Compare And Contrast Social Gospel And Social Darwinism

Winston Churchill said “The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope”. Churchill understood that without the wars, struggles, and hardships that America has been through in the past, we wouldn 't be living in this free country with the hopes that we have today. Without the patriots we had back then, we wouldn 't be here today. On July 4th 1776 America gained its Independence from England. Everyday since then thousands of soldiers risk their lives for our freedom and to secure this independance. America as made it through countless hardships, and we have won many wars, to gain the hope for the future we have today.

The Gilded Age was a great time for social change and economic growth. Between reconstruction and the dawn of the new century, the Gilded Age saw rapid industrialization, urbanized, railroads, technology, and the rise of big businesses. The nations were split into two halves that hated each other and nobody had enough money. The last three decades of the 19th century is called the Gilded Age which is one of the most dynamic periods in american history. During the Gilded Age america’s industry economy exploded generating opportunities for individuals but also leaving many farmers and workers struggling. Industrial leaders such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller revolutionized business and ushered in the modern corporate economy, but

Social Darwinism is when only the strongest survive, during the Gilded Age this was true. Many businessmen during the time period were people who had a vision and invested time and effort to grow the economy they did what they had to do to make their company survive the economy. Some people's business did not survive because the bigger corporations took them out of business, the business that did not survive are were weak and were not strong enough to survive. It is not the bigger business fault it did not survive, the business did not survive because it could not compete with the competition. Social Darwinism is huge reason why the great industrialist are Captains of Industry.

As a whole, during the Gilded Age “the middle and upper-middle class seemed to be becoming, in part as a result of its wartime experience, less sensitive to the suffering and hardship of the poor” (Ginzberg 207). Subsequently, “[m]iddle-class Protestantism became increasingly defensive of privilege, insensitive to the poor, and harsh towards efforts to change from within” (Ginzberg 207). In fact, “[m]any ministers came to endorse a corporate defense of property and expressed hostility to labor organizing” and it was believed that in no place “did the business spirit find greater favor than in the Protestant church” (Ginzberg 207). Similarly, Carter finds that the Gilded Age “was a time when the gospel of Christ was felt to be in full harmony with the Gospel of Wealth” (Ginzberg 207 fix citation). Had it been religion that shaped the morals of the people during the Gilded Age then the protestant church still would have reflected the same “self giving love seen in Christ” (Latourette 83) that christianity was built on. Instead, as those during the time period became consumed by business and affluence the morals encouraged by the church shifted to fit contemporary views. Thus, exemplifying that during the nineteenth century it was not religion that shaped the public's morals but was

After the Civil War, the Second Industrial Revolution was established due to America’s rapid growth for industry and economics. Capitalists during the industrial period of 1875-1900’s were either accused of being a robber baron or a captain of industry. Some capitalists leaders who were accused of being a robber baron or captain of industry included J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew W. Mellon, and John D. Rockefeller. A robber baron is a business leader who gets rich through cruel and scandalous business practices. The captains of industry is a business leader who wants to better the companies in a way that it would be positively contributing to the country. The most accurate characterization for the time period of 1875-1900’s were both

Thesis : After the Civil War, America was in a post-war boom. During the 1870-1890, big business moguls, such as Rockefeller and Carnegie, create huge corporations which not only affected the economy, but also affected the political realm of America. While many may assume that during the rise of these big business helped to change the economy and politics,  the real focus was on the responses formed by society, such as labor unions, increase public outcry, and political opposition groups that helped to change society.

At the end of the 19th Century, as the United States was experiencing rapid industrialization, a reconfiguration of the social order yielded opposing visions of social progress. Andrew Carnegie, wealthy businessman, and Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull House, put forward different methods to achieve such progress, where Addams focuses on creating social capital in a seemingly horizontal manner while Carnegie advocates for a top-down approach. While both of them seem to reap a sense of purpose from their attempts to improve the nation, their approaches vary depending on their vision of the composition of the population they want to uplift.

