Life in the Gilded
Age
Bellwork
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Why is the Gilded Age called the Gilded
Age?
What are inventors? Which inventions do
you think have had the biggest impact on
our lives? Why? How does technology
affect our lives?
Gilded Age
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Term is coined by Mark Twain
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Famous author of the time
Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn
End of the frontier
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Indians pushed into reservations
Wild West is tamed and settled
The Expansion of Industry
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Changes in
technology
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Fuel
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Kerosene
Oil
Coal
Iron and steel
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Bessemer process
Steel
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Steel is used for:
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Railroads
Plows, reapers, farm tools
Food cans
Edison
Thomas Edison
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Made power plant/light bulb
With electricity factories can work
more hours and be anywhere.
Other inventions
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Typewriter
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Telephone (1876) by
Alexander Graham
Bell
"Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to
see you"
Bellwork-Answer these if you were
not here on Friday. The rest of you
BE QUIET OR YOU WILL GET
BELLWORK!!!!
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Why do we have time zones?
What is a union? What is the benefit of
having unions? What are some negative
effects of unions?
The Age of Railroads
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1890=more than 200,000 miles of track
1888=more than 2,000 railroad workers die
and 20,000 are injured.
Built by immigrants (Asians in the West
and Irish in the East) also AfricanAmericans
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Earn very little
Joining the nation
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Railroads link the nation together
Travel and industry increases
Time zones are created to keep railroad
schedules.
Industry grows
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Railroads cause industry to grow
George Pullman invents a sleeping car
known as a Pullman car
Corruption
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Railroads were usually corrupt
Charged high prices
Bribed government officials
Made millions through trickery
Congress Acts
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Congress tries to combat corruption
Supreme Court says they can regulate
interstate trade
Congress passes the Interstate
Commerce Act to regulate trade
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Not strong enough to control the railroads
Big Business Emerges
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Businesses consolidate into big
industries
These are run by businessmen who
become very wealthy and become
known as robber barons.
Government practices
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Government supported laissez-faire
economics
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Means hands off
Government does very little regulation
Result=very wealthy businesses and lots of
corruption and little competition
Social Darwinism
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Idea that the best individuals will succeed
The survival of the fittest
Government should do very little
Robber barons
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Andrew Carnegie
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Built a giant steel firm
Bought out competition
and provides of raw
materials and
transportation of his
goods
Known as vertical
consolidation
Vertical consolidation
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Buying out companies for every stage of
the productive process from raw
materials to marketing.
John D. Rockefeller
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Another robber baron
Controlled Standard Oil
Bought other oil
companies
This is horizontal
consolidation=controllin
g competition at one
step in the process of a
product.
Other robber barons
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Cornelius Vanderbilt: RR
monopolist
J. P. Morgan: banking
monopolist
Robber barons did
philanthropy work
JDR philanthropy was attacked as
"tainted money"; 1910 Puck
cartoon shows him purifying it
through a foundation
Monopolies and trusts
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Robber barons
created monopolies
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Where a firm controls
all the competition
Also created trusts
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Companies agree to
work together
What’s wrong with this?
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What’s wrong with having monopolies and
no competition?
Sherman Anti-trust Act
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Congress passed the Sherman anti-trust
act to outlaw trusts and monopolies
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Difficult to enforce
Working conditions
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Conditions were
terrible
Long hours
Dangerous conditions
Poor living conditions
Child Labor
To improve conditions
formed labor unions
Development of Labor unions
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Labor Movement: unions illegal until
1840's for interfering in commerce, black
lists Federal Government kept unions weak
Unions
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Knights of Labor: unskilled/skilled workers
demanded reforms in child labor, safety,
hours (8 hr day), equal pay for women
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American Federation of Labor: skilled workers
demanded higher pay, shorter work weeks.
Strikes
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Strikes resulted and usually ended in
violence. Government usually sent in
troops against the unions
Notable Strikes
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Great RR Strike of 1877: RR shut down, Hayes
used army to end strike
Haymarket Square Riot: bomb killed 7 policeman,
police fired on strikers
Homestead Strike: Carnegie hired Pinkertons to
violently end strike
Pullman Strike: RR shut down, federal troops
brought in and people get hurt and lose their jobs.
Business leaders react
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Unions were prevented by:
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Not hiring union workers
Banning union meetings
Using the courts and troops to stop unions
Bellwork
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On a piece of paper, in 50 words, answer
the following questions:
Why do people leave their homelands?
Why do people immigrate to the US?
What problems do immigrants face?
Bellwork
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On a half sheet of
paper answer the
following question:
Is America a melting
pot or a salad bowl?
Explain your answer.
Immigration
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Change from:
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Western and Northern
Europe
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Germany, Ireland, and
Great Britain
To Southern and
Eastern Europe
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Italy, Austria-Hungary,
and Russia
Ellis Island
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Europeans enter through Ellis Island
See Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island
Usually stay 5 hrs
Undergo mental and health tests
Requirements to enter: pass health tests,
literacy test, prove they can work, and have at
least $25
20% are detained for a day or more
98% allowed to stay in the US
Asian Immigrants
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Chinese and Japanese come to the US
Chinese come to California during gold
rush and work on railroad.
Japanese went to Hawaii to work and
gradually went to the west coast
(California).
