Documenting United States History

324 ChapTEr 13 | a Gilded aGe | period Six 1865 –1898

steP 1 Understand the prompt, and identify the key words

steP 2 Generate a working thesis

For a review of this step, see the Building AP® Writing Skills exercise in Chap-

ter 1 (p. 22).

steP 3 Organize your evidence

This task invites a comparison, even though the documents come from the same

era. Review Documents 13.6 and 13.12, and determine where they agree and dis-

agree.

At first glance, these two documents appear to be opposites because they

represent the two sides of being “gilded.” But note that the prompt also asks

you to consider what they have in common. When Andrew Carnegie uses the

phrase “the elevation of our race,” for example, are his goals very different from

those of the People’s Party? This phrase suggests an economic or social interest

in the welfare of humanity, much as the People’s Party platform does. But the

second context—the Gilded Age—allows you to approach Carnegie’s “Gospel”

in a new light.

Historical events influence the creation of new contexts by examining pat-

terns of continuity and change over time. The above Applying AP® Historical

Thinking Skills exercise on historical causation and continuity and change over

time illustrates this concept.

steP 4 Outline your response

One effective outline for such an approach is similar to approaches discussed

earlier in this textbook and uses a traditional comparison-and-contrast format:

I. Introduction

II. Context 1: differences (social and economic differences)

A. Document 1: Andrew Carnegie

B. Document 2: People’s Party

III. Context 2: differences (Gilded Era)

A. Document 1: Andrew Carnegie

B. Document 2: People’s Party

IV. Conclusion

steP 5 Write the essay

Application of contextualization to a new prompt

With these tips in mind, consider the following prompt:

putting it all together 325

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