The Benefits Of Living A Second Gilded Age

The Gilded Age is a time period in American history between 1870-1900. During this time period there was a boom in the United States economy and population. Unfortunately, during this time period there was a lot of financial corruption and inequality which caused the rich to become very wealthy. Interestingly enough there were a variety of distinguished authors, from William Graham Sumner, Henry Demarest Lloyd, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry George knew economic inequality was a major problem and something needed to be done.

At the turn of the 19th century also known as the Gilded Age, many immigrants came to the United States looking for opportunities to live a new life that they were not able to live back home. Many of them may have had hopes of finding a miraculous career that would bring them fame and fortune just like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan did. But in reality it was not as glamorous and prosperous as it may have seemed to be. Instead it was filled with greed and corruption. Although the United States experienced an economic boom, it created an extremely wealthy upper class. Thus only widening the wealth gap between the rich and poor during this era.

During the Gilded Age, the U.S. was riddled with corruption and people who took advantage of the poor. For example Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, describes the story of an immigrant named Jurgis and his family who get forced into a

I don’t believe we are living in a second Gilded Age. So much has change. But there's still so many similarities. Even though everything is much more advanced. We are upgrading as we go.

Throughout the course of the Gilded Age, several influential figures rose impacting the economy, political factors, and culture of the United States. One of the most important figures of this time period was Frances Willard, born in New York in 1839. She held several important positions, exceeding as an educator, a women’s suffragist, and a co-founder of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The fact that Frances Willard held these positions indicates that she contributed to the improvement of the United States, specifically by educating Women, fighting for Women’s rights, and fighting for prohibition. These key roles were complementary to the issues associated with the United States at the time. For example, a significantly low percentage of the population attended college after completing high school. Most of the people that attended college at the time were men. Women were typically held to Victorian standards by society’s expectation of them to stay home to raise children, making it uncommon for them to attend college. In terms of alcohol, Christian churches completely disagreed with and despised the consumption of liquor, leading to the establishment of temperance reform. Frances Willard was the most influential figure of the Gilded Age because of her work through the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union that contributed towards the ratification of the 18th and 19th amendment, prohibiting the consumption or production of alcohol and

The late-nineteenth century was a turning point for American society, economics and politics. This era was an era of seeming prosperity and diversity. Nonetheless, there were many perspectives that were omitted from this prosperous and wealthy view shared among the few. As a result, the late 1800s was known as the Gilded Age, named by Mark Twain as an allusion to the concept of something that is seemingly pleasantly plated with gold on the outside, but rotten to the core. This Gilded Age, in essence, was a period of rapid growth of industry in the American North and West. This industrialization brought many benefits, however, along with the benefits for the select few, it also saw heavier persecution and exploitation against those who were

The term the “Gilded Age” was coined by Mark Twain. “By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath.” With its period of extreme economic growth, there was tremendous wealth, but only for the wealthy. The “Second Gilded Age,” which some say was brought on as the Information Age, brings a level of inequality to America that has never been seen before. Experts believe that this shift could kill the American dream. The Gilded Age and the Age of Information are similar in terms of the vast economic inequality prevalent, the issues arising with immigration (both reform and influx), and the disparity between the political parties.

The Gilded Age is known as the Second Industrial Revolution because of the major increase in factories and production (Foner 593). During this time the United States controlled more than a third of the world’s industrial output. This led to approximately 11 million people moving from the rural areas to the city, and another 25 million immigrants moving into America (Foner, 596). Because of the increase in population, freedom and safety were harder to maintain.

The Gilded Age was characterized by rapid industrialization, reconstruction, ruthless pursuit of profit, government, corruption, and vulgarity (Cashman 1). After the Civil War, America was beginning to regroup as a nation. There were many other changes developing in the country. Industrialization was taking over the formerly agricultural country. The nation’s government was also in great conflict (Foner 20). Many changes occurred during the Gilded Age. These changes affected farmers, labor, business, and politics.

The Gilded Age was a very special time for our nation that took place from the 1870s to around 1900. During this time, economic growth was at a rapid increase, politics were corrupted yet had high turnouts, and urbanization flourished. Every aspect of the life of an American changed drastically throughout this time of the Gilded Age. The entire era was focused on the enormous changes that each aspect of America was going through. As this is brought to attention, if we are to look into the way that America is in our time of today, we can find that there are many similarities to that of the original Gilded Age. The United States of America have currently found themselves to be experiencing the second era of the Gilded Age throughout the areas of economic, politic and social transformation.

The Gilded Age was one of the most volatile periods in American history. Spanning for the last three decades of the 19th Century, the Gilded Age is largely described as a period of corruption, greed, political scandals and shady business deals. It’s no wonder Mark Twain’s imagery of this period has been branded into American history. Though the Gilded Age saw its fair share of violence, racial tensions, harsh labor conditions, and poverty for thousands of its citizens, it was also a time of reform; helping grow and shape America’s economy into a modern society.

The time period after the Reconstruction Era was known as the Gilded Age (1870-1890). During this time period, the American economy expanded massively along with a large influx of European immigrants. It was known as a time of weak public policy and corrupt national politics. The Gilded Age in America was a time where industrialists were able to control the economy through a weak federal government, creating leeway for new ideologies that would carry on into the 20th century.

Mark Twain was the one to actually dub the 19th century the “Gilded Age”. What he meant by it was that America seemed like a glittering wonderland on the surface but it was in fact very corrupt underneath all the fake glitter. Popular media paints the 19th century as a time when corporations were known for being corrupt, politics were full of scandals, businesses were becoming shadier by the minute, and the military was on a power hungry march for absolute power. However this was a time in America were a once small country of plantations and farms were turning into an urban society that was dominated by industries and big corporations.

From the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century many economic changes occurred, from booms to busts, but all effected minorities less favorably.

Stemming from the end of the Civil War, the age of Reconstruction boomed. Some industries were starting to populate prior to and during the War, such as the iron industry and the California Gold Rush. However, the idea of Big Businesses and their large impact on America was greatly noticed in the years to come called the Gilded Age, coined by Mark Twain as America started to gleam with gold. The start of such growth in American happened as businesses wanted to expand and workers began discovering new crops and demand for them increased. Farming so many crops quickly became more of a hindrance and required more hands to help harvest the crop. Then, as more crops grew, so did the demand, and the natural human pace no longer sufficed for harvesting. Such demand required better technology and faster transport on top of more workers to lend a hand. As technology also boomed during this era, it helped fuel the industries capability to flourish beyond belief. Industrialization grew like no one thought it could bring in a thriving economy, expanding cities, and with such growth a challenging workforce.