gilded Age
- How Industrial Capitalism Changed Work and Living Standards
- What Work Was Like for Industrial Laborers
- How Workers Organized and What Unions Wanted
Immigration and Migration in the Gilded Age
Immigration and Migration in the Gilded Age
- Why People Moved in the Gilded Age
- Where Migrants Came From and Where They Settled
- Internal Migration and the Expanding Industrial Workforce
Responses to Immigration in the Gilded Age
Responses to Immigration in the Gilded Age
- How Immigration Changed American Life and Sparked Conflicting Responses
- Assimilation, Americanization, and Immigrant Communities
- Reformers Tried to Help Immigrants but Also Tried to Change Them
Development of the Middle Class
Development of the Middle Class
- How Industrialization Grew a New Middle Class
- Education and Access to Middle-Class Opportunity
- Women, Consumer Culture, and Leisure
Reform in the Gilded Age
Reform in the Gilded Age
- How Gilded Age Reform Responded to Industrial Capitalism
- Competing Economic Alternatives to Laissez-Faire
- The Social Gospel and Cultural Criticism
Controversies over the Role of Government in the Gilded Age
Controversies over the Role of Government in the Gilded Age
- What the Government’s Economic Role Was in the Gilded Age
- Why Laissez-Faire Was Contradictory in Practice
- Economic Crises and Demands for a Bigger Federal Role
Politics in the Gilded Age
Politics in the Gilded Age
- What Gilded Age Politics Were
- Republicans and Democrats in the Gilded Age
- Patronage, Corruption, and Urban Machines
Continuity and Change in Period 6
Continuity and Change in Period 6
- How Industrialization Changed the United States from 1865 to 1898
- The New Industrial Economy
- Labor, Farmers, and the Backlash against Industrial Capitalism
Notes
1 credit used · 5/5 remaining