Effects Of The Gilded Age

Gianni Thomas Marasso
Mrs. Kilker
College US History
January 30, 2023
The Gilded Age and its Effects
From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, American Society was going under a second Industrial Revolution. This rapid increase in technological advancements helped American industrialism flourish, and even replaced Britain as head of industrialization. This Revolution was also known as the “Gilded Age.” This portion of American History is a major reason as to how America rose to power, and was widely helped by several men who made a lasting impression in history during this period; this time period also housed the concept of Social Darwinism, which greatly helped those with money, and destroyed the class of Americans who struggled

Although the gilded age did bring beneficial changes to America’s exports with inventions such as the Assembly Line, the most revolutionary advancements were seen in transportation. America’s railroads were remodeled to all have a uniform gauge, making train travel more efficient with less train changes; the first automobile was made, creating the rise of personal transportation; on top of that, airplanes were made, as well as electricity, the telephone, lightbulbs, and much more in the span of just about two decades. Because of these massive advancements, the United States became the most advanced nation in the world at the time, and helped shape modern

This concept is based on Darwin’s “survival of the fittest,” but applied to the human constructs of Capitalism. The theory of social darwinism is that “certain people can become powerful in society because they are innately better.” This theory was fueled by the idea that you need to have money to make money, which meant that because some people were already supplied with their own sum of money, it meant that the rich would get richer, and the poor would get poorer. The group that most commonly benefitted from this concept were men, usually white, wealthy men, and would leave lower class white workers, farmers, women, and minorities to be all placed below those up at the top. All of these groups had different experiences as to how the theory affected them; Lower Class workers were working very hard at lower wages, and responded in outrage when they received a ten percent decrease in wages, which created the need for unions and labor parties to help meet their needs. Farmers created alliances because of the overgrowth of power of the governing class, and huge decrease in annual wages from their farming. Women struggled to earn their right to vote and have a say in the decisions of government; without the voting rights of women, the ever growing hoard of immigrants flooding into America would soon outnumber the dwindling proportion of