How Did The Upper Class Affect The Lower Class

The emerging inequitable class systems and antagonisms of the nineteen twenties saw the traditional order and moral values challenged, as well as the creation of great wealth for few and poverty for many. The Great Gatsby, written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, explores the causes and effects of the unbalanced class structures. Fitzgerald outlines the idea that the desire to accumulate wealth and status is a common ambition amongst the lower classes; when that desire is reached, the traditional upper class is challenged by the emerging newly wealthy, which finally leads to destructive consequences. By creating rigid class structures, traditional upper class, new wealth, and the poor in The Great Gatsby, it is

Second to the lowest class were free africans and they had almost no rights. The only things they could do is own land and own slaves. After buying these slaves, sometimes relatives, they might set them free. Even though they were free and owned land, they still could not vote or sit on a court jury.

As the wealthy increased their assets in the cities, at the same time, a large class was “impoverished city dwellers.” A huge contrast between the wealthy and the poor were forming and becoming more apparent from the beginning of the eighteenth century in the colonies. The data that was collected on the people who were submitted into poor houses clearly with little “doubt that the third quarter of the eighteenth century was an era of severe economic and social dislocation in the cities, and that by the end of the colonial period a large number of urban dwellers were without property, without opportunity, and except for public aid, without the means of obtaining the necessities.” This evidence of poverty in the colonies is one that Nash tries to point out to support his argument that there was a sharp contrast in the distribution of wealth, and that the masses were at this time more focused on the economy’s downfall of the period than defending for constitutional rights and liberties. Protest sparked as the result of the enormous poverty in the colonies. Frustrated with their living conditions the middle and lower classes protested violently in the cities. During this time of frustration with the economic conditions, “rank had no privileges, as even the lieutenant-governor was shot” in Massachusetts. The wealthy were attacked

Elite whites used this class system to marginalize poor whites for their own benefit. The system has been used to marginilize poor whites by paying them a low wage, giving them little to no rights and keeping them from creating offspring. Harriet Beecher Stowe described poor whites as “a degenerate class, prone to crime, immorality, and ignorance. “(Isenberg pg. 218). That was the narrative that elite whites used to justify sterilizing poor whites at the time. The viewpoint that elite whites had started the marginalization of poor whites that is still seen today. The manifestation of this class treatment was formed to originally purge England of their lower class citizens. In White Trash, it states, ““Expendable people—waste people—would be unloaded from England; their labor would germinate a distant wasteland. Harsh as it sounds, the idle poor, dregs of society, were to be sent thither simply to throw down manure and die in a vacuous muck. “(Isenberg pg. 23). During this time citizens in Europe did not know the financial opportunity that America held. They just wanted to get rid of lower class citizens. These citizens could include; people in debt, criminals and even children. It was not until years later that others citizens came to reap the benefits of the land. Settlers realized the benefit of having a class system. If low class white Americans felt like they were better than blacks, then they

Nathanial Bacon was a young, bold, active, and powerful individual (Beverly). Bacon was born in England, taught at Cambridge, and later moved to Virginia with his wife, Elizabeth, in 1974 (Tarter). Bacon graduated from the University of Cambridge and studied the law. Elizabeth’s father, the Sir Edward Duke of Suffolk, opposed their marriage. Her disinheritance by her father contributed to Bacon’s decision to migrate to North America. When they moved they got two plantations paid for by his father. Bacon owned the two plantations along the Jamestown northern frontier. By his social position and financial means, Bacon was brought up in the governor’s council in

Ivin talks about how the poor whites along with the blacks were actually slaves to the upper white class, the poor whites and the blacks were so alike, living in poverty, and struggling to get money to survive, so if they had seen it that way, that they are equal, to the blacks and they should do something about the government with their right to vote, they could’ve made a drastic change, because the slaves at one point outnumbered the elites. It wasn’t that simple, the elites put through the poor whites heads that because their skin was white, they were better than black slaves even if they both lived in poverty, the thought of having white skin was believed to give them a boost in their say, believing they were being heard. The elites wanted to stop the blacks from getting freedom, because they needed black slaves, and if they rumored that blacks, once granted freedom, they were “portrayed as a danger to all” the rich and poor had one common enemy, the black slaves. The upper class wanted the lower class whites to join their side to stop the blacks from gaining any rights and being freed, so being influenced by the upper class, poor whites thought they were fighting for what was best for them, but really they were helping the richer whites in this situation, being manipulated and believing these crazy things about black slaves and what could possibly

Bacon's Rebellion may have served as the first civil uprising within the early settlements of America. Led by Nathaniel Bacon, a militia of armed freedmen, slaves, and poor colonist banded together to fight against a government that they felt was corrupt and did not have their best interests in mind. This paper will examine some of the major causes that led to the rebellion such as the increased westward expansion by the colonists, the civil unrest growing between the social classes, rising taxes, and disputes between colonists and neighboring indian tribes.

