APUSH: Gilded Age
Weber
217
Activator
• About how much time have you spent reading
chapter 16? About how many pages have you
read?
• What does “gilded” mean?
• What are you most interested in finding out
about during this period between 1877 and
1910?
Agenda
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Activator, agenda, and objective (10 minutes)
The “Gilded Age” notes (30-45 minutes)
Comprehension check (15 minutes)
Robber barons or captains of industry?
Reading (time permitting)
Exit ticket and homework (5 minutes)
Unit 4: Toward a Global Presence
• AP Topic #15. Industrial America in the Late
Nineteenth Century
– Corporate consolidation of industry
– Effects of technological development on the worker
and workplace
– Labor and unions
– National politics and influence of corporate power
– Migration and immigration: the changing face of the
nation
– Proponents and opponents of the new order, e.g.,
Social Darwinism and Social Gospel
The Second Industrial Revolution
• By 1913 the US produced 1/3 of the world’s
industrial output.
• The 1880 census showed that for the first time
the majority of people were engaged in nonfarming jobs.
• Growth of cities was vital for financing
industrialization.
– Great Lakes region
– Pittsburgh
– Chicago
Railroads and the National Market
• The railroad made possible what is sometimes
called the 2nd industrial revolution.
• Growing population formed an everexpanding market for mass production, mass
distribution, and mass marketing of goods.
• New Inventions also spurred growth
– Scientific breakthroughs poured forth from
Thomas Edison’s lightbulb.
Competition and Consolidation
• Depression plagued the economy between
1873 and 1897
• Businesses engaged in ruthless competition
• To avoid competition, corporations battled to
control entire industries
• Rise of Andrew Carnegie and John D.
Rockefeller
– Robber Barons vs. Captains of Industry
Andrew Carnegie: “On Wealth”
- The Anglo Saxon race is
superior according to him.
- “Gospel of Wealth” (1901)
- Inequality is inevitable and
good.
- Wealthy should act as
trustees for poor people.
Rise of Big Business
• Key Term: LAISSEZ FAIRE – the ideology of the
industrial age.
• Individual as moral and economic ideal.
• Individuals should compete freely in the
marketplace.
• No room for the government in the market.
• Private enterprise can do things better than
government.
New Types of Businesses and Elites
• TRUSTS:
• Horizontal integration: method of industrial control by which you buy
up competitors factories in order to form one large one.
– – John D. Rockefeller: Standard Oil Co.
• Vertical consolidation: a method of industrial control in which a
company buys up all the different aspects involved in that business.
– Andrew Carnegie: Carnegie Steel bought the coke fields, iron ore
deposits, steel mills, ships, and railroads.
• CARTELS:
• Loose association of business that make the same produce. Agree to
limit the supply to keep prices high.
New Types of Business Elites
Corporate Mergers
Percent of Billionaires (1900)
Percent Billionaires (1918)
Worker’s Freedom in an Industrial Age
• For a minority of workers the rapidly
expanding industrial system created new
forms of freedom.
• For most workers economic insecurity
remained a basic fact of life
• Between 1880 and 1900 an average of 35,000
workers perished each year in factory and
mine accidents, the highest rate in the world!
Politics in the “Gilded Age”
• The corruption of politics
• Urban politics fell under the sway of corrupt
political machines
– Boss Tweed controlled NYC politics with Tammany
Hall for over 50 years
• Corruption was at the national level too
– Credit Mobilier scandal
The Politics of Dead Center
• Every Republican party candidate during this
period had fought in the Union army.
• Democrats dominated the South and Catholic
votes
• National elections were very close
• Gilded Age politicians made little effort to
mobilize public opinion or exert executive
leadership
Government in the Economy
• The national political structure was not well
prepared to deal with the problems created by
the economy’s rapid growth
• Tariff policy was debated
• Return to the Gold Standard in 1879
• Republican economic policies seemed to favor
the interests of eastern industrialists and bankers
• The government made attempts at regulation
– Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1887
– Sherman Antitrust Act
Freedom in the Gilded Age
• As the US matured into an industrial economy
Americans struggled to make sense of the new
social order
• Many sensed that something had gone wrong
or that the forces of the capitalist economy
were out of their control
• Many Americans were socialized to accept the
concentration of wealth as inevitable, even
natural, and justified by “progress”
Freedom, Inequality, and Democracy
• Gilded Age reformers feared that with lower-class
groups seeking to use government to advance
their own interests, democracy was becoming a
threat to individual liberty and the rights of
private property.
• Many working class folks saw the wealthy elite as
the threat to their freedoms and more socialist
leaning union organizers critiqued capitalism’s
effect on the relations between employer and
employed
– Antagonisms between the classes in the Marxist sense
Social Darwinism
• Charles Darwin put forth the theory of evolution whereby
plant and animal species best suited to their environment
took the place of those less able to adapt
• Social Darwinism argued that evolution was a natural
process and government must not interfere
• This led to the belief that the individual should be free to
struggle, succeed, or fail
• Failure to advance in society according to this logic, then,
was thought to indicate lack of character or ability
• Social Darwinist William Sumner believed that freedom
required the acceptance of inequality
• This ideology had racist underpinnings and supported other
theories about the hierarchy of human species.
