The Gilded Age

Gilded Age - A period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath

  • Ex: Some people were rich and successful, which masked the reality that many people faced poverty

  • Period dominated by big business values, political corruption, and extreme differences between wealth and poverty

  • Change from agricultural to urban communities

More Characteristics

  • Mass production - growth of industry, exploitation of cheap, immigrant labor

  • Social, racial, labor tension

  • Creation of American City

  • Consolidation of wealth

  • Political and corporate corruption

Industry growth

  • Bessemer Process - New way to convert iron into steel, large scale, faster and more affordable

    • New uses for steel: Bridges and skyscrapers

    • Carnegie: Revolutionized building industry, multi-million immigrant

  • Light bulb, telephone, sewing machine, phonograph, typewriter, airplane, assembly line

New technologies and inventions

Railroads

Opened up the West

Development of new industries

Laissez Faire Capitalism

  • Laissez-Faire - Government does not interfere in the workings of free market/business

  • Social Darwinism - “Survival of the fittest” influenced by classical economists

  • Trust - Gas stations along highway 6 that team up, takes away choice for the consumer and lessens competitions

  • Choice - The competition

  • Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 - First measure by Congress to prohibit trusts

    • Reflected a growing concern by Americans that monopolies were detrimental to the free economy

Immigration - Increase of labor, most came from South and Eastern Europe

  • Settled in industrial centers on the east coast

  • Unskilled, illiterate, primarily Catholic, Orthodox, or Jewish

  • Faced discrimination from many Americans, stereotyped

  • Chinese immigrants work on railroads

Immigration led to quickly growing cities —→ Overcrowding

  • Fires!!! Transition from lumber buildings to

More money/capital

  • The Gospel of Wealth - Wealthy take responsibility to help out those in need; philanthropy - giving away to people

    • Ex: Donating to community facilities, such as libraries and concert halls

Businessmen/entrepreneurs

  • Robber Barons - Business leaders built their fortunes by stealing from the public, drained natural resources, ruthless to competitors, paid low wages to workers

    • Rockefeller - Built gas monopoly by lowering his own prices, buying out other businesses, and then raising prices again

  • Vertical Integration - A purchase of companies at all levels of production

  • Horizontal Integration - Purchasing other companies in the same field of production

    • Rockefeller

PROGRESSIVE ERA

  • Pendelton Civil Service Act - Passed in response to public outcry over corruption and the assassination of President Garfield

    • Replaced the Spoils System (Jobs awarded based on political loyalty) with competitive exams

  • Booker T. Washington - Born into slavery, poverty to education

    • Founder of Tuskegee Institute, school in Alabama

    • Gradualism - If all African Americans show their worth, dedication, and economic self-sufficiency, then they would gradually earn social respect and civil/equal rights

    • Accomoodated with white society, avoided confrontation, and focused on economic improvement

  • Web Du Bois - Free black family, educated (Harvard)

    • Advocated for immediate civil rights, political power, and higher education

    • Segregation and discrimination must be confronted immediately

    • Rejected Washington’s accommodationist approach

    • Talented Tenth: Idea that top 10% of educated African Americans should lead fight for racial equality

    • Co-Founder of NAACP

Workers Reforms

  • Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (1911) - Doors were locked (business was afraid women were stealing) and windows too high to reach ground, no fire escape, sprinklers, ANYTHING

    • Highlighted the poor working conditions and allowed for federal regulations to protect workers

  • Teddy Roosevelt’s Domestic Policies, Square deal for capital, labor, and public

    • Control corporations, consumer protection, conservation

    • Differentiated between good and bad trusts, attacked JP Morgan

      • If trusts eliminated competition, he would eliminate them

    • Conservationism - Worked with national parks to set national forests and made plans to irrigate the West

  • Coal Strike of 1902 - Roosevelt invited strikers and mine owners to negotiate a resolution to strike

    • Sided with coal miners and facilitated regulations between miners to reach compromise, resolved strike and led to improved working conditions

  • Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act - Passed after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle about meat production, revealed gory details of unsanitary conditions in Chicago stockyards and meat-packing plants

  • Taft’s Foreign and Domestic Policies

    • Trust Buster, attacked trusts that he deemed illegal/eliminated competition - Dissolved standard oil and went after US Steel

Election of 1912

  • Taft - current Republican president

  • Roosevelt - Challenges Taft forms his own party

    • Bull Moose Party (Progressive Party) - Advocates for New Nationalism -

    • Name is from Roosevelt being shot given a speech, he continues to talk through the speech, says he’s as fine as a bull moose

  • Wilson - Democratic nomination

    • New Freedom - Stronger anti-trust laws, banking reform, and tariff reduction (Similar to progressive ideas)

  • Impact of Third Party - Divides main parties, leads to a stronger main party

    • EX: Taft and Roosevelt both Republicans, splits the Republican party votes and leads to Wilson winning b/c he’s democratic