The key historical forces that characterize the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era; the competing ideals that define these eras; the US in 1865; the extraordinary social, political and economic changes unleashed by the devastation of the Civil War.

The Reconstruction era following the Civil War; governmental policies and legislation enacted to safeguard the welfare of former slaves and average citizens; these policies are progressively dismantled, the South comes under the rule of the whites.

The story of the conquest of the American West; key myths surrounding the West and how it is settled; the motives and realities of westward migration; the components of the western economy; the conflicts with Native Americans that lead to violence.

America rises from a developing nation status in 1865 to become a great industrial power by 1900; the unfolding of the American industrial revolution; the advent of big business in the railroad, steel and oil industries; consumerism and advertising.

The notion of the self-made man pervades Gilded Age America; this idea takes on unprecedented popularity in the 19th century; it is strongly promoted by figures from Horatio Alger to Andrew Carnegie; the ideal becomes entwined with social Darwinism.

In the late Gilded Age, there is agreement that troubling trends threaten the young republic; public anxiety over the power of big business; the era's economic inequality and conflict between labor and capital; how businessmen respond to critics.