Liberty of Contract
• With the rise of factory and wage labor came
conflicts between boss and worker
• As legal documents, labor contracts were
meant to reconcile freedom and authority in
the workplace
• Demands by workers that government help
struck liberals as an example of how the
misuse of political power posed a threat to
liberty
Comprehension Check: write
independently then pair share
• 1. Why is this period called the “Gilded Age?”
• 2. What did this period look like from the
perspective of a wealthy industrialist or
banker?
• 3. What might it have looked like from the
perspective of a factory worker?
• 4. What would you say are the most important
tensions/issues/problems in the new social
order?
John D. Rockefeller: Robber Barron or Captain
of Industry?
• Robber Barron: A pejorative (not nice) term for a
businessman who dominated his industry by
using unfair business practices and made a huge
personal fortune.
• Captain of Industry: A term used to describe a
business man who got to the top because he was
the best at what he did. Also refers to his
leadership in giving back to the community
through philanthropy (giving money for libraries,
schools, etc.).
Reading
• As you read make a list of things you will need
to know for the reading test or for the AP
exam.
• Use the AP topic as well as the chapter
structure to assist you.
• Put things in your own words.
Exit ticket and homework
• For Thursday
• Finish reading ch.16 for the reading test.
• Research one of the following and bring in
evidence of your findings:
– 1877 Great Railroad Strike
– Knights of Labor
– 1886 Haymarket Affair
LABOR AND THE REPUBLIC
Voices of A People’s History DBQ
• In pairs, read one of the following documents, taking notes
and answering the questions. Prepare to be able to teach
the main ideas to your classmates.
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1. Henry George
2. August Spies
3. “Red Handed Murder”
4. Reverend Ernest Lyon
5. Mary Elizabeth Lease
6. The Omaha Platform
7. Reverend Moore
8. Ida B Wells-Barnett
9. Statement of Pullman Strikers
10. Edward Bellamy
Strikers and Populists DBQ
• After getting the main points from each primary
source, plan your DBQ essay on the following prompt:
– To what extent is the following statement an accurate
description of the period 1870-1910: “Working class people
– Black and White, rural and urban – suffered at the hands
of corporate industrial and agricultural interests during the
Gilded Age.”
– OR
– To what extent is the following statement an accurate
description of the period 1870-1910: “By the late 19th
century, many working class Americans believed that
instead of protecting their life and liberty, government
deliberately sought to deprive them of their rights in order
to protect the vested interests of the wealthy.”
How did people react to
Industrialization?
Industrial workers – labor unions – strikes.
Knights of Labor, AFL, Wobblies,
Railroad strike of 1877, Homestead 1892, Pullman 1894
Farmers – Farmers Alliance – populism.
Money supply, nationalize transportation, tax rich more
Government – regulation – social programs.
Regulating the railroads.
Triangle Shirtwaist fire.
Municipal reforms.
Antitrust law
Knights of Labor
• An injury to one is
the concern of all.
• 8 hour work day.
• Worker-owned
factories.
• No child labor.
• Equal pay for men
and women
Child Labor
American Federation of Labor (AF of L)
1886
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Mostly for skilled workers.
Represented them in political
matters.
Maintained a national strike
fund.
Mediated disputes between
labor and management through
collective bargaining.
Prevented disputes among
many craft unions.
• Samuel Gompers
International Workers of the World
(IWW) or Wobblies 1905
 Opposed AFL.
 Socialist leadership.
 Violent strikes especially in WWI.
The Great Railroad Strike 1877
– Started when wages were cut 10% during depression.
– Strikers, sympathizers, rioters broke railroad property and
clashed with local militias.
– Federal troops called out – fired on crown in Pittsburg.
– 20,000 angry people reacted by destroying $5 million in
railroad property.
– President Rutherford Hayes again called in troops.
– Employers relied on state and federal armies to repress labor
unrest.
Haymarket 1886
• National demonstration for the 8 hour work day.
• Police broke up a fight between strikers and “scabs” at McCormick
reaper factory in Chicago killing many workers.
• Protesters came to Haymarket Square where they were joined by
anarchists (radicals who opposed government).
• Riot with many dead on both sides. Four anarchists were tried for
conspiracy to commit murder and hung.
• Press blamed the AF of L.
Pullman Strike 1894
• Pullman created a town for workers making luxury train cars. Built parks, etc.
but also regulated behavior like banning alcohol etc.
• Financial panic of 1893 – Pullman laid off workers and cut wages by 25%
while keeping food prices in his town at the same level.
• 260,000 workers joined the strike.
• Because it blacked the delivery of mail, U.S. troops were called in.
• The government cited the Sherman Antitrust law saying that the union was a
trust and restrained free trade.
• Set a pattern of government opposition to unions.