Domestic Reform During The Gilded Age

The gilded age was an age of industrial revolution. With inventions of machines and the major social problems, it was an era of great change for the United States.

The long Gilded Age of America started in 1870 and lasted until 1930. It started right after the Civil War and was a period of extreme economic and industrial growth. After the war, a period known as Reconstruction started. The Reconstruction was meant to rebuild the economy of the South. However, the Reconstruction not only didn’t help the South that much, it also didn’t help the newly freed African Americans. According to Eric Foner’s book Give Me Liberty Volume 2, “African-Americans’ understanding of freedom was shaped by their experience as slaves and their observation of the free society around them.” Even after the Civil War, life was still not good for African Americans. One deadly system that was very similar to slavery was the convict leasing system. According to the Reconstruction Amendments, the 13th Amendment outlawed all slavery except ones “ except as a punishment for crime”. Those few words were enough for many people to exploit this by falsely accusing people(many of them African American) of crime and forcing them to work in horrific conditions such as mines and factories. In the Slavery By Another Name video, it told of situations when convicts were through with their time and yet would be forced to stay by the harsh rule of the place they were working at. Many blacks would get sent to prison and then leased for minor misdemeanors or idiotic actions such as stealing a pig or the “Vagrancy Statutes”(from Slavery By Another Name). These statutes basically

Throughout history, America was faced with many problems socially, economically, politically, and technologically. But America has also experienced many great successes in these areas as well. Some opportunities were seized, while others were wasted. We can learn from our past failures and successes and take what we have learned from them forward with us into the future, to help build and maintain a better America. The Gilded Age, during the late 1800’s, was a time in America where we experienced explosive economic growth, serious social problems, new innovative technology, and the rise of corporations and corruption in politics. We have learned from some of these things that we went through in the Gilded Age and fixed them, but we are still facing some of the problems we faced back then, today.

Throughout the Gilded Age, the United States economy prospered and grew. Over 200,000 miles of new railroads were created. The national wealth grew by over seventy million

Prior to the Gilded Age, the Northern and Southern areas of America were different; however, they were not as disparate as they would be after the Industrialization period that occurred during the late 1800's. The Gilded Age brought about common things known today, such as: railroads, steel production, telephones, etc. During the time, these grand improvements seemed to only happen in the Northen regions of the United States, whereas the South was still farming and such things. This was because of the huge immigration boom, resulting in foreigners looking for jobs in factories and whatnot in, typically, the North. The North stepped up their game in becoming more industrialized, leaving the South to still be focused on the agrarian sides of

The gilded age was really a time about the streets being paved in gold, but the problems that were happening were dreadful. The Laissez-Faire policy affected social, political and economic issues during the time of the gilded age. Problems such as Child Labor, Women's right and Monopolies were affected. Lewis Hine, Susan B Anthony and Theodore Roosevelt are all reformers who helped fix these problems.

In 2015, America is in a New Gilded Age because of similar individuals and their philanthropic work, similar wealth gaps and the cultural and social changes that have been made in that time seem to go in a similar flow as in the Gilded Age of late 1800’s.

When the telegraph became known it made it much easier send messages the message would be sent instantly.Many used the telegraph like the military,business owners,journalists and reporters,and just any people.Then after that they started this thing called morse code which meant like certain amounts of clicks and beeps which is good because the morse code is still used today.Also it was an inventor named Granville woods he created the multiplex telegraph which you could use on trains to run a schedule to avoid collisions with other trains.Then later after that the telephone was invented it allowed instant communication through speech it helped the deaf.Then later on in 1877 it had the first telephone line and company it was called the Bell Telephone Company.

During the Progressive Era, many people were beginning to realize the effects of the Gilded Age, which left almost the whole nation in poverty, so some people called muckrakers rose to the challenge to help resolve the poverty problem. Among the muckrakers, Thomas Nast effectively helped try to stop a thief in office, who was secretly stealing from the country. Thomas Nast 's birthplace was Landau, Germany, and his birthdate is September 27, 1840. In 1846, he and his family immigrated to New York City. Thomas Nast was an American artist, best known for his paintings and caricatures. He is especially known for his political cartoons against The New York City political machine and promoting Radical Reconstruction during slavery. Thomas Nast was one of the most persuasive political cartoonists in America, drawing over 2,200 cartoons. Nast created a turning point in American History with his cartoons, using his artistic talent and adding dialogue. Nast left a permanent mark on the nation, to show how corrupt the nation was using symbols such as the Republican Elephant and the Tammany Tiger. Thomas Nast effectively removed corruption from the nation by working with Harper’s Weekly, attacking Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall, and using his cartoons against other groups of people who were creating flaws in the nation.

The gilded age is the name given to the era of rapid economic development and growth in the United States from the 1870s to the early 1900s. The North and the Western states in particular gained tremendously in these times due to several economic, social and political factors. In economic terms, American wages at the time were much higher than what was being offered to their European counterparts which let the public have greater amounts of disposable income. The economic policies of the government of the time came perfectly in sync with the rapidly developing technological changes arriving in the United States through tools such as rail roads, mechanized farming, scientific management and the emergence of large corporations getting tremendous

The Gilded Age, was a brief period in American history, from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s, where there was a rapid economic growth as the industry expanded, generating groundbreaking opportunities for individuals. At its triumph peak, society was perceived from the outside that the new era of Americans was prosperous, however, conspicuous consumption and luxury masked corruption and the fact that a majority of people were suffering. Like gilded gold, the outside looks exemplary, but much like the Gilded Age, the inside contrasted dramatically. Besides the wide amount of success in this era, society was unbalanced with hierarchy, with a competition of the common people and successful business, as laborers fought for recognition and

Despite the fact that many people in America from the early 19th century to the early 20th century lived in poverty and discrimination, the overall condition of American economy, technological advancement, and standard of living improved. Furthermore, the many reform movements that came out of the Gilded Age led to a more tolerant American

Taking place after the Civil War was one of the fastest and most profound economic revolutions that anyone else had ever seen. The Gilded Age, taking place from the 1870’s to the 1890’s, marked a truly remarkable advancement of society to how we know it today. An expanding market for manufactured goods, an abundance of natural resources, availability of capital investment and a growing supply of labor are all reasons that lead to the intense boom within the economy. This, in turn, led to the rapid expansion of factory production as well as mining and railroad construction everywhere in the nation except for the south. America had turned from its old ways of small farms and artisan workshops to a maturing industrial society.

The Gilded Age was a time of industrial development, new immigrants and labor unions. Industrial developments led to monopolies, which helped men like Vanderbilt and Rockefeller prosper, but exploited the poor, often immigrant, workers who were willing to work for cheap money. Though the robber barons were a minority of the population, they still held a majority of the country’s wealth. This unequal distribution of wealth and poor working environments led to the formation and rise of labor unions, such as the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor. Theses changes shaped the social, economic and political atmosphere during the Gilded Age and led to changes for future ages.

The Gilded Age was an interesting time in American history, it was a period in which businesses grew, cities grew, and American GDP immensely increased. But while that happened most of the American population lived in poverty while the 1 percent lived in luxury. Though I believe it is possible to say that America currently does not live in a second gilded age. To start yes poverty in America is still a problem but according to Courtney Blair, someone at the poverty line in the United States is in the top 14% of the global income distribution(Mic). Also,