Gilded Age
1870-1900
Why “Gilded Age”?
Answer: Mark
Twain
Why: By this, he
meant that the
period was
glittering on the
surface like gold
but corrupt
underneath.
What was the Gilded Age?
 A time where:
1. Rapid economic growth generated vast
wealth: upper class.
2. New Products and technologies improved
middle class quality of life.
3. Industrial workers did not share in the
new prosperity: poor working conditions.
4. Politicians were corrupt
Gilded Age: Points of Interest
Westward Expansion
Industrial Revolution
Immigration
Urbanization
Labor Movement
Political Corruption
Westward Expansion
 Many Immigrants headed West in the mid
to late 1800’s in search of cheap land and
new jobs
 Homesteaders:Homestead Act (1862) gave
160 acres to citizens who pledged to
“improve the land” for at least 5 years.
 Life in the Plains was difficult: There were
few trees so homesteaders built sod houses
 60% of homesteaders failed
 Exodusters were black farmers who moved
West to escape crop liens & Jim Crow laws
in the South
Native Americans vs Homesteaders
Agreements
between Native
Americans and
the Government
fell apart because
they had different
concepts of land
ownership
Industrial Revolution
What is an Industrial
Revolution:
a change from hand and
home production to one
of machine and factory
production.
Discuss with your groups
What is something you
know is made in a factory
What is something you
know is made locally
There were two Industrial Revolutions
First Industrial Revolution
 1800 – 1850
 Occurred in Great Britain.
 Involved textiles or
clothing.
 Eli Whitney: Cotton Gin
Second Industrial Revolution
 1850-1900
 Focused on:
 Transportation:
Transcontinental Railroad
 Communication:
Telephone
 Electricity: Work at Night
 Production Improvements:
1. assembly line: mass
production
2. Interchangeable parts:
exp Guns
Industrial Revolution
Effects of the Industrial Revolution
1. Immigration: Europeans, Mexicans and
Asians came to the U.S for jobs.
2. Urbanization: Growth of cities occurred
because of the number of new Americans
arriving.
3. Westward Expansion: Find natural resources:
“Gold” and free land.
4. Most Americans did not trust industrialists
Different Waves of Immigration
Old Immigration
New Immigration
 1820-1890
 1890-1914
 Great Britain: for land
 Italians
 Ireland: Potato famine
 Germany: political unrest
 Scandinavia: land and
industrial jobs
 Chinese: railroad jobs
 Came for cheap land and
to get rich
 Greece
 Russians
 Jews
 Came to escape
political persecution
and get rich.
Urbanization
With the arrival of new immigrates
and people leaving the farms for
factory jobs, American cities begin
to grow.
Problems
1. Overcrowding
2. Slums
3. Unsanitary Conditions
Discuss with your groups
Specific problems that
could be causes by
overcrowding and
unsanitary conditions
Inventors and Inventions
Eli Whitney
Interchangeable
parts
Assembly Line
production.
Inventors and Inventions
Thomas
Edison
Light Bulb
Electricity
Inventors and Inventions
Alexander G Bell
Telephone
Discuss in your groups
How has those
three inventions
changed your life
Rise of Big Business
It occurred
because of a lack
of government
regulation which
allowed companies
and business men
to build large
fortunes on the
backs of their
workers.
Big Business
 Historians use these two terms to describe
powerful industrialists during the Gilded Age.
 Captain of Industry: served their nation in a
positive way.
 Robber Barons: Built their fortunes by
stealing from the public.
Big Business
Andrew Carnegie
 Captain of Industry
 Steel Industry
 Argued that the success of
wealthy industrialists helped
the entire nation.
 Vertical Consolidation :
owned every part of the steel
making process from digging
the iron ore to shipping the
finished product.
Big Business
John D Rockefeller
 Captain of Industry
 Oil Industry
 Horizontal
Consolidation: bought
smaller oil companies
and consolidated them
into one big business.
Labor Movement
Factory Work:
1.
6 days a week, 10 to 16 hour work day.
2.
Paid by completed product: exp: number of
finished chairs built, not by the hour.
3.
Unskilled paid$1.00 to 1.50 a day
4.
Skilled Worker paid $3.00 to 4.00 a day
5.
Poor, unsafe working conditions: poor lighting,
loud and dangerous machines, little training, no
breaks, disciplined by management, accidents
and fires.
Labor Movement
Child Labor:
1. Children left
school at 12 to
work:
2. Would work 6 days
a week, 12 hours
a day to earn a
dollar a week.
3. Average 50-70
hours a week.
Rise of Labor Unions
Why join a union?
Workplace accidents were common, and the idea of
compensating workers injured on the job was unheard of at
the time. To help each other through illness, injury, and
deaths, workers formed mutual benefit societies, but the
assistance these groups provided was minimal. The most
serious problem for factory workers was unemployment. It
was common for a worker, particularly an unskilled one, to
be out of a job at least part of the year.
Ticket out the door
One thing you
learned today that
you didn’t know
when you came to
class