Nathaniel Bacon is one of the few rebellious people whose name has been taught from school to school in America. “Why is that?”, you may ask, “why him? Why is his rebellion significant in American history?”. Bacon’s rebellion used to be seen as the start of the American Revolution, but now, modern historians have uncovered the truth of the Virginian Rebellion of 1676. Historians have found out that the real issue that caused Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion was his stubbornness and selfishness. People may specifically point fingers to a number of reasons for Bacon 's rebellion, they may include the following: economic problems, commercial competition from Maryland and Carolina, a restricted English market, and the rising prices from English

In this chapter Zinn explains to us the class divisions that happened in the American Colonies. He also explained to us that there were upper class also know as the elite class and there was a middle class and a lower class. He then further explains that this then caused a lot of conflict between them. He then explains the founding fathers as upper class men who just didn’t want the lower class to succeed. I found that part very strange because in my old history class what I learnt about the founding fathers was that they were trying to help Americans as a whole. We learnt that they were trying to help America succeed and be its own nation. Zinn then mentions that they were the new privileged class “ New privileged leadership” (Zinn). I believe

Back in the eighteenth century, wealth combined with ethnicity, race, family, age, and gender to create social divisions known as “rank.” When social confusion happened in New York, authorities were driven to try to toughen the boundaries of traditional ranks. Through the courts` verdicts, Horsmanden had hoped to create a society in which there were “clear social distinctions between slaves, elite whites, indentured servants, free blacks, and free whites, as well as between men and women in all these categories.” These distinctions were

During the Gilded Age, America opened its doors to many immigrants. They flocked from Europe, Mexico, Asia, China, and Japan. Just like blacks, they were discriminated against by the Americans already here because the immigrants and blacks were willing to work in factories for hardly any money. Because of this, most women in the lower class and children worked in the factories to help to support the family. The immigrants and blacks usually lived in small crowded apartments in the cities because they could not afford to live far away from their job. Each immigrant group tried to recreate their neighborhood from their old country in America which caused the cities to become segregated ghettos with ethnic backgrounds. Poor farmers were also apart of the lower class because they were dependent to one crop, and there was only one harvest per year.

Tudor England encountered problems with their economy and society. The society suffered from economic issues such as enclosure and bad harvest but also, they encountered problems with the nobility and the government. These issues concerned the majority of the people that started off rebellions. However, there were evidently rebellions that did not emphasise the problems of economic and social issues and saw these problems as one of the reasons for the rebellion. This clearly shows that economic and social issues were not the main cause of rebellions. Therefore, it will be argued that economic and social issues were a contributory cause and that faction is

The first chapter, The Rebirth of a Caste, argues that after the Civil Rights movement and with the collapse of Jim Crow in the south, there needed to emerge a new caste system. Alexander argues that racism was created to fulfill particular ends; the profits of the planter class. “Deliberately and strategically, the planter class extended special privileges to poor whites in an effort to drive a wedge between them and black slaves. White settlers were allowed greater access to Native American lands, white servants were allowed to police slaves through slave patrols and militias, and barriers were created so that free labor would not be placed in competition with slave labor. These measures effectively eliminated the risk of future alliances between black slaves and poor whites. Poor whites suddenly had a direct, personal stake in the existence of a race-based system of

John Stuart Mills also writes about an inequality of classes in society. In His work ‘On Liberty’ he states that “Each church or sect was reduced to limit its hopes to retaining possessions of the ground it already occupied; minorities, seeing that they had no chance of becoming majorities, were under the necessity of pleading to those whom they could not convert, for permission to differ” (174) in this quote he is talking about how minorities are created and how they remain minorities by being pushed down by the majorities. Mills believes that there is an inequality in society and that there needs to be an end put to the divide of classes. Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mills both believe that there is a divide in society and that said

How do members of the upper class in modern Western society influence the general population?