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In United States history, the Gilded Age
was an era that occurred during the late 19th century, from the 1870s
to about 1900. The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth,
especially in the Northern and Western
United States. As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe,
especially for skilled workers, the period saw an influx of millions of
European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to a
real wage growth of 60%, between 1860 and 1890, and spread across the
ever-increasing labor force. The average annual wage per industrial
worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in 1880, to
$564 in 1890, a gain of 48%.
Conversely, the Gilded Age was also an era of abject poverty and
inequality, as millions of immigrants—many from impoverished
regions—poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.
Railroads
were the major growth industry, with the factory system, mining, and
finance increasing in importance. Immigration from Europe, and the
eastern states, led to the rapid growth of the West, based on farming,
ranching, and mining. Labor unions became increasingly important in the
rapidly growing industrial cities. Two major nationwide depressions—the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893—interrupted
growth and caused social and political upheavals. The South, after the
Civil War, remained economically devastated; its economy became
increasingly tied to commodities, cotton, and tobacco production, which
suffered from low prices. Following the end of Reconstruction
in 1877, virtually all African-Americans living in the South were
stripped of political power and voting rights, and were left
economically disadvantaged.
The political landscape was notable in that despite some
corruption, election turnout was very high and national elections
remained competitive. The dominant issues were cultural (especially
regarding prohibition, education, and ethnic or racial groups) and economic (tariffs and money supply). With the rapid growth of cities, political machines increasingly took control of urban politics. In business, powerful nationwide trusts formed in some industries. Unions crusaded for the eight-hour working day, and the abolition of child labor; middle class reformers demanded civil service reform, prohibition of liquor and beer, and women's suffrage.
Local governments across the North and West built public schools
chiefly at the elementary level; public high schools started to emerge.
The numerous religious denominations were growing in membership and
wealth, with Catholicism becoming the largest. They all expanded their
missionary activity to the world arena. Catholics, Lutherans, and
Episcopalians set up religious schools and the larger of those set up
numerous colleges, hospitals, and charities. Many of the problems faced
by society, especially the poor, gave rise to attempted reforms in the
subsequent Progressive Era.
The "Gilded Age" term came into use in the 1920s and 1930s and was derived from writer Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding. The early half of the Gilded Age roughly coincided with the mid-Victorian era in Britain and the Belle Époque in France. Its beginning, in the years after the American Civil War, overlaps the Reconstruction Era (which ended in 1877). It was followed in the 1890s by the Progressive Era.
The name and the era
The term Gilded Age for the period of economic boom after the American Civil War up to the turn of the century was applied to the era by historians in the 1920s, who took the term from one of Mark Twain's lesser-known novels, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873). The book (co-written with Charles Dudley Warner) satirized the promised "golden age" after the Civil War, portrayed as an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding of economic expansion. In the 1920s and '30s the metaphor "Gilded Age" began to be applied to a designated period in American history. The term was adopted by literary and cultural critics as well as historians, including Van Wyck Brooks, Lewis Mumford, Charles Austin Beard, Mary Ritter Beard, Vernon Louis Parrington, and Matthew Josephson. For them, Gilded Age was a pejorative term for a time of materialistic excesses combined with extreme poverty.
The early half of the Gilded Age roughly coincided with the middle portion of the Victorian era in Britain and the Belle Époque
in France. With respect to eras of American history, historical views
vary as to when the Gilded Age began, ranging from starting right after
the American Civil War (ended, 1865), or 1873, or as the Reconstruction Era ended in 1877. The point noted as the end of the Gilded Age also varies. It is generally given as the beginning of the Progressive Era in the 1890s (sometimes the United States presidential election of 1896) but also falls in a range that includes the Spanish–American War in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt's accession to the presidency in 1901, and even the end of the Progressive Era coinciding with the U.S. entry into World War I (1917).
Industrial and technological advances
Technical advances
The
Gilded Age was a period of economic growth as the United States jumped
to the lead in industrialization ahead of Britain. The nation was
rapidly expanding its economy into new areas, especially heavy industry like factories, railroads, and coal mining. In 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad
opened up the far-west mining and ranching regions. Travel from New
York to San Francisco now took six days instead of six months.
Railroad track mileage tripled between 1860 and 1880, and then doubled
again by 1920. The new track linked formerly isolated areas with larger
markets and allowed for the rise of commercial farming, ranching, and
mining, creating a truly national marketplace. American steel production
rose to surpass the combined totals of Britain, Germany, and France.
Investors in London and Paris poured money into the railroads through the American financial market centered in Wall Street. By 1900, the process of economic concentration had extended into most branches of industry—a few large corporations, called "trusts", dominated in steel, oil, sugar, meat, and farm machinery. Through vertical integration
these trusts were able to control each aspect of the production of a
specific good, ensuring that the profits made on the finished product
were maximized and prices minimized, and by controlling access to the
raw materials, prevented other companies from being able to compete in
the marketplace. Several monopolies—most famously Standard Oil—came
to dominate their markets by keeping prices low when competitors
appeared; they grew at a rate four times faster than that of the
competitive sectors.
