Social Studies Assignment Sheet:
The Gilded Age
HW #GA-1
Read pp. 608-613
A New Industrial Revolution
Key IDs: • assembly line • rebate • Bessemer process
1. In the late 1800s, how did westward expansion help in the nation’s industrial growth?
2. How did railroads aid in industrialization?
3. What practices did railroad companies use to gain advantages over their competition?
4. How did railroad companies’ policies help big companies but hurt farmers and small businesses?
5. How did patents help motivate individuals to develop new inventions?
6. What are the advantages to businesses that use mass production and the assembly line?
HW #GA-2
Read pp. 382-383, 311, 614-616
The Industrial Revolution /
Jefferson Charts a New Course / Big Business
Key IDs: • capitalists • laissez faire • corporation • monopoly • trust • free enterprise
• “robber baron” • “captain of industry”
1. How would you define laissez faire capitalism?
2. How might a corporation have an advantage over a business that is not a corporation?
3. Why might investors buy or sell stock?
4. Why did entrepreneurs want to control monopolies?
5. How might monopolies be dangerous to citizens and workers in society?
6. In what ways does business competition benefit consumers?
HW #GA-3
Read pp. 616-619
Organized Labor
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire • labor union • collective bargaining
1. What dangers did factory workers face?
2. How is collective bargaining helpful to Unions?
3. How did labor unions work for better rights in the workplace?
4. Why do you think unions were so important to laborers in the late 19th century?
5. How did big business change the workplace and give rise to labor unions?
HW #GA-4
Read pp. 625-629
The New Immigrants
Key IDs: • assimilation • “new immigrants” • nativism • anarchist
1. Why did many people leave their homelands for the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s?
Give examples.
2. How did the “new immigrants” differ from the “old immigrants” – immigrants who arrived in
the mid-1800s?
3. How did immigrants try to assimilate?
4. Why did nativists oppose immigration? What were nativists’ fears?
5. How did nativists oppose immigration? Use specific evidence to answer this question.
HW #GA-5
Read pp. 620-624
Cities Grow and Change
Key IDs: • settlement house • Hull House
1. How did increased industrialization lead to increased urbanization?
2. How did the lives of the urban poor compare to those of the middle class and the wealthy?
3. Describe the conditions in tenements.
4. How did reformers work to help the urban poor? Explain at least three specific examples.
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