Coming out of the Civil War both the North and South were devastated emotionally, physically, and economically. To make matters worse, the assassination of President Lincoln threw a nation beginning to become whole again into the arms of untested leaders in Washington. While the government sought to reconstruct the South, the North was spurred into unprecedented economic growth and industrialization by the barons of industry who expanded their respective industries while simultaneously monopolizing them under the turned eye of a corrupt government system. As this era began to shovel the laboring and farming class deeper into their graves, new movements grew to fight for their rights as populists and progressives. This growth can be traced back to the beginning of the era itself, as the corrupt government and big business of the late 19th Century made the fateful mistake in believing that they could go unnoticed in slighting the American people.
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This wrong was corrected by some big name progressives and populists, but it is important to realize that the change was brought on by everyday americans who were all affected by the growth of business and saw it as their duty as whites, blacks, women, laborers, farmers, immigrants, and most importantly Americans to fix it. The GIlded Age found its beginnings comparable to the time before the war considering the amount of land and resources for corporations to use had not changed. What separates this time period from the rest however, is the increased connection of the continent through transportation and the amount of new laborers not seen before from immigrants and freed slaves (Shi and Tindall, p. 750). The country was now able to reach peak productivity with trains to bring in oil from the Ohio Valley, to steamboats bringing timber across canals from the Great Lakes region. Producers now had a way to increase profits and possibly reduce prices of goods or increase wages of their employees. Of course, this was not the mindset of the time and the wage gap only largened between the few rich and the many poor. As Andrew Carnegie states, “We accept and welcome, therefore,...great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race…” (Andrew Carnegie, "Wealth," North American Review, CXLVIII (June 1889), 653-64 -reading set 1). Carnegie exemplifies the Gilded Age businessman as he profited off of the labor of the eager masses of immigrants and freed slaves without remorse of their conditions. Conditions that include days without having a meal, months without work, and living on about $1.50 per day (Thomas O’Donnell, U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Report on the Relations Between Labor and Capital, Vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1885), 451–457 -reading set 1). These despicable conditions are just one immigrant’s accounts, however they represent the squalor lived by the millions of immigrants and african americans making up the laboring class. However, the struggles faced by the poor were not reserved for men or city dwellers alone. As wages fell lower and lower with jobs becoming harder to find, women began to increase their share of the workforce not by choice, but by necessity to support their struggling families. This was especially evident in the cities where large immigrant populations settled and the majority of laborers lived. Women were hired for their lower wages and ability to do tasks suited to their smaller frames such as tending to sewing machines …show more content…
This disregard for the natives territory proved to be just another casualty of the Gilded Age as tribes were forced onto reservations or devastated in battle when they resisted. These battles culminated into the Indian Wars and contained some of the most brutal fighting seen west of the Mississippi River in places like the Sand Creek Massacre, the Battle of Little Bighorn, or the Ghost Dance movement that saw white fear and ignorance lead to mass killings of resisting Indians (Shi and Tindall, p. 839). Suffering followed all those who dared to settle the frontier, and can be traced back to the wave of settlers fleeing the life of labor and poverty destined in the cities of the
This wrong was corrected by some big name progressives and populists, but it is important to realize that the change was brought on by everyday americans who were all affected by the growth of business and saw it as their duty as whites, blacks, women, laborers, farmers, immigrants, and most importantly Americans to fix it. The GIlded Age found its beginnings comparable to the time before the war considering the amount of land and resources for corporations to use had not changed. What separates this time period from the rest however, is the increased connection of the continent through transportation and the amount of new laborers not seen before from immigrants and freed slaves (Shi and Tindall, p. 750). The country was now able to reach peak productivity with trains to bring in oil from the Ohio Valley, to steamboats bringing timber across canals from the Great Lakes region. Producers now had a way to increase profits and possibly reduce prices of goods or increase wages of their employees. Of course, this was not the mindset of the time and the wage gap only largened between the few rich and the many poor. As Andrew Carnegie states, “We accept and welcome, therefore,...great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race…” (Andrew Carnegie, "Wealth," North American Review, CXLVIII (June 1889), 653-64 -reading set 1). Carnegie exemplifies the Gilded Age businessman as he profited off of the labor of the eager masses of immigrants and freed slaves without remorse of their conditions. Conditions that include days without having a meal, months without work, and living on about $1.50 per day (Thomas O’Donnell, U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Report on the Relations Between Labor and Capital, Vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1885), 451–457 -reading set 1). These despicable conditions are just one immigrant’s accounts, however they represent the squalor lived by the millions of immigrants and african americans making up the laboring class. However, the struggles faced by the poor were not reserved for men or city dwellers alone. As wages fell lower and lower with jobs becoming harder to find, women began to increase their share of the workforce not by choice, but by necessity to support their struggling families. This was especially evident in the cities where large immigrant populations settled and the majority of laborers lived. Women were hired for their lower wages and ability to do tasks suited to their smaller frames such as tending to sewing machines …show more content…
This disregard for the natives territory proved to be just another casualty of the Gilded Age as tribes were forced onto reservations or devastated in battle when they resisted. These battles culminated into the Indian Wars and contained some of the most brutal fighting seen west of the Mississippi River in places like the Sand Creek Massacre, the Battle of Little Bighorn, or the Ghost Dance movement that saw white fear and ignorance lead to mass killings of resisting Indians (Shi and Tindall, p. 839). Suffering followed all those who dared to settle the frontier, and can be traced back to the wave of settlers fleeing the life of labor and poverty destined in the cities of the