Gilded Age

description about the age

In American history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century (1865-1901). The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The name refers to the process of gilding and is meant to ridicule ostentatious display.

This period also witnessed the creation of a modern industrial economy. 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. Long hours and hazardous working conditions, led many workers to attempt to form labor unions despite strong opposition from industrialists and the courts.

An era of intense political partisanship, the Gilded Age was also an era of reform. The Civil Service Act sought to curb government corruption by requiring applicants for certain governmental jobs to take a competitive examination. The Interstate Commerce Act sought to end discrimination by railroads against small shippers and the Sherman Antitrust Act outlawed business monopolies.

These years also saw the rise of the Populist crusade. Burdened by heavy debts and falling farm prices, many farmers joined the Populist party, which called for an increase in the amount of money in circulation, government assistance to help farmers repay loans, tariff reductions, and a graduated income tax.

Mark Twain called the late nineteenth century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. In the popular view, the late nineteenth century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display.

It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to think of this as modern America’s formative period, when an agrarian society of small producers was transformed into an urban society dominated by industrial corporations.

room in the age

Main article: Second Industrial Revolution
The Gilded Age was rooted in industrialization, especially heavy industry like factories, railroads and coal mining. The First Transcontinental Railroad opened in 1869, providing six-day service between the East Coast and San Francisco.

During the Gilded Age, American manufacturing production surpassed the combined total of Britain, Germany, and France. Railroad mileage tripled between 1860 and 1880, and tripled again by 1920, opening new areas to commercial farming, creating a truly national marketplace and inspiring a boom in coal mining and steel production. The voracious appetite for capital of the great trunk railroads facilitated the consolidation of the nation's financial market in Wall Street. By 1900, the process of economic concentration had extended into most branches of industry—a few large corporations, called "trusts", dominated in steel, oil, sugar, meatpacking, and the manufacture of agriculture machinery. Other major components of this infrastructure were the new methods for fabricating steel, especially the Bessemer process. The first billion-dollar corporation was United States Steel, formed by financier J. P. Morgan in 1901, who purchased and consolidated steel firms built by Andrew Carnegie and others.

The United States became a world leader in applied technology. From 1860 to 1890, 500,000 patents were issued for new inventions—over ten times the number issued in the previous seventy years. George Westinghouse invented air brakes for trains (making them both safer and faster). Theodore Vail established the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. Thomas A. Edison invented a remarkable number of electrical devices, as well as the integrated power plant capable of lighting multiple buildings simultaneously; he founded General Electric corporation. Oil became an important resource, beginning with the Pennsylvania oil fields. Kerosene replaced whale oil and candles for lighting. John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil Company to consolidate the oil industry—which mostly produced kerosene before the automobile created a demand for gasoline in the 20th century.

 

treasures from the age

The Gilded Age saw the greatest period of economic growth in American history. After the short-lived panic of 1873, the economy recovered with the advent of hard money policies and industrialization. From 1869 to 1879, the US economy grew at a rate of 6.8% for NNP (GDP minus capital depreciation) and 4.5% for NNP per capita, despite the panic of 1873.[7]The economy repeated this period of growth in the 1880's, in which the wealth of the nation grew at an annual rate of 3.8%, while the GDP was also doubled. Real wages also increased greatly during the 1880's. Economist Milton Friedman states that for the 1880's:

The highest decadal rate [of growth of real reproducible, tangible wealth per head from 1805 to 1950] for periods of about ten years was apparently reached in the eighties with approximately 3.8 percent.

Austrian Economist and scholar Murray Rothbard stated that for the 1880's:

Gross domestic product almost doubled from the decade before, a far larger percentage jump decade-on-decade than any time since.[9]

Capital investment also increased tremondously during the 1880's, increasing nearly 500%, while capital formation doubled during the decade. Rothbard states that:

This massive 500-percent decade-on-decade increase has never since been even closely rivaled. It stands in particular contrast to the virtual stagnation witnessed by the 1970s.

