The Gilded Age Review Game - Duluth High School

The Gilded Age Review Game
1. Name THREE groups of Americans that populated the West from 1870 to 1900 (Gilded Age):
2. Name TWO acts of Congress from 1860 to 1900 that facilitated western migration during the Gilded Age:
3. Name the winners of the FIVE presidential elections in 1880, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1896
(Hint: Rutherford Hayes won in 1876).
4. What was the most significant platform issue of Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the election of 1896?
5. Name TWO significant strikes of the Gilded Age:
6. The Supreme Court cases E.C. Knight Company (1895) and In RE Debs (1895) are similar because they
reveal in ineffectiveness of this 1890 act of Congress
7. In the Wabash v Illinois case in 1879, the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot regulate railroads because
it involved interstate trade. How did Congress respond?
8. Name two ways companies in the Gilded Age became monopolistic
9. How did Congress respond when President Garfield was assassinated?
10. Two part question: (a) What is a political machine? and (b) Who was the most famous person associated
with machine politics in the Gilded Age?
11. Name THREE factors that led to a more “outward” foreign policy for the USA during the Gilded Age:
12. Name THREE overseas territories acquired by the US from 1865 to 1900:
13. Name TWO ways the annexation of Hawaii and Texas were similar:
14. Name THREE reasons for the US declaration of war against Spain in 1898:
15. The naval strategist who advocated that a two-ocean navy was an integral part of America's wealth and
power was:
16. Why did Secretary of State John Hay call the Spanish-American War a “splendid little war”
17. Two Part Question: (a) Which US president was responsible for the annexation of both Hawaii and the
Philippines? (b) Which US president approved John Hay’s Open Door Policy in China?
The Gilded Age Review Game Continued
1. After the Civil War, three groups of Americans settled in the West (between the
Mississippi River & Pacific coast). Name two of these three groups
2. How did mining in the West after the Civil War differ from mining before the
Civil War?

3. Which group of Western Americans most used the “open range” and was hurt
by the introduction of barbed wire?
4. What was the Homestead Act of 1862?
5. One group of western farmers was called “exodusters”. What is an exoduster?
6. Name two ways railroads changed from the era before the Civil War to the
Gilded Age
7. The expansion of railroads after the Civil War was helped by two groups: the
national government and immigrants. Explain how both groups helped expand
railroads
8. Name three ways western expansion during the Gilded Age impacted Native
Americans (Plains Indians)
9. What was the final Indian battle in American history? (Hint: in 1890, the U.S.
military slaughtered over 200 Sioux after the Indians’ refusal to end their “ghost
dance” rituals)
10. Western farmers faced serious problems during the Gilded Age, which led to
the Populist movement. Name two problems faced by western farmers after
the Civil War
11. Who were the Grangers?
12. One of the reforms proposed by the Populist Party was bi-metalism. What is bimetalism
and what it the advantage for Populists?

13. Who were the Populists and name two things they demanded during the
Gilded Age?
14. Who was William Jennings Bryan?
15. Two part question: (a) One of the reasons for the boom in industry during the
Gilded Age was invention. Name two new inventions of this era. (b) Which
American was so famous for his inventions that he earned the nickname the
“Wizard of Menlo Park”?
16. Four major industries helped push the USA into an Industrial Revolution during
the Gilded Age. What were these four R.O.S.E. industries?
17. What industry was America’s first big business and helped stimulate the coal,
oil, steel and glass industries during the Gilded Age?
18. Monopolies began during the Gilded Age. What is a monopoly?
19. Two part question: What industries were (a) Vanderbilt and (b) Carnegie
involved in?
20. Three part question: What industries were (a) Rockefeller and (b) JP Morgan
each involved in?
21. During the Gilded Age, businesses were changing. What is a “trust” and a
“holding company”?
22. What is the difference between horizontal and vertical integration?

23. Monopolists like Carnegie and Rockefeller justified their wealth and power
using a number of arguments. Pick two of the following and explain them: (a)
Gospel of Wealth, (b) Social Darwinism, (c) laissez-faire policies
24. During the Gilded Age, 23 million “new Immigrants” came to America. What is
a “new” immigrant?
25. Immigrants coming to America came through which “processing center” in
New York?
26. Name three ways cities changed during the Gilded Age
27. What is a tenement?
28. Give one example of nativism in America during the Gilded Age
29. Two part question: (a) What is “labor”? (b) What is a “union”
30. What is “collective bargaining” and what tactic did unions use to try to
accomplish this?
31. How were the Knights of Labor different from the American Federation of
Labor?
32. During the Gilded Age, labor unions and business owners clashed in violent
strikes. Name one strike that turned violent.
33. What is a political machine?