Toluca Street Oil Field in Los Angeles oil district, circa 1895-1901
Increased mechanization of industry is a major mark of the Gilded Age's search for cheaper ways to create more product. Frederick Winslow Taylor
observed that worker efficiency in steel could be improved through the
use of very close observations with a stop watch to eliminate wasted
effort. Mechanization made some factories an assemblage of unskilled
laborers performing simple and repetitive tasks under the direction of
skilled foremen and engineers. Machine shops grew rapidly, and they
comprised highly skilled workers and engineers. Both the number of
unskilled and skilled workers increased, as their wage rates grew.
Engineering colleges
were established to feed the enormous demand for expertise. Railroads
invented modern management, with clear chains of command, statistical
reporting, and complex bureaucratic systems. They systematized the roles of middle managers
and set up explicit career tracks. They hired young men ages 18–21 and
promoted them internally until a man reached the status of locomotive
engineer, conductor, or station agent at age 40 or so. Career tracks
were invented for skilled blue-collar jobs and for white-collar
managers, starting in railroads and expanding into finance,
manufacturing, and trade. Together with rapid growth of small business, a
new middle class was rapidly growing, especially in northern cities.
The United States became a world leader in applied technology.
From 1860 to 1890, 500,000 patents were issued for new inventions—over
ten times the number issued in the previous seventy years. George Westinghouse invented air brakes for trains (making them both safer and faster). Theodore Vail established the American Telephone & Telegraph Company and built a great communications network. Thomas Edison, in addition to inventing hundreds of devices, established the first electrical lighting utility, basing it on direct current and an efficient incandescent lamp.
Electric power delivery spread rapidly across Gilded Age cities. The
streets were lighted at night, and electric streetcars allowed for
faster commuting to work and easier shopping.
Petroleum launched a new industry beginning with the Pennsylvania
oil fields in the 1860s. The United States dominated the global
industry into the 1950s. Kerosene replaced whale oil and candles for lighting homes. John D. Rockefeller
founded Standard Oil Company and monopolized the oil industry, which
mostly produced kerosene before the automobile created a demand for
gasoline in the 20th century.
Railroads
According to historian Henry Adams the system of railroads needed:
- the energies of a generation, for it required all the new
machinery to be created—capital, banks, mines, furnaces, shops,
power-houses, technical knowledge, mechanical population, together with a
steady remodelling of social and political habits, ideas, and
institutions to fit the new scale and suit the new conditions. The
generation between 1865 and 1895 was already mortgaged to the railways,
and no one knew it better than the generation itself.
The impact can be examined through five aspects: shipping, finance, management, careers, and popular reaction.
Shipping freight and passengers
Sacramento Railroad Station in 1874
First they provided a highly efficient network for shipping freight
and passengers across a large national market. The result was a
transforming impact on most sectors of the economy including
manufacturing, retail and wholesale, agriculture, and finance. The
United States now had an integrated national market practically the size
of Europe, with no internal barriers or tariffs, all supported by a
common language, and financial system and a common legal system.
Basis of the private financial system
Railroads
financing provided the basis for a dramatic expansion of the private
(non-governmental) financial system. Construction of railroads was far
more expensive than factories. In 1860, the combined total of railroad
stocks and bonds was $1.8 billion; 1897 it reached $10.6 billion
(compared to a total national debt of $1.2 billion).
Funding came from financiers throughout the Northeast, and from Europe, especially Britain.
About 10 percent of the funding came from the government, especially in
the form of land grants that could be realized when a certain amount of
trackage was opened.
The emerging American financial system was based on railroad bonds. New
York by 1860 was the dominant financial market. The British invested
heavily in railroads around the world, but nowhere more so than the
United States; The total came to about $3 billion by 1914. In 1914–1917,
they liquidated their American assets to pay for war supplies.
Inventing modern management
Railroad
management designed complex systems that could handle far more
complicated simultaneous relationships than could be dreamed of by the
local factory owner who could patrol every part of his own factory in a
matter of hours. Civil engineers became the senior management of
railroads. The leading innovators were the Western Railroad of
Massachusetts and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the 1840s, the Erie
in the 1850s and the Pennsylvania in the 1860s.
Career paths
The
railroads invented the career path in the private sector for both
blue-collar workers and white-collar workers. Railroading became a
lifetime career for young men; women were almost never hired. A typical
career path would see a young man hired at age 18 as a shop laborer, be
promoted to skilled mechanic at age 24, brakemen at 25, freight
conductor at 27, and passenger conductor at age 57. White-collar careers
paths likewise were delineated. Educated young men started in clerical
or statistical work and moved up to station agents or bureaucrats at the
divisional or central headquarters. At each level they had more and
more knowledge, experience, and human capital.
They were very hard to replace, and were virtually guaranteed permanent
jobs and provided with insurance and medical care. Hiring, firing, and
wage rates were set not by foremen, but by central administrators, to
minimize favoritism and personality conflicts. Everything was done by
the book, whereby an increasingly complex set of rules dictated to
everyone exactly what should be done in every circumstance, and exactly
what their rank and pay would be. By the 1880s the career railroaders
were retiring, and pension systems were invented for them.
