Gilded Age: Industrialization and Urbanization

USA in the Gilded Age (1870 - 1900)

• North - Industrialization

• South - Reconstruction + Jim Crow Laws

• West - Ranching, Mining, and Farming

Industrialization

• Causes

  • Civil War

  • Natural Resources

  • Growing Workforce

  • Technology / Innovations

    • Tons of patents

    • Ex:

      • Telephone (Bell)

      • Light Bulb (Edison)

      • Assembly Line (Ford)

      • Airplane (Wright Brothers)

      • Radio (Macroni)

  • Government Policies

• US becomes leading industrial power of the world by 1900 → massive societal shifts

• Manufacturing replaces agriculture

• Migration & Urbanization increase

Railroads

• Given land and loan subsidies by Federal Gov

• Invented business practices like stockholder corporations, financing & managing, etc

• Consolidation → standardized (steel rails)

• First Transcontinental Railroad

  • Pacific Railroad Act (1862)

  • Union Pacific & Central Pacific unite at Promontory Point

• Impact

  • Promoted a national economy

  • Grew other industrial industries

  • Distribution of raw materials on a massive scale

  • Facilitated immigration