What is the significance of the gilded age

Gilded Age The growth of industry and a wave of immigrants marked this period in American history. The production of iron and steel rose dramatically and western resources like lumber, gold, and silver increased the demand for improved transportation.

Railroad development boomed as trains moved goods from the resource-rich West to the East. Steel and oil were in great demand. Politics in the Gilded Age Opens a modal. Gilded Age politics: patronage Opens a modal. Laissez-faire policies in the Gilded Age Opens a modal. The Knights of Labor Opens a modal. Labor battles in the Gilded Age Opens a modal. The Populists Opens a modal. Immigration and migration in the Gilded Age Opens a modal. Continuity and change in the Gilded Age Opens a modal.

Practice The Gilded Age Get 3 of 4 questions to level up! The South after the Civil War. Shop for Books in our Online Store. America's Gilded Age In the span of a single lifetime, from the end of the Civil War to the Crash of the Stock Market in , American culture as we know it sprang into being.

The captains of industry and commerce of The Gilded Age became wealthy beyond what most can imagine today. Considering the magnitude of change they affected and witnessed around them, their belief that anything was possible and even probable, given American ingenuity and hard work, is understandable. Not surprisingly, this group of newly wealthy citizens of a relatively young country found context and meaning for their lives and good fortune by thinking of themselves as heirs of a great Western Tradition.

They traced their cultural lineage from the Greeks, through the Roman Empire, to the European Renaissance, particularly the Venetian Renaissance. America's upper classes and merchant classes traveled the world visiting the great European cities and the ancient sites of the Mediterranean, as part of a Grand Tour, collecting and honoring their western cultural heritage.

The example of Venice's democratic society of well-to-do merchants and traders who collected the world's wealth, loved architecture and enjoyed a strong sense of public responsibility, appealed to them on the basis that it was both what they were becoming and what they aspired to. By , a blending of the Western Tradition and America's spectacular technological growth found expression in The World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago.

Convinced God had instructed her to use whatever means necessary to close bars throughout Kansas , she was often beaten, mocked and jailed but ultimately helped pave the way for the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol and the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.

As muckrakers exposed corrupt robber barons and politicians, labor unions and reformist politicians enacted laws to limit their power. The western frontier saw violent conflicts between white settlers and the United States Army against Native Americans.

The Native Americans were eventually forced off their land and onto reservations with often disastrous results. In , the western frontier was declared closed. As drought and depression struck rural America, farmers in the west—who vilified railroad tycoons and wanted a political voice—organized and played a key role in forming the Populist Party.

The Populists had a democratic agenda that aimed to give power back to the people and paved the way for the progressive movement, which still fights to close the gap between the wealthy and poor and champion the needy and disenfranchised. In , both the overextended Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and the National Cordage Company failed, which set off an economic depression unlike any seen before in America.

Banks and other businesses folded, and the stock market plunged, leaving millions unemployed, homeless and hungry. In some states, unemployment rose to almost 50 percent. The Panic of lasted four years and left lower and even middle-class Americans fed up with political corruption and social inequality.

Their frustration gave rise to the Progressive Movement which took hold when President Theodore Roosevelt took office in Although Roosevelt supported corporate America, he also felt there should be federal controls in place to keep excessive corporate greed in check and prevent individuals from making obscene amounts of money off the backs of immigrants and the lower class.

Helped by the muckrackers and the White House , the Progressive Era ushered in many reforms that helped shift away power from robber barons, such as:.

Fewer monopolies meant more people could pursue the American Dream and start their own businesses. Most robber barons and their families, however, remained wealthy for generations. Even so, many bequeathed much of their wealth, land and homes to charity and historical societies. And progressives continued their mission to close the gap between the wealthy and poor and champion the needy and disenfranchised.

The Newberry. Gilded Age Reform. University of Virginia. The Gilded Age. About Jane Addams. Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Carrie A. Nation The Breakers. The Preservation Society of Newport County. The Progressive Era The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project. Biltmore Estate History. Margaret Olivia Sage. Philanthropy Roundtable.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.