Love-hate relationship with the railroads
America developed a love-hate relationship with railroads. Boosters
in every city worked feverishly to make sure the railroad came through,
knowing their urban dreams depended upon it. The mechanical size,
scope, and efficiency of the railroads made a profound impression;
people dressed in their Sunday best to go down to the terminal to watch
the train come in. Travel became much easier, cheaper, and more common.
Shoppers from small towns could make day trips to big city stores.
Hotels, resorts, and tourist attractions were built to accommodate the
demand. The realization that anyone could buy a ticket for a
thousand-mile trip was empowering. Historians Gary Cross and Rick
Szostak argue:
- with the freedom to travel came a greater sense of national
identity and a reduction in regional cultural diversity. Farm children
could more easily acquaint themselves with the big city, and easterners
could readily visit the West. It is hard to imagine a United States of
continental proportions without the railroad.
The engineers became model citizens, bringing their can-do spirit and
their systematic work effort to all phases of the economy as well as
local and national government. By 1910, major cities were building magnificent palatial railroad stations, such as the Pennsylvania Station in New York City, and the Union Station in Washington DC.
But there was also a dark side.
By the 1870s, railroads were vilified by Western farmers who absorbed
the Granger movement theme that monopolistic carriers controlled too
much pricing power, and that the state legislatures had to impose
maximum prices. Local merchants and shippers supported the demand and
got some "Granger Laws" passed. Anti-railroad complaints were loudly repeated in late 19th century political rhetoric.
The most hated railroad man in the country was Collis P. Huntington (1821–1900), the president of the Southern Pacific Railroad
who dominated California's economy and politics. One textbook argues:
"Huntington came to symbolize the greed and corruption of
late-nineteenth-century business. Business rivals and political
reformers accused him of every conceivable evil. Journalists and
cartoonists made their reputations by pillorying him.... Historians have
cast Huntington as the state's most despicable villain."
However Huntington defended himself: "The motives back of my actions
have been honest ones and the results have redounded far more to the
benefit of California than they have to my own."
Impact on farming
The growth of railroads from 1850s to 1880s made commercial farming
much more feasible and profitable. Millions of acres were opened to
settlement once the railroad was nearby, and provided a long-distance
outlet for wheat, cattle and hogs that reached all the way to Europe.
Rural America became one giant market, as wholesalers bought the
consumer products produced by the factories in the East, and shipped
them to local merchants in small stores nationwide. Shipping live
animals was slow and expensive. It was more efficient to slaughter them
in major packing centers such as Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis,
Milwaukee, and Cincinnati, and then ship dressed meat out in
refrigerated freight cars. The cars were cooled by slabs of ice that had
been harvested from the northern lakes in wintertime, and stored for
summer and fall usage. Chicago, the main railroad center, benefited
enormously, with Kansas City a distant second. Historian William Cronon concludes:
- Because of the Chicago packers, ranchers in Wyoming and feedlot
farmers in Iowa regularly found a reliable market for their animals, and
on average received better prices for the animals they sold there. At
the same time and for the same reason, Americans of all classes found a
greater variety of more and better meats on their tables, purchased on
average at lower prices than ever before. Seen in this light, the
packers' "rigid system of economy" seemed a very good thing indeed.
Economic growth
Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry.
During the 1870s and 1880s, the U.S. economy rose at the fastest rate in its history, with real wages, wealth, GDP, and capital formation all increasing rapidly.
For example, between 1865 and 1898, the output of wheat increased by
256%, corn by 222%, coal by 800% and miles of railway track by 567%.
Thick national networks for transportation and communication were
created. The corporation became the dominant form of business
organization, and a scientific management revolution transformed business operations.
By the beginning of the 20th century, gross domestic product and
industrial production in the United States led the world. Kennedy
reports that "U.S. national income, in absolute figures in per capita,
was so far above everybody else's by 1914." Per capita income in the
United States was $377 in 1914 compared to Britain in second place at
$244, Germany at $184, France at $153, and Italy at $108, while Russia
and Japan trailed far behind at $41 and $36.
Europe, especially Britain, remained the financial center of the
world until 1914, yet the United States' growth caused foreigners to
ask, as British author W. T. Stead wrote in 1901, "What is the secret of American success?" The businessmen of the Second Industrial Revolution created industrial towns and cities in the Northeast with new factories, and hired an ethnically diverse industrial working class, many of them new immigrants from Europe.
Octopus
representing Standard Oil with tentacles wrapped around the U.S.
Congress and state capitals, as well as the steel, copper, and shipping
industries, and reaching for the White House
Wealthy industrialists and financiers such as John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick, Andrew W. Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Flagler, Henry H. Rogers, J. P. Morgan, Leland Stanford, Meyer Guggenheim, Jacob Schiff, Charles Crocker, Cornelius Vanderbilt would sometimes be labeled "robber barons"
by their critics, who argue their fortunes were made at the expense of
the working class, by chicanery and a betrayal of democracy.
Their admirers argued that they were "Captains of Industry" who built
the core America industrial economy and also the non-profit sector
through acts of philanthropy. For instance, Andrew Carnegie donated over 90% of his wealth and said that philanthropy was their duty—the "Gospel of Wealth".
