AP U.S. History / Period 6: 1865–1898
Lesson
Factories, cities, and labor conflict
Industrial wealth and industrial work arrived together.
Learning goals
- Explain how large-scale industry changed work and cities.
- Describe why workers organized and why they often lost strikes.
Explanation
Railroads, steel, oil, and finance concentrated capital in corporations that could hire thousands and set prices across regions. Cities grew around factories and ports. Immigrants and rural migrants supplied labor, while tenements, machines, and long hours defined much urban work.
Workers answered with unions, strikes, and political campaigns. Employers answered with lockouts, private guards, court injunctions, and sometimes federal troops. The period's politics often looked corrupt because business and government bargains were highly visible. When you write about the Gilded Age, pair a fortune with a workplace.
Key terms
- Gilded Age. A name for the late-nineteenth-century mix of showy wealth, industrial growth, and sharp social conflict.
- union. An organization of workers formed to bargain over wages, hours, and conditions.
Common mistakes
- Telling only an inventor-and-tycoon story with no labor or immigration.
- Assuming every strike succeeded or that all workers shared one program.
Practice
Original Marlow Works items. Check the answer explanation after you try.
Which weakness of the Articles of Confederation most directly encouraged support for a new constitution in the 1780s?
Original Marlow Works item — not a College Board question.
Take your time—this is practice, not a test.
Answer explanation
What two groups should appear in a paragraph about industrial growth?
Answer. Owners who organized capital and workers who organized—or tried to organize—the shop floor.
Industry is a relationship, not a list of products.
Related resources
External links with reuse status. Marlow Works is independent and does not copy restricted exam or textbook material.
Official / link only
AP U.S. History course page
Official nine-period framework, skills, and exam updates.
College Board · All rights reserved · accessed 2026-10-01
Open sourceCC BY — attribution required
U.S. History (Open Textbook Library)
Open U.S. history textbook for chronology and institutions background.
Open Textbook Library listing · CC BY · accessed 2026-10-01
Open source