Cambridge A Level World History (9489): The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, 1870-1920 – Study Guide

The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, 1870-1920 is the second AS topic of the American option in Cambridge International History 9489. It asks why the USA industrialised so rapidly after 1870, what the consequences were for workers, cities, farmers and politics, why a Progressive reform movement grew, and how successful it was by 1920. The syllabus pairs the problems of the Gilded Age with the Progressive response, so the strongest answers link the two.

Where this fits in 9489

Under the 2027-2029 rotation this is the American option’s Paper 1 (Historical Sources) topic in 2027 – the syllabus’s own specimen part (a) example asks candidates to compare sources about the Sherman Anti-Trust Act – and a Paper 2 (Outline Study) topic in 2028 and 2029. Companion pages: Gilded Age and Progressive Era revision notes, History of the USA practice questions, and the option overview, History of the USA, 1820-1941.

Syllabus coverage

CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL AS & A LEVEL HISTORY (9489), 2027-2029 – TOPIC 5: THE GILDED AGE AND THE PROGRESSIVE ERA, 1870-1920

• 5.1 Why was there rapid industrialisation after 1870? The Civil War’s impact (opening of the West, railroads, industry); population growth (migration of emancipated slaves north and west; mass immigration); natural resources, energy and export markets; limited regulation, tariffs, money supply, capital and banking; technology (electric power, the internal combustion engine, the typewriter and telephone, patents, steel); attitudes to commercial success.
• 5.2 What were the consequences of rapid growth? Growth and the “Panics”; living and working conditions, housing, health and the “Boss” system; trusts and monopolies and their effect on parties, states, Congress, the federal government and the economy; the Robber Barons; organised labour (the National Labor movement, the Knights of Labor, the AFL); farm organisations, the Grangers and the Greenback Party.
• 5.3 Why did the Progressive Movement develop, and what were its aims and policies? Muckrakers, temperance, banking panics and concentrated wealth, urbanisation and corruption, women’s demands; electoral reform (the franchise, primaries, direct election of Senators, civil service reform); regulation of unions, working conditions, banks, insurance, trusts and the Stock Market.
• 5.4 How successful was the Progressive Movement, 1890-1920? Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson and the changing presidency; regulation of transport, food and drugs, the environment, conditions, business and corruption; the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th Amendments; pressure groups and women; remaining problems (limited legislation, minorities, gender inequality, rural deprivation).

5.1 Why did the USA industrialise so rapidly after 1870?

The Civil War’s legacy. Wartime Republican Congresses passed the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act (both 1862), and the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. Railroads opened the West to farming and mining, created a national market and were themselves the largest consumers of iron, steel and coal.

People. Population roughly doubled between 1870 and 1900. Millions of immigrants – increasingly from southern and eastern Europe – supplied cheap labour, while some freed African Americans moved north and west, such as the “Exodusters” to Kansas in 1879.

Resources and markets. The USA had coal, iron ore, timber, copper and, after the first commercial oil well in Pennsylvania (1859), oil; abundant food fed a growing workforce, and exports of grain and manufactures expanded.

Government. Washington did little to regulate business but helped it: high tariffs (such as the McKinley Tariff, 1890) protected industry, land grants subsidised railroads, and the courts protected property. There was no central bank until 1913, so capital came from private bankers such as J. P. Morgan and from European investors.

Technology. The telephone (Bell, 1876), the typewriter, electric lighting and power stations (Edison, from 1879-82), the internal combustion engine and the Bessemer and open-hearth processes for steel transformed production, encouraged by a patent system that rewarded inventors.

Attitudes. Success was widely admired: Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” (1889) and the popular “rags to riches” stories of Horatio Alger celebrated self-made men, and Social Darwinist ideas were used to justify inequality.

5.2 What were the consequences of rapid growth?

Boom and bust. Growth was punctuated by severe Panics, in 1873 and 1893, caused by speculation in railroads, over-expansion and weak banking; each brought bank failures, mass unemployment and wage cuts.

Cities. Workers lived in overcrowded tenements with poor sanitation and high disease rates, described in Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890). City politics were run by “Bosses” and machines such as New York’s Tammany Hall under William Tweed, which traded jobs and favours for votes and took bribes from contractors.

Trusts and monopolies. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, Carnegie’s steel empire and Morgan’s US Steel (1901) dominated whole industries. Business money influenced parties, state legislatures and Senators (who were chosen by state legislatures). Critics called the magnates Robber Barons; defenders saw them as “captains of industry” who cut prices. Federal responses – the Interstate Commerce Act (1887) and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) – were weakly enforced and at first used more against unions than corporations.

