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AP US History — Periods 6–9 (1865–present) flashcards

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Seventy cause-and-consequence cards from the Gilded Age to the war on terror: industry and labor, Populism and Jim Crow, Progressivism, empire, the world wars, the New Deal, the Cold War, civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, Reagan and globalization.

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Learn deck · part of AP US History · written against: College Board AP US History Course and Exam Description (nine periods). Updated 2026-10-10.

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  1. What is the difference between calling Gilded Age industrialists 'robber barons' and 'captains of industry'?
    Critics used robber baron for men like Rockefeller, Carnegie and Vanderbilt who crushed competitors, squeezed workers and bought politicians; admirers called the same men captains of industry who built railroads, steel and oil into efficient national industries and endowed libraries and universities.
    Period 6 › Industry and Labor
  2. How did Carnegie's vertical integration differ from Rockefeller's horizontal integration?
    Carnegie Steel owned every stage of production, from iron ore and coal to railroads and mills (vertical integration), cutting out middlemen. Standard Oil instead bought up or drove out rival refiners until it controlled about ninety percent of U.S. refining (horizontal integration), using the trust as its legal device.
    Period 6 › Industry and Labor
  3. What did Social Darwinism claim, and how did Carnegie's 'Gospel of Wealth' modify it?
    Social Darwinists such as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner applied survival of the fittest to society: wealth proved fitness, poverty proved its lack, and government aid interfered with natural progress. Carnegie accepted that the fittest rose but argued the rich held their fortunes in trust and were obliged to give them away for public benefit, such as libraries.
    Period 6 › Industry and Labor
  4. What did the muckrakers do, and which laws followed Upton Sinclair's The Jungle?
    Investigative journalists such as Ida Tarbell (Standard Oil) and Lincoln Steffens (city corruption) exposed abuses to build public pressure for reform. Sinclair's 1906 novel about Chicago's packinghouses so disgusted readers that Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act the same year.
    Period 7 › Progressive Era
  5. How did Theodore Roosevelt distinguish 'good' trusts from 'bad' ones, and which case made his reputation as a trust-buster?
    Roosevelt accepted big business as inevitable and sought to regulate it, prosecuting only combinations that abused their power. His 1902 suit against the Northern Securities railroad holding company, upheld by the Supreme Court in 1904, was the first major Sherman Act victory against a giant corporation.
    Period 7 › Progressive Era
  6. Which two 1913 amendments came out of Progressive demands, and what did each do?
    The Sixteenth authorized a federal income tax, giving the government revenue independent of tariffs; the Seventeenth required senators to be elected directly by the people rather than by state legislatures, which Progressives saw as bought by business.
    Period 7 › Progressive Era
  7. What did George Kennan's 'containment' propose, and why did it become U.S. strategy?
    In his 1946 Long Telegram and 1947 'X' article, Kennan argued that the Soviet Union was expansionist but cautious, so firm long-term resistance at every point of pressure would eventually force it to mellow or collapse. It offered a middle path between appeasement and war and guided policy for four decades.
    Period 8 › Early Cold War
  8. What did the Truman Doctrine commit the United States to, and what prompted it?
    In March 1947, when Britain could no longer support Greece against communist insurgents or Turkey against Soviet pressure, Truman asked Congress for 400 million dollars and declared the U.S. would support free peoples resisting subjugation anywhere. It turned containment into an open-ended global commitment.
    Period 8 › Early Cold War
  9. What fueled the rise of the New Right by the end of the 1970s?
    Evangelical Christians mobilized by the Moral Majority (1979) against abortion after Roe v. Wade, feminism and school-prayer rulings; suburban taxpayers behind California's Proposition 13 tax revolt (1978); and Cold War hawks angered by détente and the Iran hostage crisis. Reagan united these strands in 1980.
    Period 9 › Reagan to 9/11
  10. What were the main elements of 'Reaganomics,' and what were its results?
    Supply-side tax cuts (the 1981 act lowered the top rate from 70 to 50 percent), deregulation, cuts to domestic social programs and a large defense buildup. Inflation fell (helped by the Federal Reserve's tight money) and growth resumed after the 1981–82 recession, but the national debt roughly tripled and income inequality widened.
    Period 9 › Reagan to 9/11

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About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

  • Topic outline follows the College Board AP U.S. History Course and Exam Description (effective Fall 2026), Periods 6–9 (outline only; no course or exam text reproduced).
  • OpenStax U.S. History, consulted as a reference; no text copied.
  • Checked against the National Archives' Milestone Documents collection (public domain); reference only, no text copied.
  • Dates and holdings cross-checked with Library of Congress primary-source guides and Oyez case summaries; reference only.
  • Also checked against the State Department Office of the Historian's Milestones, National Park Service pages and federal statutes on govinfo.gov (U.S. government works; public domain); reference only, no text copied.

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