What changed and what stayed the same in the United States across the Gilded Age, and how do you turn that into a continuity and change argument?
Topic 6.14 Continuity and Change in Period 6: using the historical reasoning skill of continuity and change over time to analyze the transformations of the Gilded Age.
A focused answer to AP US History Topic 6.14, teaching the historical reasoning skill of continuity and change over time through Period 6: what the Gilded Age transformed (the economy, cities, the West) and what persisted (racial inequality, laissez-faire politics), and how to frame a continuity and change essay.
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What this topic is asking
Topic 6.14 asks you to use the historical reasoning skill of continuity and change over time to analyze Period 6. The exam wants you to identify what the Gilded Age transformed, the economy, the cities, the West, and what persisted despite that upheaval, above all racial inequality and the dominance of laissez-faire politics, and to turn that contrast into an argument.
What continuity and change over time means
The great changes of the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age was an age of profound change:
- Economy. The United States transformed from a rural, agrarian society into the world's foremost industrial economy, dominated by trusts and corporations.
- Cities. Mass immigration and internal migration turned the nation urban, creating diverse cities, a new middle class, and machine politics.
- The West. Railroads, the Homestead Act, and the army opened the West to settlement, and the frontier was declared closed in 1890.
The stubborn continuities
Linking Period 6 forward
A strong continuity and change argument connects the period to what follows. The Gilded Age's defining tensions, the concentration of corporate power, urban poverty, and the demand for an active government voiced by the Populists, did not resolve in 1898. They flowed directly into the Progressive Era of Period 7, when reformers finally built a more regulatory state, broke up some trusts, and amended the Constitution. Showing how a change of one period seeds the next is one of the surest ways to earn the complexity point.
Worked example: framing a continuity and change essay
Try this
Q1. Name the 1896 Supreme Court case that endorsed "separate but equal" and entrenched segregation. [Recall]
- Cue. Plessy v. Ferguson, a key continuity showing that racial inequality persisted through the Gilded Age.
Q2. Explain why the relationship between government and the economy is better described as a continuity than a change in this period. [Short explanation]
- Cue. Although corporations grew enormously, the dominant political belief remained laissez-faire, and the era's regulation, the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act, was too weak to restrain big business; real government activism would not arrive until the Progressive Era, so government's hands-off stance largely persisted across the period.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of College Board exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AP USH (style)3 marksBriefly describe ONE major change in the United States between 1865 and 1898. Briefly explain ONE significant continuity across the same period. Briefly explain ONE way a change of the period shaped the era that followed.Show worked answer →
A Short Answer Question (SAQ), 3 points, one per bullet.
A. Describe: the United States changed from a rural, agrarian republic into the world's leading industrial and increasingly urban economy.
B. Continuity: racial inequality persisted and even hardened, as Reconstruction's promise gave way to Jim Crow segregation and the dispossession of American Indians.
C. After 1898: the inequality and corporate power of the Gilded Age provoked the Progressive reform movement of Period 7.
Markers want a real change, a genuine continuity, and a concrete link forward.
AP USH (style)6 marksEvaluate the extent of change in the relationship between government and the economy in the period 1865 to 1898.Show worked answer →
A Long Essay Question (LEQ), scored on the 6-point rubric, framed by continuity and change.
Thesis (1): "The relationship between government and the economy changed only modestly in this period, as laissez-faire still dominated and early regulation proved weak, though the rise of the trusts and the Populist revolt began a shift toward an activist state that would mature after 1900."
Contextualization (1): the rise of giant corporations in a political culture committed to laissez-faire.
Evidence (2): the weak Interstate Commerce Act and Sherman Antitrust Act; the Populist demand for an active government.
Analysis (2): explain HOW regulation remained limited while pressure for change built, then add complexity by weighing the seeds of the Progressive state.
Related dot points
- Topic 6.1 Contextualizing Period 6: the industrial, demographic, and political forces that reshaped the United States during the Gilded Age between 1865 and 1898.
Sets the scene for AP US History Period 6, covering the rise of industrial capitalism, the settlement of the West, mass immigration and urban growth, the new conflicts over labor and the role of government, and how to write contextualization for a DBQ or LEQ on the Gilded Age.
- Topics 6.5 and 6.6 Technological Innovation and the Rise of Industrial Capitalism: the new technologies, business structures, and ideologies that drove the United States to global industrial leadership between 1865 and 1898.
A focused answer to AP US History Topics 6.5 and 6.6, covering the rise of industrial capitalism: new technologies and the railroads, Carnegie and Rockefeller, vertical and horizontal integration and trusts, Social Darwinism and the Gospel of Wealth, and the first federal response in the Sherman Antitrust Act.
- Topics 6.2 and 6.3 Westward Expansion: the economic, social, and cultural development of the West, federal land policy, and the dispossession of American Indians between 1865 and 1898.
A focused answer to AP US History Topics 6.2 and 6.3, covering western settlement: the railroads, the Homestead Act, mining, ranching, and farming, the closing of the frontier, and the dispossession of American Indians through reservations, the Dawes Act, and Wounded Knee.
- Topics 6.8 and 6.9 Immigration, Urbanization, and Responses: the new immigration, the growth of cities, the rise of a middle class, and the nativist reaction between 1865 and 1898.
A focused answer to AP US History Topics 6.8 and 6.9, covering immigration and urbanization in the Gilded Age: the new immigration from southern and eastern Europe, the growth and problems of cities, the rise of the middle class, political machines, and the nativist reaction including the Chinese Exclusion Act.
- Topics 6.11 to 6.13 Reform, the Role of Government, and Politics: Gilded Age party politics, debates over the role of government, the agrarian revolt, and the rise and fall of Populism between 1865 and 1898.
A focused answer to AP US History Topics 6.11 to 6.13, covering Gilded Age politics: party machines and corruption, civil service and tariff debates over the role of government, the agrarian revolt and the Populist movement, the Omaha Platform and free silver, and the pivotal election of 1896.
Sources & how we know this
- AP United States History Course and Exam Description — College Board (2020)