What was the Gilded Age? It was the period in American history between 1870 and about 1900 where the country rapidly industrialized and there was a lot of wealth inequality. The wealthy became increasingly richer and the poor became increasingly poorer.
The name for the era was taken from a book by Mark Twain and it was, obviously, meant sarcastically. After the American Civil War, which ended in 1865, the government had promised a golden age. There would be wealth, prosperity, and everyone would be happier. What actually materialized wasn’t very golden for a lot of people, so Mark Twain called it “gilded”. When you gild something, you cover it with a thin layer of gold. The finished product looks like it is made of solid gold, but it is actually a cheaper material made to look more expensive than it actually is. So, what happened in this period?
There was rise in mechanization, transportation, immigration, and a new type of businessman. This all led to large scale inequality. However, there was also a rise in journalism and communication, which may have fanned some of the flames.
The number of factories in America, particularly in the north grew rapidly. During the Civil War, many tasks had been mechanized and this growth continued. People stopped making things themselves and started operating machines. This reduced the price of goods and it gave jobs to many unskilled people, but it also caused a lot of people to move to urban areas. Wages did go up, but a lot of people lived in squalor and had to work long hours in difficult jobs. The people who owned the factories and the industries made a lot of money at the expense of the poorest members of society.
There was a significant jump in transportation as well. Railroads became big business in America after the Civil War. Their usefulness had been shown in the Civil War because the North use a lot of trains to transport troops and armaments. It was one of the reasons why they won the war. In the new America after the Civil War, railroads could carry people, but more importantly, they could carry resources and goods. At the end of the Civil War, the USA had 72,000 km or railroad and by 1900 that was up to 350,000 km of railroads. Again, this made a few people very wealthy.
As new industries sprang up and wages increased, there was mass immigration. During the Gilded Age, it is estimated that 20 million people came to the United States. Many of these were from central and southern Europe, such as Italy and Greece. They came for higher wages, but mass immigration brought wages down and most of them lived in abject poverty. They also experienced a lot of hostility from the people already living in the States.
And all of this was topped by a new type of businessman. There had always been wealthy people, but at the end of the 19th century there were a new breed of businessmen that managed to get their hands on a huge number of companies. People like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie managed to amass more wealth than had ever been seen before. A tiny percentage of people owned most of the companies in America and most of the money. These people became known as Robber Barons.
This might not have been that unusual because there have always been very rich people and very poor people. The speed with which society was changing, though, brought up a lot of doubt and worry. This was built upon by the press as well. Newspapers were coming into their own and investigative journalism was taking off. Journalists started looking into these new companies and the wealthy Robber Barons that owned them. They found corruption, unethical practices, and a raft of other things. This was helped to spread by the new lines of communication. Telegraph lines were springing up everywhere and news could spread around the country fairly easily. This was followed by the new medium of radio that was even more effective. These journalists exposed the darker side of the new emerging society. They showed the lengths the rich would go to in order to get richer and they showed the conditions that the poor had to live and work in. The United States was becoming the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth, but it’s power and wealth was only on the outside. It was a gilded country.
The Gilded Age is said to have lasted until the start of the 20th century. Roosevelt became president and he was harder on the Robber Barons. There was a growing workers’ union that helped people get fair working conditions and salaries, and there were a lot of reforms. However, some might say that the Gilded Age has never really ended. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.history.com/articles/gilded-age-end-reasons
https://robertbrightonauthor.com/the-gilded-age
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraid=9&smtid=1
https://www.investopedia.com/gilded-age-7692919
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
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