Labour. The National Labor Union (1866) sought an eight-hour day; the Knights of Labor, open to unskilled workers and women, grew rapidly in the mid-1880s but declined after the Haymarket bombing (1886); the American Federation of Labor (1886) under Samuel Gompers organised skilled craft workers for “bread and butter” gains. Violent strikes such as Homestead (1892) and Pullman (1894) showed employers’ power, backed by courts and troops.

Farmers. Falling prices, debt and railroad freight charges drove farmers to organise. The Grangers (Patrons of Husbandry) set up co-operatives and won state laws regulating railroads; the Greenback Party demanded paper money to raise prices; in the 1890s the People’s (Populist) Party carried these demands into national politics.

5.3 Why did the Progressive Movement develop?

Progressives were mainly middle-class reformers who believed government should correct the abuses of industrial society. Causes included:

• Muckrakers – journalists such as Ida Tarbell (on Standard Oil), Lincoln Steffens (city corruption) and Upton Sinclair (The Jungle, 1906, on meatpacking) – who exposed abuses to a mass readership.
• The temperance movement (the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League), linking drink to poverty and machine politics.
• Repeated banking panics and the concentration of wealth.
• Rapid urbanisation and endemic corruption.
• Women’s groups demanding social change and a role in public life, from settlement houses such as Jane Addams’s Hull House to the suffrage campaign.

Aims and policies. Progressives sought to reform democracy – the secret ballot, direct primary elections, initiative, referendum and recall in some states, the direct election of Senators, and civil service reform building on the Pendleton Act (1883). They sought to regulate business and conditions: limits on working hours, child labour laws, factory safety, recognition of unions, and new controls over banks, insurance companies, trusts and the stock market.

5.4 How successful was the Progressive Movement?

President	Key measures	Significance
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09)	“Square Deal”; Northern Securities case; mediation in the 1902 coal strike; Hepburn Act (1906); Pure Food and Drug and Meat Inspection Acts (1906); national forests and conservation	Made the presidency an active “steward” of the public interest
William Howard Taft (1909-13)	More antitrust suits than Roosevelt, including the break-up of Standard Oil (1911); Mann-Elkins Act (1910)	Effective regulator but split the Republicans
Woodrow Wilson (1913-21)	“New Freedom”; Underwood Tariff with income tax (1913); Federal Reserve Act (1913); Clayton Anti-Trust Act and Federal Trade Commission (1914)	Greatest legislative output, though more sympathetic to business than his rhetoric suggested

Amendments. The 16th (1913) allowed a federal income tax; the 17th (1913) provided direct election of Senators; the 18th (ratified 1919) introduced Prohibition; the 19th (1920) gave women the vote, the result of decades of pressure-group campaigning.

Limits. Much legislation was modest or weakly enforced, and courts struck down some laws. Progressivism largely ignored or worsened the position of minorities: segregation spread in the South and in federal offices under Wilson, Native Americans lost land under allotment, and immigration restriction gained support. Gender inequality remained in pay and work, and rural deprivation persisted. A balanced verdict: Progressives changed the role of government permanently but left many problems unsolved.

Worked example: a Paper 2 part (b) plan

“The Progressive Movement achieved more under Wilson than under Roosevelt.” How far do you agree? [20]

For Wilson: the Federal Reserve, Clayton Act, FTC and the income tax restructured banking and business regulation. For Roosevelt: he changed the presidency itself, revived antitrust law, passed the first food and drug regulation and launched federal conservation. Judge using a clear criterion – for example, lasting institutional change (favouring Wilson) against the shift in expectations of government (favouring Roosevelt).

Common mistakes

• Treating “Gilded Age” and “Progressive Era” as separate stories without linking problems to responses.
• Confusing the Sherman (1890) and Clayton (1914) Acts.
• Assuming Progressives supported racial equality.
• Listing inventions without explaining how they increased output.

Frequently asked questions

What does “Gilded Age” mean? The term, taken from a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner (1873), suggests a thin layer of gold covering serious social problems.

Were the Populists Progressives? No, but many Populist demands – an income tax, direct election of Senators, regulation of railroads – were later achieved in the Progressive Era.

When is this topic on Paper 1? 2027, in the 2027-2029 rotation.

Official syllabus

Cambridge International AS & A Level History (9489) syllabus for 2027, 2028 and 2029, Version 2 – cambridgeinternational.org (subject content, topic 5; Topics assessed on Paper 1 and Paper 2; Paper 1 part (a) example). Always check the current syllabus before an exam.