Private money endowed thousands of colleges, hospitals, museums,
academies, schools, opera houses, public libraries, and charities. John D. Rockefeller
donated over $500 million to various charities, slightly over half his
entire net worth. Nevertheless, many business leaders were influenced by
Herbert Spencer's theory of Social Darwinism, which justified laissez-faire capitalism, competition and social stratification.
This emerging industrial economy quickly expanded to meet the new
market demands. From 1869 to 1879, the U.S. economy grew at a rate of
6.8% for NNP (GDP minus capital depreciation) and 4.5% for NNP per
capita. The economy repeated this period of growth in the 1880s, in
which the wealth of the nation grew at an annual rate of 3.8%, while the
GDP was also doubled.
Economist Milton Friedman states that for the 1880s, "The highest
decadal rate [of growth of real reproducible, tangible wealth per head
from 1805 to 1950] for periods of about ten years was apparently reached
in the eighties with approximately 3.8 percent."
Wages
The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of
60% between 1860 and 1890, spread across the ever-increasing labor
force.
Real wages (adjusting for inflation) rose steadily, with the exact
percentage increase depending on the dates and the specific work force.
The Census Bureau reported in 1892 that the average annual wage per
industrial worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in
1880 to $564 in 1890, a gain of 48%.
Economic historian Clarence D. Long estimates that (in terms of
constant 1914 dollars), the average annual incomes of all American
non-farm employees rose from $375 in 1870 to $395 in 1880, $519 in 1890
and $573 in 1900, a gain of 53% in 30 years.
Australian historian Peter Shergold
found that the standard of living for industrial workers was higher
than in Europe. He compared wages and the standard of living in
Pittsburgh with Birmingham, England, one of the richest industrial
cities of Europe. After taking account of the cost of living (which was
65% higher in the U.S.), he found the standard of living of unskilled
workers was about the same in the two cities, while skilled workers in
Pittsburgh had about 50% to 100% higher standard of living as those in
Birmingham, England. Warren B. Catlin proposed that the natural
resources and virgin lands that were available in America acted as a
safety valve for poorer workers, hence, employers had to pay higher
wages to hire labor. According to Shergold the American advantage grew
over time from 1890 to 1914, and the perceived higher American wage led
to a heavy steady flow of skilled workers from Britain to industrial
America.
According to historian Steve Fraser, workers generally earned less than
$800 a year, which kept them mired in poverty. Workers had to put in
roughly 60 hours a week to earn this much.
Wage labor was widely condemned as 'wage slavery' in the working class press, and labor leaders almost always used the phrase in their speeches.
As the shift towards wage labor gained momentum, working class
organizations became more militant in their efforts to "strike down the
whole system of wages for labor." In 1886, economist and New York Mayoral candidate Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty, stated "Chattel slavery is dead, but industrial slavery remains."
Wealth disparity
The
unequal distribution of wealth remained high during this period. From
1860 to 1900, the wealthiest 2% of American households owned more than a
third of the nation's wealth, while the top 10% owned roughly
three-quarters of it. The bottom 40% had no wealth at all. In terms of property, the wealthiest 1% owned 51%, while the bottom 44% claimed 1.1%.
Historian Howard Zinn argues that this disparity along with precarious working and living conditions for the working classes prompted the rise of populist, anarchist, and socialist movements. French economist Thomas Piketty notes that economists during this time, such as Willford I. King,
were concerned that the United States was becoming increasingly
inegalitarian to the point of becoming like old Europe, and "further and
further away from its original pioneering ideal."
According to economist Richard Sutch
in an alternative view of the era, the bottom 25% owned 0.32% of the
wealth while the top 0.1% owned 9.4%, which would mean the period had
the lowest wealth gap in recorded history. He attributes this to the
lack of government interference.
There was a significant human cost attached to this period of economic growth, as American industry had the highest rate of accidents in the world. In 1889, railroads employed 704,000 men, of whom 20,000 were injured and 1,972 were killed on the job. The U.S. was also the only industrial power to have no workman's compensation program in place to support injured workers.
Rise of labor unions
Craft-oriented
labor unions, such as carpenters, printers, shoemakers and cigar
makers, grew steadily in the industrial cities after 1870. These unions
used frequent short strikes as a method to attain control over the labor
market, and fight off competing unions. They generally blocked women, blacks and Chinese from union membership, but welcomed most European immigrants.
The railroads had their own separate unions.
An especially large episode of unrest (estimated at eighty thousand
railroad workers and several hundred thousand other Americans, both
employed and unemployed) broke out during the economic depression of the 1870s and became known as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which was, according to historian Jack Beatty, "the largest strike anywhere in the world in the 19th century."
This strike did not involve labor unions, but rather uncoordinated
outbursts in numerous cities. The strike and associated riots lasted 45
days and resulted in the deaths of several hundred participants (no
police or soldiers were killed), several hundred more injuries, and
millions in damages to railroad property. The unrest was deemed severe enough by the government that President Rutherford B. Hayes intervened with federal troops.
