The Gilded Age By Mark Twain

The Gilded Age had many relevant people arguing about economy at that time. Three of the people that argued about economic issues in society are Sumner, Lloyd, and Carnegie. Sumner had a biased approached towards economy in favor of the powerful wealthy class. While Lloyd had a completely contradictory view from Sumner’s opposing most of Sumner’s ideas. On the other hand, Carnegie had a favorable argument for economic equality by offering help to the poor class in his way. Although these authors have opposing views on the economic inequality, they support their views with valid solutions and proposals.

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.

The Gilded Age is a brief time in American history in which the United States experienced a population and rapid economic expansion. Mark Twain named it the “Gilded Age” as this was after the Civil War, lasting from 1870 - 1900. Although, this name was ironic as “gilded” is a term used to describe something that was covered in gold, by this he meant that the Gilded Age was whitewashed but was full of corruption. It shows how the social factors (as seen in documents A,B,C and D), economic factors (as seen in documents G), and political factors (as seen in documents E, H and I)

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 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.

When you are young and even well into your adult years people will tell you there will always be somebody who is smarter, faster, happier, or better at something than you are. This is true for all periods of time but in the Gilded Age those who were better gained more and more crushing the people below them with unprecedented greed, corruption, and power. The few exploited the many by way of opportunity. Something our nation was built on, yet the avaricious elite used it for evil methods.

When hearing the phrase, “The Gilded Age,” many would think of positive words to describe the time period. In some ways, that may be true. Diversity, jobs, and even the great invention of light bulbs, were all products of this era that helped make America the country that it is today. To a majority of the immigrants that had just come to the United States at the time, however, America appeared to be a country of chaos and desperation. The necessities that people could not imagine living without today, such as fresh air and sanitary houses, were often a luxury to these immigrants. Jacob Riis, the author of How the Other Half Lives, visited several areas in New York to observe the appalling living conditions that various immigrants were stuck in. After making these observations, Riis ultimately criticizes the greedy landlords but also places considerable amount of blame on the immigrants for their misfortune as well.

There is no doubt that wealth inequality in America has been escalating quickly; the portion of total income earned by the top one percent has doubled since the beginning of the 1970’s. The wealthy are the main beneficiaries

Mark Twain named the 1870’s to 1900 the Gilded Age. He called this time that because gilded means covered in gold, this describes America, because if your looking at America from the outside in it looked good and business was booming. But if you lived in and worked in America you would have seen the problems and saw that everything was not good as it seemed. He called this time that because gilded means covered in gold, this describes America, because if your looking at America from the outside in it looked good and business was booming. But if you lived in and worked in America you would have seen the problems and saw that everything was not good as it seemed. The wealthy industrialists were robber barons because they paid low wages, poor working conditions, and there was manipulation of laws.

The Gilded Age was a period from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. The name of this time period was given by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today which expresses this time using two stories. One of a Tennessee family trying to sell undeveloped land and the other of two upper class businessmen. This book visits the highs and lows of living in this age. Those who are rich and plentiful, and those who are dirt poor. Showing the struggle people went through to live in this era. The workers during this time were conservative capitalists trying to make as much money as they could as cheap and fast as they could. They did this at the expense of the poor who got even poorer as this happened.

Throughout the history of the United States, the Gilded Age is regarded as a period that spanned the last three decades of the 19th century. This period starts from the Civil War came to an end in the 1865 up to 1900. The term Gilded Age was formulated by writers Charles Warner and Mark Twain in The Gilded Age: A Tale of Toady in 1873. They did this since they believed it to be an era that would be characterized by a variety of severe social problems that were camouflaged by a minute gold gilding.

The highest earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, while the richest earned 88.9% of all wealth. A big gap between the rich and poor is often associated with low social mobility, which contradicts the American ideal of equal opportunity. Levels of income inequality are higher than they have been in almost a century, the top one percent has a share of the national income of over 20 percent (Wilhelm). There are a variety of factors that influence income inequality, a few of which will be discussed in this paper. Rising income inequality is caused by differences in life expectancy, rapidly increases in the incomes of the top 5 percent, social trends, and shifts in the global economy.

Capitalism has been the central force behind the growth of the United States’ progressive economy. Within such advanced economic system the chances of economic disparity are significantly high. In fact, over the past three decades there has being a steady increase in unequal wealth distribution among the economic classes. To sustain the current unequal wealth distribution among the classes of the American population, there are numerous factors that influence and shape this trend. For some members of the population it is alarmingly disturbing to know that recent statistics have shown that, “In the US [alone] the wealthiest 1% of its population owns more than the bottom 95 %” (Gutman). As for the difference in economic wealth, it resulted

One of the biggest social justice issues that you see in our society today is the wealth gap between the wealthy and the poor. Not only is this a large problem, but it only continues to get worse. Last semester in my government class we were shown a video that compared the wealth in the top 1% of our population compared to the total wealth in the U.S. I was shocked to hear the statistics, “Americans in the upper fifth of the income distribution earn 16.7 times as much as those in the lowest 5th percent,” And, “the richest 5th of the U.S. owns 88.9% of all wealth” (Pew Research Center). Although this problem continues to get worse, not everybody knows how fast the issue is going downhill.