Gilded Age Overview

Gilded Age Overview

  • Time Frame: 1877-1900

    • Origin of Term: Coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.

    • Metaphor: The era was "gilded" because the glittering surface of economic expansion and billionaire wealth masked deep-seated social decay, extreme poverty, and systemic corruption.

    • Key Themes: Urbanization, industrialization, political corruption (the "spoils system"), and the rise of modern American capitalism.

Economic Conditions

  • Laissez-Faire Capitalism: The prevailing economic philosophy that the government should not interfere in the marketplace. This allowed for rapid growth but also checked corporate abuses poorly.

  • Wealth Disparity:

    • Poor working conditions: Workers faced 12-hour shifts, six days a week, in hazardous environments without insurance.

    • Wealth Gap: By 1890, the richest 1\% of the population owned more wealth than the remaining 99\% combined.

    • Corruption: Political machines like Tammany Hall in New York City, led by "Boss" Tweed, controlled local governments through bribery and voter fraud.

Westward Expansion

  • The Closing Frontier: In 1890, the U.S. Census Bureau declared the frontier closed, meaning there was no longer a clear line of settlement.

  • Economics of the West:

    • Mining: Gold and silver rushes (e.g., Comstock Lode) drew thousands.

    • Cattle Kingdom: The rise of long drives and the open range, which eventually ended due to barbed wire.

  • Impact on Native Americans:

    • Indian Removal: The government pushed tribes onto smaller reservations to make way for the Transcontinental Railroad (completed in 1869).

    • The Dawes Severalty Act (1887):

    • Aimed to break up tribal autonomy by granting land to individual Indians. Approximately 90 million acres of former communal tribal land were sold to white settlers.

    • Cultural Genocide: Schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School focused on forced assimilation, prohibiting native languages and customs.

Industrialization in the Gilded Age

  • Technological Breakthroughs:

    • Bessemer Process: A cheap and efficient method for making steel, which allowed for the construction of skyscrapers and stronger bridges.

    • Inventions: Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb (1879) and Alexander Graham Bell's telephone (1876) revolutionized daily life and business.

  • Corporate Consolidation:

    • Horizontal Integration: Occurs when a company acquires competitors in the same industry. John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil controlled over 90\% of U.S. oil refining through this method.

    • Vertical Integration: Occurs when a company controls every stage of production. Andrew Carnegie owned the iron mines, the coal fields, and the railroads used to produce and ship his steel.

  • Management Revolutions: The implementation of "Taylorism" (scientific management) to increase factory efficiency by breaking down tasks into simple, repetitive motions.

Urbanization and Immigration

  • Growth of Cities: The U.S. transitioned from a rural/agrarian society to an urban/industrial one.

  • Immigration Patterns:

    • "New" Immigrants: Unlike earlier waves from Northern and Western Europe, these migrants came from Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Russia, Poland) and often faced intense Nativism.

    • Ethnic Enclaves: Neighborhoods like Little Italy and Chinatown provided a sense of community but were often overcrowded tenements.

  • Public Health and Infrastructure:

    • Tenement Life: Dark, airless apartments often housed multiple families in one room.

    • Sanitation: Before widespread plumbing, waste was dumped into streets, contributing to the spread of cholera and tuberculosis.

Labor Wars in the Late 1800s

  • The Great Railroad Strike of 1877: The first major nationwide strike; it was suppressed by federal troops, setting a precedent for government intervention on the side of business.

  • The Haymarket Riot (1886): A labor protest in Chicago that turned violent when a bomb was thrown at police. This event led to the decline of the Knights of Labor, as they were unfairly linked to anarchism.

  • Unions:

    • Knights of Labor: Open to all workers (skilled/unskilled, women, African Americans); advocated for the eight-hour day and social reform.

    • American Federation of Labor (AFL): Led by Samuel Gompers; focused on "bread and butter" issues like better wages and shorter hours for skilled workers only.

  • Casualties of Labor: In 1913 alone, despite being slightly after the period, the trend of safety issues culminated in approximately 25,000 factory deaths and 700,000 injuries annually.

Philosophical and Social Justifications

  • Social Darwinism: Based on Herbert Spencer’s theories, applying "survival of the fittest" to human society. It argued that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few was a natural and beneficial evolution.

  • The Gospel of Wealth: Andrew Carnegie’s counter-argument that while the rich had a right to accumulate wealth, they had a moral responsibility to use it for the benefit of society (philanthropy).

  • The Social Gospel: A religious movement that advocated for using Christian ethics to solve social problems like poverty and child labor, directly opposing the harshness of Social Darwinism.