Starting in the mid-1880s a new group, the Knights of Labor, grew too rapidly, and it spun out of control and failed to handle the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886. The Knights avoided violence, but their reputation collapsed in the wake of the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago in 1886, when anarchists allegedly bombed the policemen dispersing a meeting.
Police then randomly fired into the crowd, killing and wounding a
number of people, including other police, and arbitrarily rounded up
anarchists, including leaders of the movement. Seven anarchists went on
trial; four were hanged even though no evidence directly linked them to
the bombing. One had in his possession a Knights of Labor membership card. At its peak, the Knights claimed 700,000 members. By 1890, membership had plummeted to fewer than 100,000, then faded away.
Strikes organized by labor unions became routine events by the 1880s as the gap between the rich and the poor widened.
There were 37,000 strikes between 1881 and 1905. By far the largest
number were in the building trades, followed far behind by coal miners.
The main goal was control of working conditions and settling which rival
union was in control. Most were of very short duration. In times of
depression strikes were more violent but less successful, because the
company was losing money anyway. They were successful in times of
prosperity when the company was losing profits and wanted to settle
quickly.
The largest and most dramatic strike was the 1894 Pullman Strike, a coordinated effort to shut down the national railroad system. The strike was led by the upstart American Railway Union led by Eugene V. Debs
and was not supported by the established brotherhoods. The union defied
federal court orders to stop blocking the mail trains, so President
Cleveland used the U.S. Army to get the trains moving again. The ARU
vanished and the traditional railroad brotherhoods survived, but avoided
strikes.
The new American Federation of Labor, headed by Samuel Gompers,
found the solution. The AFL was a coalition of unions, each based on
strong local chapters; the AFL coordinated their work in cities and
prevented jurisdictional battles. Gompers repudiated socialism and
abandoned the violent nature of the earlier unions. The AFL worked to
control the local labor market, thereby empowering its locals to obtain
higher wages and more control over hiring. As a result, the AFL unions
spread to most cities, reaching a peak membership in 1919.
Severe economic recessions—called "panics"—struck the nation in the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893.
They lasted several years, with high urban unemployment, low incomes
for farmers, low profits for business, slow overall growth, and reduced
immigration. They generated political unrest.
Politics
Gilded Age politics, called the Third Party System,
featured intense competition between two major parties, with minor
parties coming and going, especially on issues of concern to
prohibitionists, to labor unions and to farmers. The Democrats and Republicans
(the latter nicknamed the "Grand Old Party", GOP) fought over control
of offices, which were the rewards for party activists, as well as over
major economic issues. Very high voter turnout often exceeded 80% or
even 90% in some states as the parties drilled their loyal members much
as an army drills its soldiers.
Competition was intense and elections were very close. In the
southern states, lingering resentment over the Civil War remained and
meant that much of the South would vote Democrat. After the end of
Reconstruction in 1877, competition in the South took place mainly
inside the Democratic Party. Nationwide, turnout fell sharply after
1900.
Metropolitan area politics
The
major metropolitan centers underwent rapid population growth and as a
result had many lucrative contracts and jobs to award. To take advantage
of the new economic opportunity, both parties built so-called
"political machines" to manage elections, to reward supporters and to
pay off potential opponents. Financed by the "spoils system",
the winning party distributed most local, state and national government
jobs, and many government contracts, to its loyal supporters.
Large cities became dominated by political machines in which constituents supported a candidate in exchange for anticipated patronage.
These votes would be repaid with favors back from the government once
the appropriate candidate was elected; and very often candidates were
selected based on their willingness to play along with the spoils
system. The largest and most notorious political machine was Tammany Hall in New York City, led by Boss Tweed.
Scandals and corruption
Political
corruption was rampant, as business leaders spent significant amounts
of money ensuring that government did not regulate the activities of big business
– and they more often than not got what they wanted. Such corruption
was so commonplace that in 1868 the New York state legislature legalized
such bribery. Historian Howard Zinn argues that the U.S. government was acting exactly as Karl Marx described capitalist states: "pretending neutrality to maintain order, but serving the interests of the rich".
Historian Mark Wahlgren Summers calls it, "The Era of Good Stealings,"
noting how machine politicians used "padded expenses, lucrative
contracts, outright embezzlements, and illegal bond issues." He
concludes:
- Corruption gave the age a distinctive flavor. It marred the
planning and development of the cities, infected lobbyists dealings, and
disgraced even the cleanest of the Reconstructed states. For many
reasons, however, its effect on policy was less overwhelming than once imagined. Corruption influenced a few substantive decisions; it rarely determined one.
Numerous swindlers were active, especially before the Panic of 1873 exposed the falsifications and caused a wave of bankruptcies. Former President Ulysses S. Grant was the most famous victim of scoundrels and con-men, of whom he most trusted Ferdinand Ward.
Grant was cheated out of all his money, although some genuine friends
bought Grant's personal assets and allowed him to keep their use.
