From the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era: How Americans Navigated Crisis

This chapter examines how Americans navigated the identity crisis that followed the Civil War during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. Rapid economic growth, technological innovation, and the completion of continental expansion helped restore national confidence, while new intellectual frameworks—from Social Darwinism to the frontier thesis—reinterpreted the meaning of American democracy and leadership. At the same time, the United States constructed new internal and external boundaries of the national community. Immigration, racial segregation, and policies toward Native Americans reshaped the definition of who could belong to the nation, while imperial expansion after the Spanish–American War extended American power overseas. In this process, foreign societies—especially the Russian Empire—served as contrasting examples that reinforced Americans’ sense of moral and political superiority. This chapter argues that the search for national cohesion at home and validation abroad drove the transformation of the United States into a global power.