c. 1865-1890:
The Gilded Age
Essential Questions
- How did industrialization and new technology affect the economy and society?
- How did big business shape the American economy in the late 1800s and early 1900s?
- How did the rise of labor unions shape relations among workers, big business, and government?
- Why did immigrants come to the United States, and what impact did they have upon society?
- What urban challenges did city dwellers face, and how did they meet them?
- What luxuries did cities offer to the middle class?
Learning Objectives
You will learn:
- How and why the United States became more industrial and urban during the 19th Century and to what extent rapid urban and industrial development produced widespread poverty and poor working conditions
- How laissez-faire politics led to the monopolization of specific industries during the 19th Century and how monopolies impacted workers and consumers
- How and why robber barons or “captains of industry” took risks and to what extent their enterprise positively or negatively impacted the distribution of wealth in American society
- To what extent American entrepreneurs and inventors improved their personal fortunes and the daily lives of Americans
- How and why the philosophy of Social Darwinism emerged and how the notion of “the survival of the fittest” impacted the development of American industry, government policies and social customs during the Gilded Age
- How 19th Century industrialization led to urbanization and a distinctive urban culture in the United States
- How various technological innovations enabled urbanization and the horizontal and vertical growth of cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
- How and to what extent the immigration of various Eastern and Southern Europeans influenced the industrial, urban and cultural development at the turn of the 20th Century
- How legal and economic restrictions on migration and settlement impacted various ethnic groups
- How and why political machines at the state and local levels of government used patronage and favoritism to win the support of big business and working class voters
- How and why late 19th Century civil service reform and regulatory laws of the national government impacted American politics and industry
- Why the collapse of the railroad industry factored into the Panics of 1873 and 1893 and how those panics impacted the political and social development of the United States
- How and to what extent the organization of unions was impacted by racism and discrimination and the consequences for unions and ostracized groups
- To what extent the American worker gained labor concessions and greater power through unionization, collective bargaining, and various tactics of work stoppage and how these concessions and power may have changed over time
- To what extent the goals of American labor unions improved the standard of living
- How and why the Social Gospel Movement preached good works and the sharing of wealth as a means of salvation and how these ideas impacted 20th Century progressive politicians
- How and why spectator and team sports became popular at the end of the 19th and into the 20th Centuries and how they impacted the development of American culture
Industrial Growth
John Pierpont Morgan with two friends, ca.1907. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-92327
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The Homestead Steel Works near Pittsburg, the railyards of Scranton, and child miners in Pennsylvania c. 1900.
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Labor Movements
A Maryland National Guard unit fires upon strikers during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Harper’s Weekly, via Wikimedia
In 1912, The International Workers of the World (the IWW, or the “Wobblies”) organized textile workers in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts. This photo shows strikers, carrying American flags, confronting strikebreakers and militia bayonets.
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Two women strikers on picket line during the “Uprising of the 20,000”, garment workers strike, New York City, 1910. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-49516 .
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Urban Growth
“Five Cents a Spot,” unauthorized immigration lodgings in a Bayard Street tenement, New York City, ca.1890. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-16348
Nativist sentiment intensified in the late nineteenth century as immigrants streamed into American cities. Uncle Sam’s Lodging House, published in 1882, conveys this anti-immigrant attitude, with caricatured representations of Europeans, Asians, and African Americans creating a chaotic scene. Wikimedia.
1886 advertisement depicting the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act. The text reads "THE CHINESE MUST GO. We have no use for them since we got this WONDERFUL WASHER." Many Chinese immigrants ran laundries.
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The idea of America as a “melting pot,” a metaphor common in today’s parlance, was a way of arguing for the ethnic assimilation of all immigrants into a nebulous “American” identity at the turn of the 20th century. A play of the same name premiered in 1908 to great acclaim, causing even the former president Theodore Roosevelt to tell the playwright, “That’s a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that’s a great play.” Cover of Theater Programme for Israel Zangwill’s play “The Melting Pot”, 1916. Wikimedia.