Interpreting the phenomena, historian Allan Nevins
deplored "The Moral Collapse in Government and Business: 1865-1873." He
argued that at war's end society showed confusion and unsettlement as
well as a hurried aggressive growth on the other. They:
- united to give birth to an alarming public and private
corruption. Obviously much of the shocking improbity was due to the
heavy war-time expenditures....Speculators and jobbers waxed fat on
government money, the collection of federal revenues offered large
opportunities for graft....Under the stimulus of greenback inflation,
business ran into excesses and lost sight of elementary cannons of
prudence. Meanwhile, it became clear that thievery had found a better
opportunity to grow because the conscience of the nation aroused against
slavery, had neglected what seemed minor evils.....The thousands who
had rushed into speculations which they had no moral right to risk, the
pushing, hardened men brought to the front by the turmoil, observed a
courser, lower standard of conduct.... Much of the trouble lay in the
immense growth of national wealth unaccompanied by any corresponding
growth in civic responsibility.
National politics
"The Bosses of the Senate" (1889). Reformers like the cartoonist
Joseph Keppler depicted the Senate as controlled by the giant moneybags, who represented the nation's financial trusts and monopolies.
Major scandal reached into Congress with the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal of 1872, and disgraced the White House during the Grant Administration (1869–1877). This corruption divided the Republican party into two different factions: the Stalwarts led by Roscoe Conkling and the Half-Breeds led by James G. Blaine.
There was a sense that government-enabled political machines intervened
in the economy and that the resulting favoritism, bribery,
inefficiency, waste, and corruption were having negative consequences.
Accordingly, there were widespread calls for reform, such as Civil Service Reform led by the Bourbon Democrats and Republican Mugwumps. In 1884, their support elected Democrat Grover Cleveland to the White House, and in doing so gave the Democrats their first national victory since 1856.
The Bourbon Democrats supported a free-market policy, with low tariffs, low taxes, less spending and, in general, a laissez-faire
(hands-off) government. They argued that tariffs made most goods more
expensive for the consumer and subsidized "the trusts" (monopolies).
They also denounced imperialism and overseas expansion.
By contrast, Republicans insisted that national prosperity depended on
industry that paid high wages, and warned that lowering the tariff would
bring disaster because goods from low-wage European factories would
flood American markets.
Presidential elections between the two major parties were so
closely contested that a slight nudge could tip the election in the
advantage of either party, and Congress was marked by political
stalemate. With support from Union veterans,
businessmen, professionals, craftsmen, and larger farmers, the
Republicans consistently carried the North in presidential elections. The Democrats, often led by Irish Catholics, had a base among Catholics, poorer farmers, and traditional party-members.
The nation elected a string of relatively weak presidents collectively referred to as the "forgettable presidents" (Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur and Harrison, with the exception of Cleveland) who served in the White House during this period.
"What little political vitality existed in Gilded Age America was to be
found in local settings or in Congress, which overshadowed the White
House for most of this period."
Overall, Republican and Democratic political platforms remained
remarkably constant during the years before 1900. Both favored business
interests. Republicans called for high tariffs, while Democrats wanted hard-money and free trade. Regulation was rarely an issue.
Ethnocultural politics: pietistic Republicans versus liturgical Democrats
| Voting behavior by religion, Northern US, late 19th century
|
|
|
% Dem
|
% GOP
|
| Immigrant Groups
|
|
|
| Irish Catholics
|
80
|
20
|
| All Catholics
|
70
|
30
|
| Confessional German Lutherans
|
65
|
35
|
| German Reformed
|
60
|
40
|
| French Canadian Catholics
|
50
|
50
|
| Less Confessional German Lutherans
|
45
|
55
|
| English Canadians
|
40
|
60
|
| British Stock
|
35
|
65
|
| German Sectarians
|
30
|
70
|
| Norwegian Lutherans
|
20
|
80
|
| Swedish Lutherans
|
15
|
85
|
| Haugean Norwegians
|
5
|
95
|
| Natives: Northern Stock
|
|
|
| Quakers
|
5
|
95
|
| Free Will Baptists
|
20
|
80
|
| Congregational
|
25
|
75
|
| Methodists
|
25
|
75
|
| Regular Baptists
|
35
|
65
|
| Blacks
|
40
|
60
|
| Presbyterians
|
40
|
60
|
| Episcopalians
|
45
|
55
|
| Natives: Southern Stock (living in North)
|
|
|
| Disciples
|
50
|
50
|
| Presbyterians
|
70
|
30
|
| Baptists
|
75
|
25
|
| Methodists
|
90
|
10
|
From 1860 to the early 20th century, the Republicans took advantage of the association of the Democrats with "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion". "Rum" stood for the liquor interests and the tavernkeepers, in contrast to the GOP, which had a strong dry element.
"Romanism" meant Roman Catholics, especially Irish Americans, who ran
the Democratic Party in most cities, and whom the reformers denounced
for political corruption and their separate parochial-school
system. "Rebellion" harked back to the Democrats of the Confederacy,
who had tried to break the Union in 1861, as well as to their northern
allies, called "Copperheads."
Demographic trends boosted the Democratic totals, as the German
and Irish Catholic immigrants became Democrats and outnumbered the
English and Scandinavian Republicans. The new immigrants who arrived
after 1890 seldom voted at this time. During the 1880s and 1890s, the
Republicans struggled against the Democrats' efforts, winning several
close elections and losing two to Grover Cleveland (in 1884 and 1892).
