Gilded Age DBQ

The Gilded Age boasted a lot of great things for the United States. It created so much in such a short amount of time, but that time also brought bad things. Monopolies, factory accidents, horrible working conditions, and an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor. These problems were handled very poorly due. This was due to nobody really caring about the poor and not eliminating trusts.

It’s hard to truly say whether growth in the late 19th century was good. It gave rise to a new era of industrialization, and ushered in a new, globalised society. It also toppled the old notion of the American Dream, and drew to question what words like freedom and equality truly meant. It put power in the hands of the wealthy and took freedom from the disadvantaged. A new system of power was borne unto the world, one where money is power, and power is freedom. The eternal words of Mark Twain made this era the “Gilded Age” for a reason: Society changed for the worse in those years, and the strife of the many was concealed by the Bentleys of the few.

Dealing with the banks and loans also contributed to the problems the farmers had to face. New machinery was invented to help improve farming. It made things much faster and easier than using manual labor. Manual labor was no longer practical because of the need to produce mass amounts of crops, so farmers began using this new technology. However, these machines were expensive, and the American farmers could not afford them. To solve this problem, they began taking loans out of the bank. This caused a new problem when the farmers could not pay back these loans and became bankrupt. The banks kicked farmers off of their land and forced onto the

The Gilded Age started as the reconstruction era in the United States, which meant the rebuilding of a broken nation. This was a time when a white supremacist view was the only right way to see the economic, political and social standpoints in the country. It later was labeled as the Gilded Age because there were so many issues that had to be covered up and could not be fixed. The term gilded means to cover with thin gold leaf, which is pretty much what they tried to do. During this time there was a rapid expansion of industrial growth, railroads began to become of high interest, and the wages in the north started rising. The term “Gilded Age” was criticised in the 19th century from the setbacks the economy faced because tribalism was being

The Gilded Age was a time in America from around the 1870’s to about 1900. It is regarded as this due to it’s known mediocrity from a political standpoint. Known for a major economic crisis, inequality between men and women, and the awful segregation put forth by the Jim Crow Laws. Referring to this stage in the life of America as the Gilded Age, it was more disappointing than anything else. It displayed how the country seemed perfect at the surface, but deep down, the country was an atrocity full of corruption.

From 1865 to 1900 agriculture was at war, shifting from small, individual farms to larger commercialized farms because of the devaluing of currency, competition from corporate farms with more land and better technology, and government policies that proved detrimental to those clinging to old ways of life.

The mid to late 19th Century, into the 20th Century, created a vacuum of opportunity for capitalists in America to dawn their influence and make a great impact on American society. With the Industrial Revolution storming full speed ahead in the United States, men like John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan used their business ingenuity of ‘trusts’, ‘pools’ and other business tactics to rein supreme in their respective markets. These influences, however, were not perceived well by the lower classes, as many felt the brunt of these tactics, and ended up getting hurt, as the capitalists got richer. Thus despite the philanthropy and economic strife gained through these men, it will fall on deaf ears as their

The Gilded Age is often recalled as one of the most significant periods in American history and for great reason. This era brought about rapid industrialization, introduced new technology and inventions, and the rise of corporations. As with most things, the Gilded Age also had its fair share of vices such as corruption in business and the blatant exploitation of laborers. As the frustration with these things began to build, politicians often distanced themselves from serious issues or flat our refused to properly address them. When politicians did attempt to address this issues, the measures taken were either insufficient or rescinded before anything could truly be effected.

The Gilded Age (1877-1895) was an age of wealth and deregulation. This age was a time in mass growth in population and jobs for U.S citizens and immigrants. The Gilded Age was run by the wealthiest people of the time called Robber Barons. One of the Robber Barons was John D. Rockefeller he was the head of the Standard Oil Company and one of the world's richest men. He used his fortune to fund ongoing philanthropic causes. Rockefeller was so ruthless and wealthy he was called The Leviathan. Rockefeller got wealthy through monopolies ( trust) a monopoly was when a corporation buys out its competition so they can have full price control so they could charge however much they wanted for that product which means they eliminated the free market

Following the Civil War, westward migration increased rapidly; this was mainly due to acts such as the Homestead Act, which provided 160 acres of land for anyone who settled on it for a period of five years, the Morrill Act, and the Transcontinental Railroad, which ignited the transportation revolution. Nevertheless, life was difficult for farmers in the west, as they faced droughts, severe weather, and loneliness, leading many to leave their Western homesteads. However, often the greatest difficulty for farmers was competing with industrial farming, large corporations, and the global economy. As production increased and global prices decreased, many farmers fell into poverty, burned with debt they could not pay off due to deflation. As farmers

The Populist party saw that if they elected their own free-silver candidate, the vote would be split and the republican could easily come in and win. Because of this, they supported Bryan because the free-silver platform that was adopted by the Democrats as well (Boyer). Mckinley forged a coalition that represented professions, businessmen, skilled factory workers, and prosperous farmers. From this, he gained an immense amount of support Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast (“The 1896 Presidential Election”). The republicans promised a strong and prosperous nation for the American people

The Second Industrial Revolution brought many great things to America such as advances in technology, new businesses, job opportunities, and "new" immigrants. America was truly the "City Upon a Hill." America, although booming after the Second Industrial Revolution, was problematic. The period after the Second Industrial Revolution is called the "Gilded Age" by Mark Twain because America at that time was glittering on the outside but corrupt on the inside.1 Alongside all the advances in the economy, technology, and society there are negative factors coinciding with the progress. The negative factors prove to be detrimental to America's society, politics, and economy. The Gilded Age was a period of success for large business owners, who were

The Gilded Age really means that the U.S. was covered with gold, or otherwise as known as wealth. Many people were really, really rich. They had tons of money with them, but the problem is that people seem to look nice and wealthy to other people, but they are more or less corrupted.

The Gilded Age soared up from the 1870’s to around !900 and everything changed. Technology surged and began to move everything along at a rapid pace. There was corruptness in the government and big businesses started to take over. These companies only sought out for wealth, power, and land. However big the corruption was, the workforce had some major improvements and downfalls. Organized labor distributed the work among workers, and successfully decreasing the skilled labor needed for workers but there were some downfalls to the system.

Farmers may have seemed quite successful in their endeavors with technology, providing for the continuously expanding market, however, as their output of production multiplied, the value of their products dropped too swiftly for the farmers to make anything of them. This resulted in the railroads making the money, while most small farmers either lived in poverty, or close to it, due the pricey costs of railroads for transportation and interest for investments. “I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies” (Document J). The overall economy depended so greatly on the farmers and their labor, and yet they had received very little in return for it. “We went to work and plowed and planted; the rains fell, the sun shone, nature smiled, and we raised the big crop that they told us to; and what came of it? Eight-cent corn, ten-cent oats, two-cent beef, and no price at all for butter and eggs—that’s what came of it” (Document G). Farmers disapproved of the price they had to pay for overproduction; they wanted government subsidies, the nationalization of the railroads, abolition of the national banks, a universal currency, and the limit of reservation use (see Document I). Thus, the party of Populists arose, using these as their main demands and quickly became a major