Unit 5... The Gilded Age
History by Lauren Levy
The structure of modern American society was erected by democratic, capitalistic, and technological forces in the post-Civil War era. Between the 1870's and 1890's "Gilded Age" America emerged as the world's leading industrial and agricultural power.
Between 1860 and 1894, the United States moved from the fourth largest manufacturing nation to the world's leader through capital accumulation, natural resources, an abundance of labor helped by massive immigration, railway transportation, and increased communication. Technological advancements with steel, electrical energy, and petroleum undoubtedly added to this American rise to commercial power.
Throughout the United States the standard of living rose sharply, but the distribution of wealth was uneven. An elite of about ten percent of the population controlled approximately ninety percent of the nation's wealth. Many industrial leaders used doctrines associated with the "Gospel of Wealth" to justify the unequal distribution of national wealth. Self-justification by the wealthy was based on the notion that God has granted wealth as He had given grace for material and spiritual salvation of a select few. These few, according to William Graham Sumner, relied heavily on the "survival of the fittest" philosophy developed by Charles Darwin.
Eventually, capital over-expansion and over-speculation led to the Panic of 1873. Massive labor disorders spread through the country leading to the paralyzing railroad strike of 1877. Unemployment and salary reductions caused major class conflict. As a result, President Hayes was forced to use federal troops to restore order after dozens of workers were killed. In California, immigrant laborers began fighting amongst themselves for economic survival. The depression of the 1870's inevitably undermined national labor organizations and agrarian discontent expressed through the activities of the National Grange and the Farmer's Alliance also proved to be ineffective. There were few programs to deal with urban corruption and agrarian hardship until the emergence of political, economic, and social activism that epitomized the Progressive Era years later.
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