III. Gilded Age Society

Gilded Age

The period roughly from the 1870s to 1900 characterized by rapid industrial growth, enormous wealth, social inequality, and political corruption. It matters because the contrast between America's economic progress and its underlying social problems created many of the conditions that produced later reform movements.

Conspicuous Consumption

The practice of purchasing and displaying expensive goods in order to demonstrate wealth and social status. It matters because it reflected the emergence of a wealthy industrial elite and the enormous economic inequality of the Gilded Age.

Old Money

Wealth inherited by families that had possessed economic and social status for generations, such as the Astors and Roosevelts. It matters because Old Money represented established social status and contrasted with the newly acquired fortunes of industrial millionaires.

New Money

Recently acquired wealth, particularly the fortunes accumulated by industrialists such as Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt. It matters because the rise of New Money created a new wealthy elite whose conspicuous consumption symbolized the enormous fortunes generated by industrial capitalism.

Social Darwinism

An ideology that applied ideas about natural selection and competition to human society, often arguing that wealthy and successful people were more "fit" while poverty reflected lack of fitness. It matters because it provided an intellectual justification for economic inequality and laissez-faire policies by arguing that government should not interfere with competition.

Morality/Purity Crusades

Reform movements that sought to enforce traditional standards of morality and suppress activities such as alcohol consumption, prostitution, gambling, and sexually explicit materials. They matter because they demonstrate how rapid social change during industrialization produced efforts to preserve traditional moral values.

Comstock Laws

Federal laws beginning in 1873 that prohibited the distribution through the mail of materials considered obscene, including information about contraception. They matter because they demonstrate the influence of morality crusades and government attempts to regulate sexuality and public morality.