GA

Gilded Age 

• “Mark Twain”

• Gold & pretty on the outside but rotten on the inside 

  • Refers to Industrial America 

    • Massive technological progress (Esp. in cities) but workers and immigrants living in horrific conditions getting paid hardly anything

    • Tenements & slums 

    • Sharecropping, prison (peonage) system in the South

    • Jim Crow & segregation 

• Laissez Faire Economics: NO government regulation 

Second “Big” Industrial Revolution (1865-1914)

ROBBER BARONS/Captains of Industry: 

• Steel

  • Andrew Carnegie (poor immigrant from Scotland) 

    • Vertical Integration 

    • “Gospel of Wealth” 

      • Philanthropic mentality of how to distribute wealth 

      • NO free giveaways

      • Built libraries, schools, hospitals, etc...

  • Bessemer Process (steel much more efficient) 

  • Johnstown Flood 

    • Henry Frick 

• Oil 

  • John D. Rockefeller 

  • Horizontal Integration & bought all of the oil refineries in the US (94%) 

  • Monopoly on oil 

• Money & Finance 

  • JP Morgan 

  • Eventually buys Carnegie Steel 

• Railroads

  • Cornelius Vanderbuilt & Jay Gould 

    • “The Grange” Movement 

      • Farmers against monopolies wanting to regulate railroads 

    • Great Railroad Strike of 1877 

Concept of Pools & Trusts

• Methods to combine $ using shareholders to own a greater portion of the company 

IMPORTANT STRIKES & EVENTS:

• Homestead Strike 

• Haymarket Riot 

• Pullman Strike 

• Great Railroad Strike of 1877 

Election of William Mckinley (1896) 

• The Big Three collude & finance election in order to stay in business 

• Ran against William Jenning Bryan (Populist Party) 

Social Conditions:

• Social Darwinism: (survival of the fittest) 

  • Belief that some people are inherently better than others due to evolution 

  • Justifies wealth gap & poor treatment 

  • Forcible sterilization of immigrants

• Wealth Gap b/w rich & poor (Great Gatsby)

• “Nouveau Riche” & conspicuous consumption 

• Tenements (slums) for immigrant workers 

• Unsafe working conditions, child labor, no limit on workday hours, terrible pay, etc…

  • Triangle Shirtwaist Fire!!!!

Corruption in Politics & Labor:

• Boss Tweed & Tammany Hall (NYC) 

  • Political Machine 

  • Uses immigrants for votes & bribes government officials 

    • Resurgence of KKK members (against blacks & immigrants now) 

• Thomas Nast: Political cartoonist

  • Uses “Muck-racking” to reveal corruption 

• Elections

  • Corruption & threats to ensure workers vote for who employers want 

  • People were voting multiple times 

• Whiskey Ring Scandal 

  • Stole money from the whiskey industry TAXES

  • Involved whiskey owners, employees, and high level members of government 

  • Tained Grant’s presidency 

  • No one is punished or sent to jail 

• Credit Mobilier Scandal 

  • Stole through railroads 

  • VP of railroad made a fake company to steal federal funds for the transcontinental railroad 

    • High level government officials involved

    • No on goes to jail 

• The Grange & People’s (Populist) Party:

  • Farmers sick of having to pay too much to transport crops 

• Great Railroad Strike of 1877 

  • Leads to the developments of unions

    • “Knights of Labor” 

    • American Federation of Labor (AFL) 

    • Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) 

• Haymarket Riot (1886) Iron industry 

  • Chicago (workers & police dead) 

    • Police shoot protestors

    • Bomb goes off

    • Immigrants blamed. Strike is unsuccessful 

• Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) 

  • Intended to protect industry from trusts 

  • Initially used by Gov. to prevent unions 

• “Social Gospel”

  • Intended to promote social reform through christianity (church’s built in cities) 

  • Gov says that people CHOOSE to work where they want… so if they choose to work in an unsafe factory that’s their choice (NOT) 

  • NOT THE SAME AS GOSPEL OF WEALTH