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Political Corruption
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Political Corruption Quizlet
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An engraving of James A. Garfield's assassination, published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. The caption reads "Washington, D.C.—The attack on the President's life—Scene in the ladies' room of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot—The arrest of the assassin / from sketches by our special artist's [sic] A. Berghaus and C. Upham." President Garfield is at center right, leaning after being shot. He is supported by Secretary of State James G. Blaine who wears a light colored top hat. To left, assassin Charles Guiteau is restrained by members of the crowd, one of whom is about to strike him with a cane.
Jim Crow
This photograph captures the lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson, a mother and son, on May 25, 1911, in Okemah, Oklahoma. In response to national attention, the local white newspaper in Okemah simply wrote, “While the general sentiment is adverse to the method, it is generally thought that the negroes got what would have been due them under due process of law.” Wikimedia.
“We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults. . . . Any discrimination based simply on race or color is barbarous, we care not how hallowed it be by custom, expediency or prejudice . . . discriminations based simply and solely on physical peculiarities, place of birth, color of skin, are relics of that unreasoning human savagery of which the world is and ought to be thoroughly ashamed. . . . Persistent manly agitation is the way to liberty.” |
W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were the most prominent African American leaders during the era of Jim Crow laws.
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The Start of the 20th Century
Assignments and Readings
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When Jim Crow Drank Coke
| when_jim_crow_drank_coke.pdf |
The Lost History of an American Coup D'Etat
| the_lost_history_of_an_american_coup_d’État.pdf |
Carnegie
| carnegie.pdf |
Theory of the Leisure Class
| excerpts_from_theory_of_the_leisure_class_by_thorstein_veblen.pdf |
Haymarket Riot
| haymarket_riot.pdf |
Labor Movement
| labor_movement.pdf |
Labor Unions
| labor_unions.pdf |
Old and New Immigration
| old_and_new_immigration.pdf |
Vertical and Horizontal Integration
| vertical_and_horizontal_integration.pdf |
The Men Who Built America
| the_men_who_built_america.pdf |
Primary Sources
William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism (ca.1880s)
William Graham Sumner, a sociologist at Yale University, penned several pieces associated with the philosophy of Social Darwinism. In the following, Sumner explains his vision of nature and liberty in a just society.
Henry George, Progress and Poverty, Selections (1879)
In 1879, the economist Henry George penned a massive bestseller exploring the contradictory rise of both rapid economic growth and crippling poverty.
Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth (1889)
Andrew Carnegie, the American steel titan, explains his vision for the proper role of wealth in American society.
Grover Cleveland’s Veto of the Texas Seed Bill (1887)
Amid a crushing drought that devastated many Texas farmers, Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill designed to help farmers recover by supplying them with seed. In his veto message, Cleveland explained his vision of proper government.
The “Omaha Platform” of the People’s Party (1892)
In 1892, the People’s, or Populist, Party crafted a platform that indicted the corruptions of the Gilded Age and promised government policies to aid “the people.”
“The Tournament of Today” (1883)
“Print shows a jousting tournament between an oversized knight riding horse-shaped armor labeled “Monopoly” over a locomotive, with a long plume labeled “Arrogance”, and carrying a shield labeled “Corruption of the Legislature” and a lance labeled “Subsidized Press”, and a barefoot man labeled “Labor” riding an emaciated horse labeled “Poverty”, and carrying a sledgehammer labeled “Strike”. On the left is seating “Reserved for Capitalists” where Cyrus W. Field, William H. Vanderbilt, John Roach, Jay Gould, and Russell Sage are sitting. On the right, behind the labor section, are telegraph lines flying monopoly banners that are labeled “Wall St., W.U.T. Co., [and] N.Y.C. RR”.”
William Graham Sumner, a sociologist at Yale University, penned several pieces associated with the philosophy of Social Darwinism. In the following, Sumner explains his vision of nature and liberty in a just society.
Henry George, Progress and Poverty, Selections (1879)
In 1879, the economist Henry George penned a massive bestseller exploring the contradictory rise of both rapid economic growth and crippling poverty.
Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth (1889)
Andrew Carnegie, the American steel titan, explains his vision for the proper role of wealth in American society.
Grover Cleveland’s Veto of the Texas Seed Bill (1887)
Amid a crushing drought that devastated many Texas farmers, Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill designed to help farmers recover by supplying them with seed. In his veto message, Cleveland explained his vision of proper government.
