The Gilded Age

To gild: To thinly cover in gold, false brilliance

Main Theme: Covers more so the east

3 Main Players

Captains of industry

People who have the know how to run an industry rather than the specific and smaller tasks

• J.P Morgan

  • Biggest banker

  • vastly important industry

  • Merged and reorganized companies into powerful trusts

    • Combined interests that worked together

  • Ideas of capitalism

  • “invisible Hand” - free markets superiority

• Cornelius Vanderbilt

  • “The commodore”

  • Prominent shippers as an established company

  • Reestablished railroads as a large success

  • Monopolizes the railroads for himself

  • Inspired the term, “Robber Baron”

    • manipulators of the mass and work people for their own. kind of an opposite to who they actually were

• John D. Rockefeller

  • Oil companies

  • Acquired most of oil in the U.S.

  • Horizontal integration

    • merging with competitors for finished products

• Andrew Carnegie

  • Not like the others since he started from poor life

  • Surpasses the UK in terms of steel output

  • Vertical integration

    • Owns and controls all levels in that business

    • EX: owns mines for steel, smelts it, ships it, sells it

  • Gospel of wealth

    • Wants to build actual tangible properties to enhance people rather than actually donating money

  • Shitty employer

The working class - social

Increase of population in urban areas

• Goes to cities to gain jobs

• Modern living

  • Now access to electricity, new goods, water

  • immigrants through port cities in 1st wave immigration

    • Western Europeans being pulled

    • Chinese pushed by Tai Ping rebellion

  • Second wave immigration is from Eastern Europe

Railroads

Oil

Steel

Electricity

Working conditions

• Awful working conditions

  • Long shifts

  • Dangerous conditions

  • No workman’s compensation

    • only nation to exclude it

  • Child labor was very prominent

  • Discrimination

  • No minimum wage

Unions protect you from bad

• Wages and working conditions

• glutted labor market

• new technology

• Corporate strength over unions

  • Bribery

  • Strikebreaker/scabs

    • Took work from people who strike

  • Ironclad oaths to not join a union

  • blacklisted from working other jobs if found disastrous

  • Federal court used against workers

Unions

• Knights of labor

  • Specialist skilled workers and unskilled workers

  • Uriah Stephens

  • Terence v Powderly

• AFL

  • Skilled workers

  • Very exclusive

• Wobblies

  • Unskilled workers

  • Open shop

  • Wanted to replace the government with one big union

Laissez-Faire in support of big business

Why did unions fail

• Looked upon as criminals

• Violence turned public opinion

The government - political

The presidents kinda sucked. They didn’t change anything and instead it was the people with wealth and power

The presidents!

Andrew Johnson - 17th

• Hated by Republicans and Democrats

• Resisted reconstruction

• Picked by Lincoln to appeal to more people

• Impeached and saved by only one vote

Ulysses S. Grant - 18th

• No experience as government so he fills positions with people that do

• Multiple scandals during his presidency

  • Whiskey Ring

  • Credit mobilizer

• Passed reconstruction stuff

Rutherford B Hayes - 19th

• Elected in scandal

  • 8 Republicans to 7 Democrats

• Ends reconstruction to keep war from starting

Garfield - 20th

• Assassinated by Charles Guiteau

Chester Arthur - 21st

• Passed Pendleton Civil Service Act

  • Really backed by public

  • Stops patronage and implements a system that is based on skill/merit

  • Refused a second term by his own party because so many of them were put in there through patronage

Civil Service reform

Wisconsin plan

• Initiative

• Referendum

• Recall

• Australian ballot

17th Amendment

• People voted for them instead of patronage

Main ideas

The Gilded Age was marked by rapid industrialization in the United States, characterized by significant economic growth and the emergence of powerful industrialists known as captains of industry, such as J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. These figures revolutionized business practices, using strategies like vertical and horizontal integration. The era also saw a massive influx of immigrants, leading to urban population growth and modernization, but it was accompanied by poor working conditions, long hours, and the rise of child labor. Labor unions emerged as a response to these conditions, although they faced significant opposition and violence, compromising their effectiveness. Simultaneously, political leadership during this era was often ineffective, with scandals plaguing presidencies and a general resistance to reform, particularly evident in the implementations of civil service reforms. Overall, while the Gilded Age was a time of wealth and innovation, it also exposed stark social inequalities and labor issues.