34. Two part question: (a) Who was the most famous “boss” of a political
machine? (b) Why were machine bosses typically seen as corrupt?
35. What do Crédit Mobilier and the Whiskey Ring have in common?
36. Two part question: (a) What is patronage? (b) How did the Pendleton Act of
1883 try to end patronage?
37. Describe the South during the Gilded Age
38. Three part question: (a) What is a poll tax? (b) a literacy test? (c) a grandfather
clause?
39. Which Supreme Court case said that segregation was legal as long as the
options for African-Americans were equal (“separate but equal” doctrine)?
40. How were workers exploited during the Gilded Age?
Answers:
1. Gold and silver miners, cattle and sheep ranchers, homestead farmers
2. Any two will do: Homestead Act (160 acres of free land) , Morrill Land Act (public universities in the West),
authorization of the transcontinental railroad, relaxed immigration restrictions, creation of the concentration
policy that moved Indians into reservation to make room for migrating Americans, etc.
3. 1880—Garfield (Arthur filled in when Garfield was assassinated), 1884—Cleveland; 1888—Ben Harrison;
1892—Cleveland (again); 1896—McKinley
4. Free silver at 16:1 ratio to gold (“Cross of Gold” speech) (government regulation of railroads, 8-hour workday,
and breakup of monopolies were important but bi-metalism was THE issue)
5. Any two will do: Great Railroad Strike, Haymarket Strike (led to the death of the Knights of Labor), Homestead
Strike (at Carnegie Steel), Pullman Palace Car Strike (led to In RE Debs case), Coxey’s Army (not technically a
strike, but its an acceptable answer here).
6. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (was designed to break up monopolies but was used against labor unions)
7. Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroads

8. Any two will do: Vertical integration, horizontal integration, forming boards of trustees (to protect monopolists
from risk), forming holding companies, forming interlocking directorates (the same people sit on the boards of
trustees of multiple companies)
9. Because the assassin shot the president because Garfield would not grant him a patronage job, Congress passed
the Pendleton Act (civil service reform) by requiring civil service exams required for key bureaucratic positions
10. (a) a political organization in which a “boss” oversees the election of politicians (through patronage) by typically
offering services to voting immigrants and often receive rewards for their efforts; (b) Boss Tweed of New York’s
Tammany Hall
11. Any three will do: closing of the western frontier, rise of US industry, the demand for more economic markets &
raw materials, Social Darwinism & white supremacy, Christian conversion
12. Any three will do: Midway Island, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Manila, the Philippines
13. Any two will do: Americans moved there to gain profit, Americans grew unhappy with local Mexican/Hawaiian
laws & demanded (but failed) to get the US to annex, led a revolution against the government, became an
independent republic, were not immediately annexed by the US
14. Any three will do: Humanitarian concerns for Cuban people, yellow journalism, the USS Maine explosion, the
de Lome letter, Spain’s reconcentration policy
15. Alfred Thayer Mahan
16. Any one will do: the war only lasted 113 days; only cost 5,500 lives; led to recognition of the US as a world
power; the US gained Puerto Rico, Guam, & the Philippines
17. (a) William McKinley and (b) William McKinley
1. Miners, ranchers (cowboys), farmers (homesteaders)
2. Mining moved beyond California into Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, the Dakotas; Mining
emphasized gold, silver, copper, tin rather than just gold, corporate miners using hydraulic
mining techniques were more successful than individual “placer” miners
3. Ranchers (cowboys)
4. This law gave 160 acres of western land to farmers who promised to live on the land for at
least 5 years
5. An African-American who moved from the Jim Crow South into the West, usually through the
Homestead Act
6. During the Gilded Age, railroads became transcontinental; RRs developed time zones,
refrigerated cars, luxury passenger cars (Pullman Palace Cars); RRs companies built more
miles of track than in any other era, Vanderbilt built a RR monopoly; RR companies use

pooling and standardized gauges to make them more efficient; RR benefited from the
development of steel and new discoveries of coal; RRs became America’s first big business
7. The national government gave millions of acres of land grants to complete the
transcontinental railroad in order to connect the East with the West; Chinese and Irish
immigrants built the western and eastern legs of the transcontinental railroad
8. U.S. Indian policy changed from a huge “Indian Country” to small reservations as Americans
took more lands, Indians were asked to assimilate (convert) to white culture; Indians and
Americans clashed in a series of wars (Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee); Americans
destroyed the supply of buffalo
9. The Battle of Wounded Knee
10. Crop prices were falling, farmers were overproducing (by farming too much, their crops were
losing value), banks charged high interest rates (sometimes as high as 40%), railroads charged
high fees, the government deflated currency by destroying “greenbacks” (paper money), and
politicians ignored them
11. An early attempt by farmers to organize; Grangers demanded bank and railroad regulation
and tried to set up co-op stores and silos; they were unsuccessful but helped lead to the
formation of the Populists
12. Using both gold and silver as money (rather than just the gold standard). Bi-,metalism would
lead to inflation of the money supply which would help western farmers (the majority of the
Populists were western farmers) pay off their debts easier.
13. Populists were a political party made up mostly of western farmers. Among their demands
were: government regulation of railroads and banks, a national income tax, direct-election of
U.S. Senators, bi-metalism (gold and silver currency).
14. Bryan was a presidential candidate in the 1896 election. He represented both the Democratic
and Populist Parties. His “Cross of Gold” speech made him a national figure in the argument
for a bi-metal (gold and silver) money system. Bryan lost to McKinley in 1896.
15. (a) Electric light bulbs, phonograph, audio recorder, cash registers, typewriters, telephone,
Bessemer process to make steel, assembly lines, the first airplane, first car; (b) Thomas
Edison