The “Omaha Platform” of the People’s Party (1892)
In 1892, the People’s, or Populist, Party crafted a platform that indicted the corruptions of the Gilded Age and promised government policies to aid “the people.”
“The Tournament of Today” (1883)
“Print shows a jousting tournament between an oversized knight riding horse-shaped armor labeled “Monopoly” over a locomotive, with a long plume labeled “Arrogance”, and carrying a shield labeled “Corruption of the Legislature” and a lance labeled “Subsidized Press”, and a barefoot man labeled “Labor” riding an emaciated horse labeled “Poverty”, and carrying a sledgehammer labeled “Strike”. On the left is seating “Reserved for Capitalists” where Cyrus W. Field, William H. Vanderbilt, John Roach, Jay Gould, and Russell Sage are sitting. On the right, behind the labor section, are telegraph lines flying monopoly banners that are labeled “Wall St., W.U.T. Co., [and] N.Y.C. RR”.”
Slideshows
Videos
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Digital History Textbook
The Gilded Age
The 1880s and 1890s were years of unprecedented technological innovation, mass immigration, and intense political partisanship, including disputes over currency, tariffs, political corruption and patronage, and railroads and business trusts.
A Distant Mirror: The Late Nineteenth Century
The Gilded Age
Government Retrenchment and Government Corruption
Politics During the Gilded Age
Civil Service Reform
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
The Election of 1884
The Tariff Question
Anti-Trust
Grover Cleveland
The Making of Modern America
The late 19th century saw the advent of new communication technologies, including the phonograph, the telephone, and radio; the rise of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines; the growth of commercialized entertainment, as well as new sports, including basketball, bicycling, and football, and appearance of new transportation technologies, such as the automobile, electric trains and trolleys.
The Wizard of Menlo Park
An Age of Innovation
The Birth of Modern Culture
The Revolt Against Victorianism
The Rise of Mass Communication
Commercialized Leisure
The University
Industrialization and the Working Class
This chapter examines the impact of and responses to industrialization among American workers, including the attempt to form labor unions despite strong opposition from many industrialists and the courts.
Labor in the Age of Industrialization
American Labor in Comparative Perspective
Sources of Worker Unrest
The Drive for Unionization
The Great Railroad Strike
The Molly Maguires
The Origins of American Trade Unionism
Haymarket Square
Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor
Homestead
Pullman
Labor Day
The Murder of Former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg
Socialist and Radical Alternatives
Biographies
The Huddled Masses
Around the turn of the twentieth century, mass immigration from eastern and southern Europe dramatically altered the population's ethnic and religious composition. Unlike earlier immigrants, who had come from Britain, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and Scandinavia, the “new immigrants” came increasingly from Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Russia. The newcomers were often Catholic or Jewish and two-thirds of them settled in cities. In this chapter you will learn about the new immigrants and the anti-immigrant reaction.
The Statue of Liberty
Emma Lazarus
The New Immigrants
Birds of Passage
Chinese Exclusion Act
Angel Island
Japanese Immigration
Contract Labor
Immigration Restriction
Migration and Disease
The United States's Changing Face
Migration Today
Evaluating the Economic Costs and Benefits of Immigration
Migration as a Key Theme in U.S. and World History
Kinds of Migrants
The Stages of Migration
The Language of Cultural Mixture and Persistence
Music and Migration
Why Do People Migrate?
Who Migrates?
The Human Meaning of Migration
Language and Migration
Movies and Migration
Statue of Liberty Quiz
The Rise of Big Business
Between the Civil War and World War I, the modern American economy emerged. A national transportation and communication network was created, the corporation became the dominant form of business organization, and a managerial revolution transformed business operations. By the beginning of the twentieth century, per capita income and industrial production in the United States exceeded that of any other country except Britain.Unlike the pre-Civil War economy, this new one was dependent on raw materials from around the world and it sold goods in global markets. Business organization expanded in size and scale. There was an unparalleled increase in factory production, mechanization, and business consolidation. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the major sectors of the nation's economy--banking, manufacturing, meat packing, oil refining, railroads, and steel--were dominated by a small number of giant corporations.