Religious lines were sharply drawn.
In the North, about 50% of the voters were pietistic Protestants
(especially Methodists, Scandinavian Lutherans, Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, Disciples of Christ) who believed in using the
government to reduce social sins, such as drinking. They strongly
supported the GOP, as the table shows. In sharp contrast, liturgical
groups, especially the Catholics, Episcopalians, and German Lutherans,
voted for the Democrats. They saw the Democratic party as their best
protection from the moralism of the pietists, and especially from the
threat of prohibition. Both parties cut across the class structure, with
the Democrats more bottom-heavy and the GOP better represented among
businessmen and professionals in the North.
Many cultural issues, especially prohibition and foreign-language
schools, became hard-fought political issues because of the deep
religious divisions in the electorate. For example, in Wisconsin the
Republicans tried to close down German-language Catholic and Lutheran
parochial schools, and were defeated in 1890 when the Bennett Law was put to the test.
Prohibition debates and referendums heated up politics in most
states over a period of decades, as national prohibition was finally
passed in 1919 (and repealed in 1933), serving as a major issue between
the wet Democrats and the dry GOP.
Immigration
Celebrating ethnic pluralism on 4th of July. 1902
Puck editorial cartoon
Prior to the Gilded Age, the time commonly referred to as the old immigration
saw the first real boom of new arrivals to the United States. During
the Gilded Age, approximately 20 million immigrants came to the United
States in what is known as the new immigration.
Some of them were prosperous farmers who had the cash to buy land and
tools in the Plains states especially. Many were poor peasants looking
for the American Dream
in unskilled manual labor in mills, mines, and factories. Few
immigrants went to the poverty-stricken South, though. To accommodate
the heavy influx, the federal government in 1892 opened a reception
center at Ellis Island near the Statue of Liberty.
Waves of old and new immigrants
These
immigrants consisted of two groups: The last big waves of the "Old
Immigration" from Germany, Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia, and the
rising waves of the "New Immigration", which peaked about 1910. Some men
moved back and forth across the Atlantic, but most were permanent
settlers. They moved into well-established communities, both urban and
rural. The German American communities spoke German, but their younger generation was bilingual.
The Scandinavian groups generally assimilated quickly; they were noted
for their support of reform programs, such as prohibition.
In terms of immigration, after 1880 the old immigration of Germans,
British, Irish, and Scandinavians slackened off. The United States was
producing large numbers of new unskilled jobs every year, and to fill
them came number from Italy, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Greece,
and other points in southern and central Europe, as well as French
Canada. The older immigrants by the 1870s had formed highly stable
communities, especially the German Americans. The British immigrants tended to blend into the general population.
Irish Catholics had arrived in large numbers in the 1840s and 1850s in the wake of the great famine in Ireland
when starvation killed millions. Their first few decades were
characterized by extreme poverty, social dislocation, crime and violence
in their slums. By the late 19th century, the Irish communities had
largely stabilized, with a strong new "lace curtain" middle-class of
local businessmen, professionals, and political leaders typified by P. J. Kennedy
(1858–1929) in Boston. In economic terms, Irish Catholics were nearly
at the bottom in the 1850s. They reached the national average by 1900,
and by the late 20th century they far surpassed the national average.
In political terms, the Irish Catholics comprised a major element
in the leadership of the urban Democratic machines across the country.
Although they were only a third of the total Catholic population, the
Irish also dominated the Catholic Church, producing most of the bishops,
college presidents, and leaders of charitable organizations. The network of Catholic institutions provided high status, but low-paying lifetime careers to sisters and nuns
in parochial schools, hospitals, orphanages and convents. They were
part of an international Catholic network, with considerable movement
back and forth from Ireland, England, France, Germany and Canada.
New immigrants
Norwegian settlers in front of their sod house in North Dakota in 1898
The "New Immigration" were much poorer peasants and rural folk from
southern and eastern Europe, including mostly Italians, Poles and Jews.
Some men, especially the Italians and Greeks, saw themselves as
temporary migrants who planned to return to their home villages with a
nest egg of cash earned in long hours of unskilled labor. Others,
especially the Jews, had been driven out of Eastern Europe and had no
intention of returning.
Historians analyze the causes of immigration in terms of push
factors (pushing people out of the homeland) and pull factors (pulling
them to America). The push factors included economic dislocation,
shortages of land, and antisemitism. Pull factors were the economic
opportunity of good inexpensive farmland or jobs in factories, mills and
mines.
The first generation typically lived in ethnic enclaves with a
common language, food, religion, and connections through the old
village. The sheer numbers caused overcrowding in tenements in the
larger cities. In the small mill towns, however, management usually
built company housing with cheap rents.
Chinese immigrants
Asian
immigrants—Chinese at this time—were hired by California construction
companies for temporary railroad work. The European Americans strongly
disliked the Chinese for their alien life-styles and threat of low
wages. The construction of the Central Pacific Railroad
from California to Utah was handled largely by Chinese laborers. In the
1870 census, there were 63,000 Chinese men (with a few women) in the
entire U.S.; this number grew to 106,000 in 1880. Labor unions, led by Samuel Gompers
strongly opposed the presence of Chinese labor. Immigrants from China
were not allowed to become citizens until 1950; however, as a result of
the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, their children born in the U.S. were full citizens.
