What Is The Role Of The Big Business During The Civil War Era Dbq

As businesses are growing, they become more in power. Monopolies begin to have more power, and monopolies and other businesses controlled the senate. The picture in document D shows how the people and public entrances are closed. It shows different monopolists lined up at the door, people with big bellies with trust signs on them and a sign that says “This is a senate of the monopolists by the monopolists and for the monopolists”. These all show how the trusts are oversized, how monopolists trusts are wealthy and very powerful. it shows how trust controls the senate and industries and corporations. People began to want more power. Document F shows how people want the power of the people to be expanded. People want the government to restore power to “the plain people” and to end the oppression, injustice and poverty.

The harsh working conditions resulting from industrialization drove laborers to organize into unions. Economist David A. Wells compares working in a factory to working in the military because workers are taught to perform one single task. Moreover, manufacturing has largely taken away workers’ pride in their work (DOC C). Mass production techniques led to specialization of labor, which subsequently decreased workers’ pride in their craft, as well as left workers largely unskilled. Further Samuel Gompers, founder of the AF to L, addressed the International Labor Congress in Chicago and stated that people should not be considered property. He advocated that labor

While many have described the civil war as simply the war between the States, Bruce Levine in his book “Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War” has put together an 80 year survey from around 1773 the pre-revolutionary era to the Civil War with well documented evidence of the social, cultural and political idealisms of our once divided nation. This book review will emphasize points on each of the book’s chapters which are put chronologically and particularly comparing the southern slave labor system to the free labor system in the north. Levine’s thesis statement on page four of his book reads as follows, “What impelled so many-rich, middling, and poor; white and black; native-born and immigrant- to risk and sacrifice so much? To answer such questions, this book reexamines the antebellum political history in the light of the broader economic, social, cultural, and ideological developments that shaped the lives of the American people”. (p. 4) Clearly the author of the book has researched numerous historical papers and has placed them in the direction his thesis will be provided with hard evidence from the founding fathers’ letters, written memos and of course the laws put into the United States constitution.

The Industrial Revolution was of great importance to the economic development of the United States. The new era of mass production kindled in the United States because of technological innovations, a patent system, new forms of factory corporations, a huge supply of natural resources, and foreign investment. The growth of large-scale industry in America had countless positive results, but also negative results as well. Industrialization after the Civil War affected the United States in several ways including poverty, poor labor laws, and the condition of the people.

After the civil war, up until the early 1900s, the need for a larger workforce grew as industrialization expanded. Samuel Slater brought the industrial revolution from England, and even since then, there were people trying to get better working conditions. Due to the growth in population by immigrants and expansion of industrialization, the working conditions became worse and worse, causing workers to suffer. Many people fought to solve this problem and changed many American’s lives for the better.

After the civil war, especially during the late 1800s, the US industrial economy has been thriving and booming which reflected on the numerous improvements that occurred in transportation through new railroad, in new markets for new invented goods and in the increased farm yield. However, most of this wealth has been captured by the capitalists, they looked down on the working poor class and expected them to submit to them. Also, they had control over the government seeking to maintain a system of monopoly to allow them to grow richer from others. Thus, they were controlling both political and economic conditions of the country.

As the age of Reconstruction ended, the Gilded Age of big businesses began in the United States and with it came new jobs and goods for Americans. When new corporations became more successful, it made an immense impact on the economy, the political system and the lives of citizens. Economically, the cost of food and living went down significantly as well as a surplus of jobs. Political leaders were corrupted by big business as their decisions and laws were influenced by the wealthy class’ bribes and stealing from the common man. Though mass production allowed goods to be made quicker and in greater quantity, the workers’ horrible working conditions and remarkably long hours caused the creation of unions and strikes. Despite the great effect big business had on the economy in the Gilded Age through the decline in the cost of food and fuel, the daily lives of average working-class citizens were negatively impacted by long hours, horrid working conditions leading to unions and a corrupted political system.