J.P. Morgan
The Rise of Big Business
The Corporate Revolution
Why Business Grew
Corporations and the Law
The Debate Over Big Business
The Gospel of Wealth
Social Darwinism
Controlling the Shop Floor
Jay Gould
The Rise of the City
This chapter traces the changing nature of the American city in the late 19th century, the expansion of cities horizontally and vertically, the problems caused by urban growth, the depiction of cities in art and literature, and the emergence of new forms of urban entertainment.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871
The Rise of the Modern City
The Skyscraper
Tenements
Boss Tweed
The 1880s and 1890s were years of unprecedented technological innovation, mass immigration, and intense political partisanship, including disputes over currency, tariffs, political corruption and patronage, and railroads and business trusts.
A Distant Mirror: The Late Nineteenth Century
The Gilded Age
Government Retrenchment and Government Corruption
Politics During the Gilded Age
Civil Service Reform
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
The Election of 1884
The Tariff Question
Anti-Trust
Grover Cleveland
The Making of Modern America
The late 19th century saw the advent of new communication technologies, including the phonograph, the telephone, and radio; the rise of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines; the growth of commercialized entertainment, as well as new sports, including basketball, bicycling, and football, and appearance of new transportation technologies, such as the automobile, electric trains and trolleys.
The Wizard of Menlo Park
An Age of Innovation
The Birth of Modern Culture
The Revolt Against Victorianism
The Rise of Mass Communication
Commercialized Leisure
The University
Industrialization and the Working Class
This chapter examines the impact of and responses to industrialization among American workers, including the attempt to form labor unions despite strong opposition from many industrialists and the courts.
Labor in the Age of Industrialization
American Labor in Comparative Perspective
Sources of Worker Unrest
The Drive for Unionization
The Great Railroad Strike
The Molly Maguires
The Origins of American Trade Unionism
Haymarket Square
Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor
Homestead
Pullman
Labor Day
The Murder of Former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg
Socialist and Radical Alternatives
Biographies
The Huddled Masses
Around the turn of the twentieth century, mass immigration from eastern and southern Europe dramatically altered the population's ethnic and religious composition. Unlike earlier immigrants, who had come from Britain, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and Scandinavia, the “new immigrants” came increasingly from Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Russia. The newcomers were often Catholic or Jewish and two-thirds of them settled in cities. In this chapter you will learn about the new immigrants and the anti-immigrant reaction.
The Statue of Liberty
Emma Lazarus
The New Immigrants
Birds of Passage
Chinese Exclusion Act
Angel Island
Japanese Immigration
Contract Labor
Immigration Restriction
Migration and Disease
The United States's Changing Face
Migration Today
Evaluating the Economic Costs and Benefits of Immigration
Migration as a Key Theme in U.S. and World History
Kinds of Migrants
The Stages of Migration
The Language of Cultural Mixture and Persistence
Music and Migration
Why Do People Migrate?
Who Migrates?
The Human Meaning of Migration
Language and Migration
Movies and Migration
Statue of Liberty Quiz
The Rise of Big Business
Between the Civil War and World War I, the modern American economy emerged. A national transportation and communication network was created, the corporation became the dominant form of business organization, and a managerial revolution transformed business operations. By the beginning of the twentieth century, per capita income and industrial production in the United States exceeded that of any other country except Britain.Unlike the pre-Civil War economy, this new one was dependent on raw materials from around the world and it sold goods in global markets. Business organization expanded in size and scale. There was an unparalleled increase in factory production, mechanization, and business consolidation. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the major sectors of the nation's economy--banking, manufacturing, meat packing, oil refining, railroads, and steel--were dominated by a small number of giant corporations.
J.P. Morgan
The Rise of Big Business
The Corporate Revolution
Why Business Grew
Corporations and the Law
The Debate Over Big Business
The Gospel of Wealth
Social Darwinism
Controlling the Shop Floor
Jay Gould
The Rise of the City
This chapter traces the changing nature of the American city in the late 19th century, the expansion of cities horizontally and vertically, the problems caused by urban growth, the depiction of cities in art and literature, and the emergence of new forms of urban entertainment.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871
The Rise of the Modern City
The Skyscraper
Tenements
Boss Tweed