Long-term interest rates also declined to 3 to 3.5% for the first time, reaching the same level as Britain and 17th century Holland.[11]

Craft-oriented labor unions grew strong in the Northeast after 1870. One critical strike was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, lasting 45 days and attended by violent attacks on railroad property until President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal troops. In 1886, the Knights of Labor tried to unite both unskilled and skilled workers, but grew so fast it could not manage its affairs. The failure of the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886 and popular revulsion against the killing of police in the Haymarket Square Riot caused the collapse of support for the Knights. The final major strike of the late 1800s was the Pullman Strike which was an effort to shut down the national railroad system in the face of federal court injunctions to desist. The strike was led by the upstart American Railway Union (a few months old) led by Eugene V. Debs, and collapsed totally.[15] These failures left the union field to the established railroad brotherhoods and the new American Federation of Labor, headed by Samuel Gompers. Gompers wanted better deals for his members, not revolution, and his AFL unions gained strength steadily down to 1919.

Main article: History of immigration to the United States
Prior to the Gilded Age, the time commonly referred to as the old immigration saw the first real boom of new arrivals to the United States. During the Gilded Age, approximately 10 million immigrants came to the United States in what is known as the new immigration, many in search of religious freedom and greater prosperity. The population surge in major U.S. cities as a result of immigration gave cities an even stronger impact on government, attracting power-hungry politicians and entrepreneurs. Pressuring voters or falsifying ballots was commonplace for politicians, who often sought power only to exploit their constituents. To accommodate the influx of people into the U.S., the federal government built Ellis Island in 1892 near the Statue of Liberty. After 1892, a short physical examination was given; those with contagious diseases were not admitted. Few immigrants went to the poverty-stricken South.

The construction of the Central Pacific Railroad in California and Nevada was handled largely by Chinese laborers. In the 1870 census there were 63,254 Chinese men and women in the entire country; this number grew to 105,613 in the 1880 census.[18] Labor unions such as the American Federation of Labor strongly opposed the presence of Chinese labor, by reason of both economic competition and race. Immigrants from China were not allowed to become citizens until 1950; however, their children born in the U.S. were full citizens.

Congress banned further Chinese immigration through the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882; the act prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the United States, but some students and businessmen were allowed in. Subsequent to the act, the Chinese population declined to only 37,000 in 1940. Although many returned to China (a greater proportion than most other immigrant groups), most of them stayed in the United States. Chinese people were unwelcome in many areas, so they resettled in the "Chinatown" districts of large cities.

During the Gilded Age, many new social movements took hold in the United States. Many women abolitionists who were disappointed that the Fifteenth Amendment did not extend voting rights to them remained active in politics, this time focusing on issues important to them. Reviving the temperance movement from the Second Great Awakening, many women joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in an attempt to bring morality back to America. Other women took up the issue of women’s suffrage which had laid dormant since the Seneca Falls Convention. With leaders like Susan B. Anthony the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was formed in order to secure the right of women to vote.

Mark Twain

Science also played an important part in social thought as the work of Charles Darwin became popular. Following Darwin’s idea of natural selection, English philosopher Herbert Spencer proposed the idea of social Darwinism. This new concept justified the stratification of the wealthy and poor and coined the term “survival of the fittest.” Joining Spencer was Yale University professor William Graham Sumner whose book What Social Classes Owe to Each Other argued that assistance to the poor actually weakens their ability to survive in society. Sumner argued for a laissez faire and free market economy. Not everyone agreed with the social Darwinists and soon a whole movement to help the poor arose. Henry George proposed a “single tax” in his book Progress and Poverty. The tax would be leveled on the rich and poor alike, with the excess money collected used to equalize wealth and level out society. In Chicago, noted attorney Clarence Darrow made vocal arguments that poverty and not biology created crime. Wisconsin-born author Thorstein Veblen argued in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class that the “conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure" of the wealthy had become the basis of social status in America. In Looking Backward author Edward Bellamy wrote of a future America set in the year 2000 in which a socialist paradise has been established. The works of authors such as George and Bellamy became popular and soon clubs were created across America to discuss their ideas although these organizations rarely made any real social change.

The Third Great Awakening which began before the Civil War returned and made a significant change in religious attitudes toward social progress. Followers of the new Awakening promoted the idea of the Social Gospel which gave rise to organizations such as the YMCA, Salvation Army, and settlement houses such as Hull House founded by Jane Addams in Chicago in 1889.