Compensatory History examines any given stage of history through the different classes of women, and their experiences.Unfortunately, this does not allow us to understand the “activities” majority of women partook in, or what the significance of these “activities” had on society as a whole.The reason there is a need for a different type of history is because we cannot fully understand the importance of women in history with limited information. For example, being able to understand how women evolve and alter in a “male-defined society” will give us significant insight of how they were cognitively and physically able to bring change, as well as the effects the changes continue to have on today 's

As industry exponentially grew after the Civil War, the need for labor and materials to power newly-created manufacturing giants caused new social classes to form: the rich corporation owners and the poor laborers. Unfathomably rich Robber Barons, or plutocratic American Capitalists, dominated the economy and industry and profited from the slave-like work of millions of poor laborers during this time period. Moreover, the poor working class and the rich further divided by distribution of wealth. Therefore, exploitation of capitalism widened the gap between the rich and poor classes of America, and both newly-formed classes developed reasons for the change.

During the late nineteenth century, a form of Social Darwinism emerged called the Gospel of Wealth also known as the Success Gospel. Social Darwinism is “Herbert Spencer’s adaptation of Charles Darwin’s concepts of natural selection and “survival of the fittest” as it applies to human society” (Nash p. 417). Social Darwinists believed that the social order was the product of the natural selection of the individuals that were best suited for the existing living conditions. These individuals were white, Anglo-Saxon, wealthy men. This theory, Social Darwinism, was applied to the monopolistic efforts of businessmen as John D. Rockefeller, Jr. so eloquently stated: “The growth of a large business is merely the survival of the fittest” (Nash p. 417). The Gospel of Wealth based on Social Darwinism is the notion that the massive wealth held by prosperous businessmen was for the social benefit of everyone. The advocates of the Gospel of Wealth such as Andrew Carnegie, Russell Conwell, and Horatio Alger linked wealth with a sense of heightened responsibility as those with more wealth had an equally great obligation to society.

The American civil war led to the reunion of the South and the North. But, its consequences led the Republicans to take the lead of reconstructing what the war had destroyed especially in the South because it contained larger numbers of newly freed slaves. Just after the civil war, America entered into what was called as the reconstruction era. Reconstruction refers to when “the federal government established the terms on which rebellious Southern states would be integrated back into the Union” (Watts 246). As a further matter, it also meant “the process of helping the 4 million freed slaves after the civil war [to] make the transition to freedom” (DeFord and Schwarz 96).

The end of the reconstruction era gave rise to the gilded age. The gilded age was a time of economic growth. It was the second industrial revolution, urbanization, immigration and political/economic corruption. The congress and the big business were more influential than the presidency. The term ‘Gilded Age’ was termed by Mark Twain who described the wealthy who were covered in a ‘layer of gold’, a superficial layer can be peeled and reveals unpleasant things. The period from 1870 to 1900, big businesses governed by Robber Barons sprung up and took control of the economy and the political system that governed the American People. The American people responded by forming labor unions and tried to improve the plight of the poor.

Two theories that can be compared are the Social Learning Theory and the Labeling Theory. When comparing these two theories we can use the juvenile crime of stealing to see how the theories are similar and different. The social learning theory basically states that crime like other behaviors is learned. The other theory, labeling states that certain things or children aren’t necessary deviant until society labels them as so. These two theories also have positives and negatives pertaining to how effective they are in the causes of juvenile delinquent behavior.

In Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth”, Carnegie proposed a system of which he thought was best to dispose of “surplus wealth” through progress of the nation. Carnegie wanted to create opportunities for people “lift themselves up” rather than directly give money to these people. This was because he considered that giving money to these people would be “improper spending”. Through Social Darwinism, he hoped to dispose of the problems of: the Darwinian intellectual revolution, Eugenies, and the hierarchy of race. However his system was inherently flawed because Carnegie built this system on racism and warmongering. This system was built to rationalize why the fittest class, or the white Anglo-saxon men, were always on top.

In his most famous publication, Weber studies the relationship between the ethics of ascetic Protestantism and the emergence of contemporary capitalism. He accounts bureaucracy as a key feature in modern society. This is in no way a detailed account of Protestantism itself but instead an introduction to his later studies such as “The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism” or “The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism”. Weber argues that the “spirit” that defines capitalist ideas originates in the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation largely influences his work and he noted the shift in Europe’s economic centre following this, away from Catholic countries, for example France, towards protestant countries, for