The Gilded Age (People)
As the first person to document the term “Gilded Age,” this individual used the expression in the title of his 1873 novel about politics involving the glorification of wealth and class separation during the late 1800s.
Mark Twain
A legislative change that pushed government jobs to be a merit-based system rather than a spoils system.
Civil Service Reform
This is the vast arid territory where many Americans began to settle following the Civil War
Great Plains
The populists proposed this constitutional amendment to allow for the popular election of the president and vice president, a significant shift from the original electoral college system.
What is the direct election of the president?
This man built an empire in the steel industry, using vertical integration to control all aspects of production.
Andrew Carnegie?
Serving as the 22nd and 24th president of the U.S., this democratic politician was first elected in 1884, believed in a limited central government, and signed the Dawes Act and Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 into law.
Grover Cleveland
Act that set up the Civil Service Commission and created a system where applicants for classified federal jobs would be selected based on scores received on a competitive examination.
Pendleton Act of 1881
This act encouraged farming on the Great Plains by offering 160 acres of public free land to any family that settled on it for a period of five years.
Homestead Act of 1862
This influential newspaper, founded by the Populists, served as a platform for their ideas and helped spread their message to a wider audience.
What is The Appeal to Reason?
This major railroad project, completed in 1869, connected the East Coast to the West Coast, transforming trade and transportation in the U.S.
What is the Transcontinental Railroad?
To aid government finances in the 1840s, President Cleveland asked this investment banker to lend the government $65 million worth of gold. This individual was also involved in the reorganization and financial control of various railroads after many railroads went bankrupt during the Panic of 1893.
J.P. Morgan
A faction of the republican party led by James G. Blaine; they were the rivals of the Stalwarts when it came to patronage positions.
Halfbreeds
This act was designed to break up tribal organizations, and it divided the tribal lands into plots of up to 160 acres.
Dawes Act of 1887
This term describes the Populist strategy of forming coalitions with labor unions to advance their shard interests against big businesses.
What is the labor solidarity?
This act, passed in 1890, aimed to prevent monopolies and restore competition by outlawing business practices that restrained trade.
What is the Sherman Antitrust Act?
As a democratic nominee, this individual lost three presidential elections between the late 1890s and early 1900s. Formerly serving as a representative of Nebraska, his first nomination was the result of his notorious speech given in 1896 regarding the financial actions of the federal government.
William Jennings Bryan
A faction of the republican party led by powerful Republican Senator Roscoe Conkling; they were rivals with the halfbreeds when it came to patronage positions.
Stalwarts
An African American scientist at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, promoted the growing of such crops as peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soy beans.
George Washington Carver
This term describes the political alliance between the Populists and the Democratic Party during the 1896 presidential election, which aimed to unite the working class and farmers.
What is the fusion movement?
This businessman dominated the oil industry, creating the Standard Oil Company, which controlled nearly all oil production in the U.S.
Who is John D. Rockefeller?
This individual was one of 14 members of the Greenback party elected to Congress after the congressional election of 1878. He later became associated with the Populist Party as a party leader and represented Iowa in Congress
James B. Weaver
Republicans who didn’t play patronage, and were given their name for “sitting on the fence”.
Mugwumps
Wrote an influential essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893). Argued that 300 of frontier experience had shaped American culture by promoting independence and individualism.
Frederick Jackson Turner
This influential document adopted in 1892, outlined the goals and demands of the Populist Party, including the call for a more equitable economic system.
What is the Omaha Platform?
This system of business management, which divides production into smaller tasks to increase efficiency, was widely adopted during the industrialization of the Gilded Age.
What is the assembly line?