16. Railroads, oil, steel, electricity
17. Railroads
18. A company that controls all or most of an industry
19. (a) Vanderbilt = Railroads, (b) Carnegie = Steel
20. (a) Rockefeller = Oil, (b) Morgan = Finance/banking
21. (a) A trust is a company run by a board of trustees which is a group of stockholders who help
manage the company (rather than the owner). Because most of the monopolies that formed
in the Gilded Age were run by boards of trustees, the term “trust” became synonymous with
the term “monopoly” (b) a holding company owns other companies and controls them
through a common board of directors. This is common among companies that merged
22. (a) Companies used horizontal integration to buy similar companies to reduce competition;
(b) Vertical integration allowed companies to buy companies that supply raw materials or
transportation for their products
23. (a) Social Gospel is the idea that God wants some people to make a lot of money so they can
give back through charity to make the world a better place; (b) Social Darwinism is natural
selection and evolution. This idea states that strong, efficient companies will survive and weak
companies will die. (c) Laissez-faire means that the national government does not regulate
companies and stays “hands off.”
24. Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe (specifically Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and
Poland) rather than Northern Europe (England, Ireland, and Germany…which were always the
dominant immigrant groups from the colonial era to the Civil War).
25. Ellis Island
26. Skyscrapers expanded the height of cities, urbanization led to the growth in size, immigration
led to the growth of cities; mass transit (subways, elevated railroads, trolley cars) were added
because cites were too large to walk, suburbs grew around the central business district of
cities, ethnic neighborhoods (enclaves) were formed among immigrant groups, slums grew,
tenement apartments were built for poor immigrant workers, crime and disease increased as
cities grew larger

27. An apartment built for poor immigrant workers; Typically, tenements were low-rent, poorly
constructed, and subject to fires and spreading of diseases
28. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; Prejudice against “new immigrants” by demanding quotas to
limit the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe
29. (a) “Labor” means workers, typically factory workers; (b) Unions are groups of workers from a
common profession (typically skilled professions like carpenters, mechanics, etc.) that
organize to demand better pay and working conditions in their jobs
30. Collective bargaining means all member of a union demand better pay or they threaten to
strike
31. Both were unions, but the Knights allowed any type of worker (regardless of race, sex, skill
level) to join as a member; The AFL was a union that only allowed white, skilled workers to
join. The AFL had very specific demands and was more successful than the Knights of Labor
32. Haymarket Strike, Homestead Strike, Pullman Strike
33. A well-organized group of politicians in a city. These politicians were led by a “boss” and were
very influential in getting immigrants to vote for them. They also tended to be very corrupt.
34. (a) Boss Tweed of New York’s Tammany Hall machine (b) Machines used fraud to win
elections, used their political influence for personal gain (called graft), took kickbacks &
bribes, defrauded city governments out of millions of dollars
35. These were political scandals during President Grant’s administration. These scandals involved
politicians taking bribes from railroad companies (Crédit Mobilier) and alcohol distillers
(Whiskey Ring)
36. (a) Appointing government workers in the civil service because they are loyal political party
members, not because they have earned it or are qualified. This is often called the spoils
system. (b) The Pendleton Act created an exam that civil service employees (like tax collectors
or post officers) had to pass before they could get their jobs. This created a merit-based
system.

37. The South was experiencing Jim Crow laws that legally segregated whites and blacks. Poll
taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses restricted African-American voting and allowed
whites to keep power
38. (a) Yearly taxes that must be paid in order to vote; These were high fees that kept most poor
black sharecroppers from voting ,(b) Voters must pass a reading test to be able to vote; This
kept most African-Americans from qualifying to vote, (c) Laws that allowed poor whites from
not having to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy test if their father or grandfather could vote
prior to 1867.
39. Plessy v Ferguson (1896)
40. Low pay, long hours, dangerous conditions, lived in tenements and slums, little power to
unionize