| A | B |
|---|
| A period that seemed to be quite vibrant but at the same time have so much corruption | Mark Twain coined the period the "Gilded Age" |
| Assassination of President James A. Garfield by a deranged office-seeker | The Pendleton Act was passed in 1883 |
| The Pendleton Act | Diminished the power of the spoils system, reformed civil service by requiring civil service exams |
| Very competitive presidential elections | Make politics popular and dictated that several presidential candidates were from swing states such as New York and Ohio |
| The legacy of the Civil War, emancipation, and Radical Reconstruction | The South was the stronghold of the Democratic Party until the 1960s-1970s- the "Solid South" |
| The Election of 1876/Compromise of 1877 | Gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency and ended Reconstruction in the South |
| "Waving the Bloody Shirt" | Union veterans overwhelmingly supported the Republican Party |
| The Republicans controlling the presidency and both houses of Congress in 1889-1891 | The Billion Dollar Congress passed the McKinley Tariff, Sherman Anti-trust Act, and expanded the U.S. Navy |
| The poverty and large numbers of immigrants flooding northern cities | The rise of municipal machines such as Tammany Hall |
| The cartoons of Thomas Nast | Brought down Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall |
| The lack of political experience and Grant's loose handle of his administration | Scandals such as Gould's attempt to corner the gold market and the Credit Mobilier Scandal |
| Growing Republican disgust with the scandals of the Grant Administration | The rise of the Liberal Republican Party |
| The Panic of 1873 | Resulted in unemployment, the Great Railroad Strike, and demands for "soft" money |
| The rise of debtors from the Panic of 1873 | Increased the appeal of the Greenback Labor Party |
| Growing divisions in the Republican Party between the Mugwump, Stalwart, and Half-Breed factions | Opened the way for the first Democrat president to be elected since the Civil War: Grover Cleveland |
| Grover Cleveland's administration | Enacted lower tariffs and his administration was ruined by the Panic of 1893 |
| Growing problems faced by farmers, calls to regulate railroads and free/unlimited coinage of silver | The rise of the Populist Party |
| William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold' Speech | Caused the Populist and Democratic parties to fuse behind a single candidate in 1896 |
| The Election of 1896 and discoveries of gold in the Yukon | Resulted in a devastating defeat for the Populists and the cause of silver |
