GED and HiSET social studies — immigration and the Gilded Age

Between the Civil War and the First World War, the United States became the world's largest industrial economy, and more than twenty million immigrants arrived to work in it. The existing US history material in this category covers the labor unions and the Progressive Era that grew out of this period; this one covers the period itself — who came, how they were received, how big business was built and how politics answered it.

The immigration questions follow the story from arrival to the laws that shaped it. Most of the new immigrants of 1880 to 1920 came from Italy, Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire, pushed by poverty and, for many Jews, by pogroms. They passed medical and legal inspection at Ellis Island in New York or Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred one nationality outright. The debate over restriction is set out as both sides made it — wages, unions and assimilation on one side, industrial labor and the tradition of refuge on the other — without hiding that prejudice drove some of it. The Immigration Act of 1924 then set national-origins quotas favoring Northern and Western Europe, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished them in favor of family ties and skills.

In the cities, political machines such as Tammany Hall traded help for votes, and settlement houses such as Jane Addams's Hull House offered classes, childcare and services. In business, Standard Oil's horizontal integration and Carnegie Steel's vertical integration show the two ways of building an industrial giant, and the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Act show the first federal attempts to regulate them. Farmers squeezed by railroad rates, falling prices and debt formed the Populist movement, whose demands included free coinage of silver and a graduated income tax. The assassination of President Garfield by a disappointed office seeker led to the Pendleton Act and the beginning of a merit-based civil service.

The flashcards cover eighteen terms, from the Gilded Age to the spoils system. The written work asks for fuller answers: push and pull factors, the experience of arrival, the restriction debate, 1924 against 1965, machines and reformers, the "captains of industry" and "robber barons" debate stated fairly, the Populists, and trusts and antitrust. The oral exam asks you to explain causes and consequences one development at a time.

Zestly is an independent study tool, not affiliated with GED Testing Service or the HiSET program.

  • Explain who the new immigrants of 1880-1920 were, why they came and how they were inspected on arrival
  • Describe the Chinese Exclusion Act, the 1924 national-origins quotas and the 1965 law that ended them
  • State fairly the arguments for and against restricting immigration in the period
  • Explain what political machines and settlement houses offered immigrants in the cities
  • Distinguish horizontal and vertical integration and describe the first federal regulation of big business
  • Explain the Populists' grievances and demands and the purpose of the Pendleton Act

Practice material written by Zestly on immigration and the Gilded Age (about 1865-1924, with the 1965 immigration law), based on the published descriptions of the GED Social Studies test (United States history) and the HiSET Social Studies subtest.

Sample question

Between about 1880 and 1920, most newcomers to the United States came from Southern and Eastern Europe, especially Italy, Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. What was a major push factor behind this "new immigration"?

See the answer

Poverty at home and, for many Jews in the Russian Empire, violent persecution in pogroms

Push factors are conditions that drive people out of their homeland: rural poverty, lack of land and, for Jews in the Russian Empire, pogroms and discriminatory laws. Free land in the West and jobs in American industry were pull factors, and most new immigrants settled in cities rather than on homesteads. The United States offered no guaranteed government jobs, and no law required other countries to send workers.

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