Reunited by the Union victory in the Civil War, America faced an era of reconstruction during which the value of the individual was reanalyzed and redefined in law. After the reconstruction, a sense of peace and prosperity calmed the American people. Given hope by their success in maintaining the Union, the Progressive Era ensued. The previously forgotten vision of Alexander Hamilton was reborn and finally implemented. America was no longer the land of the yeoman farmer. Denizens of rural areas moved to the city and sought to work in the gradually industrializing regions of the country. As big business gained power, the laborers sought to achieve the American Dream of economic prosperity through self-improvement in a laissez faire economy.

The years following the Civil War and Reconstruction was an era somewhat gilded. The Second Industrial Revolution came about with new inventions, and revolutionized how factories and jobs were worked. Factory workers in this time period were working in poor conditions and had no power whatsoever. Often they were abused and their wages were cut very low. The mass immigration also did not favor laborers as it made them so easy to replace. In order to fight back laborers would join labor unions in order to protest; however, during this time the labor unions were not that affective during 1875 and 1900 because although they had their efforts many of them would not work to their advantage; efforts would give them a bad reputation, go out of

The end of the Civil War brought a whole new era of economy, political control, and Presidential intervention. The economy emerged from its agriculturally based economy into a flourishing big business dominated world and eventually in 1929 came crashing down. I agree only partially with the quote " The Civil War saw the beginning of an 80-year decline of real individual economic opportunity; nonetheless, the vast majority of Americans continued to profess their belief in individualism as evidenced by the Presidents they elected. Thus, between 1865 and 1939, the majority of Americans accepted big business dominance and rejected all forms of government interference and regulation contrary to

During the Gilded Age, monopolists dominated politics. The political cartoon “Bosses of the Senate” shows that the monopolists virtually had complete control of the government. In the cartoon, the monopolists were welcomed into the Senate

Corruption in campaigns, in the modern sense of candidates being swayed by corporate influence, was a result of the changes brought on by the Industrial and Technological Revolutions. These revolutions created millionaire captains of industry whose immense influence and power held sway over the future of the United States both economically and politically. Elections and campaigning methods drastically changed as technology allowed candidates to reach voters through new kinds of advertising. Gone were the days when being born in a log cabin was the key to door of the Oval Office, the effectiveness of a candidate’s campaign now correlated with the amount of money backing it. The early twentieth century also saw the continuance of the widespread corruption, particularly in the railroad industry, but also in political campaigns, that had plagued the late nineteenth century before it. The significance of this is that, while corruption had no doubt existed prior to this period, the sheer scale of this new corruption and the magnitude of the resulting political scandals was unlike anything America had witnessed before. Muckraking writer Lincoln Steffens, in his book The Shame of the Cities, described the problem of the political sphere of his time by stating: “politics is business. That 's what 's the matter with it. That 's what 's the matter with everything.” (Steffens 2) Something clearly needed to be done to stem the rising corruption and action came as the progressive movement

After the Civil War, the United States went through a period of rapid industrialization which affected the nation dramatically. Industrial growth, the spread of railroads, the rise of big businesses, and the appearance of labor unions during these decades created a modern industrial economy, and American workers and farmers faced new challenges in adapting to these changes.

In the northern states of the united states, pre-Civil War, they had been booming with new factories. Industrialization had taken over the northern states, becoming their entire economy. After the Civil War though, the industrialization economy really took a hit. Roughly 360,000 Union deaths took place during the Civil war, many companies lost many employees. Shortly after the Civil War the United States entered an era we now know at the “Gilded Era”. During this era, some of the richest men, even in todays money, were born. Big names like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan entered the economy, trying to earn their way to the top.

The decades after the Civil War rapidly changed the face of the United States. The rapid industrialization of the nation changed us from generally agrarian to the top industrial power in the world. Business tycoons thrived during this time, forging great business empires with the use of trusts and pools. Farmers moved to the cities and into the factories, living off wages and changing the face of the workforce. This rapid industrialization created wide gaps in society, and the government, which had originally taken a hands off approach to business, was forced to step in.