Angel Island
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Asian immigrants came through Angel Island
Different from Ellis Island
Harsh questioning
Long detention
Filthy, ramshackle buildings
Confined like prisoners
More sent back
Problems for Immigrants
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Culture shock
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Confusion and anxiety from being in a new
culture they didn’t understand
Jobs
Housing
Survival
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Settle in neighborhoods
with people from their
culture
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Little Italy, China, etc.
Good: makes transition easier
Bad: excluding themselves,
slows down assimilation
Americanization movement:
use schools and volunteers
to teach immigrants English
and how to be American.
The Great Melting pot
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Melting pot: theory that US is a mixture
of people of different cultures and races
who blend together to become
American.
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Truth-many do not give up their customs
Might be more like a salad bowl
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Nativism and xenophobia
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Anti-immigration feelings grow
Nativism-idea that native-born
Americans are better
Xenophobia-fear of foreigners
Nativism ideas
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Wanted immigration from the right
countries: Britain, Germany, Scandinavia
Not wrong: Slav, Latin, Asian
Natives: Anglo Saxon and Protestant
New Immigrants: Jewish, Catholic, and
Slav and Asian
Anti-Asian Sentiments
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Chinese look different: physical features,
hair, dress
Feared they were taking jobs away from
Native born Americans
Limiting Immigration
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1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Actbanned all entry of Chinese except students,
teachers, merchants, tourists, and
government officials
1902-banned all Chinese immigration until 1943.
Asians went to segregated schools
1907-08 Gentlemen’s Agreement-limits
Japanese immigration
Urbanization
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Immigrants moved to the cities this
produced urbanization: rapid growth of
cities
People also moving from the country to
cities
Urbanization problems
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Housing
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Row housing-houses built so that they are
connected and share walls
Dumbbell houses-housing that is shaped like
a dumbbell (includes air vents in the middle)
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People use air vents to dump sewage
Crime increases
Dumbbell tenements
Transportation
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Need public transportation for everyone
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Horses create a mess in the street
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10lbs of manure per horse per day
Create street cars and later subways for cities
Sanitation
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Need clean drinking water
Trash is in the street
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Not uncommon to see a dead horse in the street
Children play in the street
Start insisting on indoor plumbing
Fires
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Water shortage, houses built together and
of wood=big chance for a fire
Both Chicago and San Francisco had huge
devastating fires
Reform movements
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Settlement houses-community
centers in slums that provide
assistance, especially to
immigrants.
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Provided: educational, cultural, and
social services
Jane Addams founded Hull
house in Chicago
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An important settlement house.
Social Movements
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Women's Movement: worked for suffrage,
temperance (no alcohol), insane, poor
E. C. Stanton/S. B. Anthony pushed for
suffrage amendment
Lucy Stone pushed suffrage state by state
Wyoming: 1st state to allow women's voting
West more democratic: Colorado (1893),
Idaho/Utah (1896)
Racial Equality
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Booker T. Washington: selfimprovement before racial equality
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Racism will end if African Americans prove
useful to society
WEB Dubois: established NAACP for
work for racial equality
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Dubois
Washington
Racial Inequality
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Plessy v. Ferguson:
established “separate
but equal” clause in
1896
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Made segregation
legal
Jim Crow laws
develop-separates
public and private
facilities
The Emergence of the Political
Machine
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Political machine was an organized
group that controlled the activities of a
political party in a city and offered
services to voters and businesses in
exchange for political or financial
support.
Organization of the machine
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Machine was run by a boss
It was like a pyramid
At the top was the city boss who controlled
jobs in police, fire, and sanitation, and
controlled the city government.
They tried to help immigrant problems
and so won immigrant votes and loyalty.
Corruption
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It was like the mob
You had to go through the
boss to get things in a city:
new businesses, licenses,
inspections, money for
schools, hospitals, etc.
The machine then got
paid for providing these
governmental services
More corruption
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To keep the machine running they falsified
elections
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Put in names of dog, children, and dead people
Had more votes than registered voters
Used kickbacks
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Machine would chose a worker that
contracted for a government job, the worker
would charge more than necessary and kick
back a fee to the political machine
Boss Tweed
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William “Boss”
Tweed became one
of the most powerful
bosses
He headed Tammany
Hall in New York
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Democratic party in New
York
William “Boss”
Tweed
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Tweed-le-dee and Tilden-dum
A Harper's Weekly cartoon depicts Tweed
as a police officer saying to two boys, "If all
the people want is to have somebody
arrested, I'll have you plunderers convicted.
You will be allowed to escape, nobody will
be hurt, and then Tilden will go to the White
House and I to Albany as Governor."
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Tweed ring pocket
$200 million from the
city in kickbacks and
payoffs
Newspapers and
cartoonists attacked
him
Finally arrested and
died in jail
Politics in the Gilded Age
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Grant Administration (1869-1877): symbolizes Gilded Age corruption
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Hayes Administration (1877-1881)
end of Reconstruction allowed “Jim Crow” laws such as grandfather
clauses, poll taxes, literacy tests to restore white dominance
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Garfield Administration (1881)
shot by disappointed “spoils system” patron Charles Guiteau
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Arthur Administration (1881-1885)
Pendleton Act: required competitive test to fill certain federal jobs
and made it illegal to force current federal job holders to contribute to
campaigns
Politics in the Gilded Age
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Cleveland Administration (1885-1889)
only president elected to non-consecutive terms
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Harrison Administration (1889-1893)
great grandfather signed D of I, grandfather was President
WH Harrison
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Cleveland Administration (1893-1897)
Depression of 1893: severe financial crisis, government
responded laissez faire