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Greed In The Gilded Age Essay

785 Words4 Pages

There is a difference between being selfish and being greedy. The definition of greed is “Intense desire for something, especially wealth or power”, whereas the definition of selfish is “Lacking consideration for others”. During the Gilded Age, America was characterized as the Land of the Free, which attracted immigrants from all over the world to come live the American Dream. Was it greedy or selfish for these immigrants to come to America and improve their way of living? During the Gilded Age, greed is what motivated industrial innovation and for people to improve their ways of living. But with great responsibilities come great consequences, the consequence of greed is people seeing greed to be the same as being selfish. Despite this, the …show more content…

The Gilded Age was the time of inventions. This led to Industrialization becoming very popular in America for all social classes, particularly for immigrants and the working class. In “United States Patent and Invention Activity in the 19th Century” it states, “From 1850 to 1910, the number of patents for inventions increased many times over from 2,193 patent applications issued in 1850 to 63,293 applications in 1910.” All of these inventions led to more industries of mass production, and with industries of mass production came more job opportunities that intrigued immigrants to come to America. These immigrants, mainly from Europe, would arrive in urban areas on the east coast of America ready to work. In “Immigration by Decade”, the table shows that from 1861-1910 the total amount of immigrants in America increased from 2.3 million to 8.8 million. This influx of immigrants were able to work quickly after arriving because all of these big industries needed a lot of labor workers. This led to success for many businesses in America. In opposition to this, this influx of immigration did bring negatives with them. All of these immigrants going to the same urban areas led to cities being very over crowded. Despite this, greed motivates business to flourish, which is why industrial innovation thrived during the Gilded

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