Congress banned further Chinese immigration through the Chinese Exclusion Act
in 1882; the act prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the United
States, but some students and businessmen were allowed in on a temporary
basis. The Chinese population declined to only 37,000 in 1940. Although
many returned to China (a greater proportion than most other immigrant
groups), most of them stayed in the United States. Chinese people were
unwelcome in urban neighborhoods, so they resettled in the "Chinatown" districts of large cities. The exclusion policy lasted until the 1940s.
Rural life
A dramatic expansion in farming took place during the Gilded Age,
with the number of farms tripling from 2.0 million in 1860 to
6.0 million in 1905. The number of people living on farms grew from
about 10 million in 1860 to 22 million in 1880 to 31 million in 1905.
The value of farms soared from $8.0 billion in 1860 to $30 billion in
1906.
The federal government issued 160-acre (65 ha) tracts virtually free to settlers under the Homestead Act
of 1862. Even larger numbers purchased lands at very low interest from
the new railroads, which were trying to create markets. The railroads
advertised heavily in Europe and brought over, at low fares, hundreds of
thousands of farmers from Germany, Scandinavia and Britain.
Despite their remarkable progress and general prosperity,
19th-century U.S. farmers experienced recurring cycles of hardship,
caused primarily by falling world prices for cotton and wheat.
Along with the mechanical improvements which greatly increased
yield per unit area, the amount of land under cultivation grew rapidly
throughout the second half of the century, as the railroads opened up
new areas of the West for settlement. The wheat farmers enjoyed abundant
output and good years from 1876 to 1881 when bad European harvests kept
the world price high. They then suffered from a slump in the 1880s when
conditions in Europe improved. The farther west the settlers went, the
more dependent they became on the monopolistic railroads to move their
goods to market, and the more inclined they were to protest, as in the Populist movement of the 1890s. Wheat farmers blamed local grain elevator owners (who purchased their crop), railroads and eastern bankers for the low prices. This protest has now been attributed to the far increased uncertainty
in farming due to its commercialisation, with monopolies, the gold
standard and loans being simply visualisations of this risk.
The first organized effort to address general agricultural problems was the Grange movement. Launched in 1867, by employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
the Granges focused initially on social activities to counter the
isolation most farm families experienced. Women's participation was
actively encouraged. Spurred by the Panic of 1873, the Grange soon grew
to 20,000 chapters and 1.5 million members. The Granges set up their own
marketing systems, stores, processing plants, factories and cooperatives. Most went bankrupt. The movement also enjoyed some political success during the 1870s. A few Midwestern states passed "Granger Laws", limiting railroad and warehouse fees. The agricultural problems gained mass political attention in the Populist movement, which won 44 votes in the Electoral College in 1892.
Its high point came in 1896 with the candidacy of William Jennings
Bryan for the Democrats, who was sympathetic to populist concerns such
as the silver standard.
Urban life
American society experienced significant changes in the period
following the Civil War, most notably the rapid urbanization of the
North.
Due to the increasing demand for unskilled workers, most European
immigrants went to mill towns, mining camps, and industrial cities. New
York, Philadelphia, and especially Chicago saw rapid growth. Louis Sullivan became a noted architect using steel frames to construct skyscrapers for the first time while pioneering the idea of "form follows function". Chicago became the center of the skyscraper craze, starting with the ten-story Home Insurance Building in 1884–1885 by William Le Baron Jenney.
As immigration increased in cities, poverty rose as well. The poorest crowded into low-cost housing such as the Five Points and Hell's Kitchen neighborhoods in Manhattan. These areas were quickly overridden with notorious criminal gangs such as the Five Points Gang and the Bowery Boys. Overcrowding spread germs; the death rates in big city tenements vastly exceeded those in the countryside.
Rapid outward expansion required longer journeys to work and
shopping for the middle class office workers and housewives. The
working-class generally did not own automobiles until after 1945; they
typically walked to nearby factories and patronized small neighborhood
stores. The middle class demanded a better transportation system. Slow
horse-drawn streetcars and faster electric trolleys were the rage in the
1880s.
In the horse-drawn era, streets were unpaved and covered with dirt or
gravel. However, this produced uneven wear, opened new hazards for
pedestrians, and made for dangerous potholes for bicycles and for motor
vehicles. Manhattan alone had 130,000 horses in 1900, pulling
streetcars, delivery wagons, and private carriages, and leaving their
waste behind. They were not fast, and pedestrians could dodge and
scramble their way across the crowded streets. In small towns people
mostly walked to their destination so they continued to rely on dirt and
gravel into the 1920s. Larger cities had much more complex
transportation needs. They wanted better streets, so they paved them
with wood or granite blocks.
In 1890, a third of Chicago's 2000 miles of streets were paved, chiefly
with wooden blocks, which gave better traction than mud. Brick
surfacing was a good compromise, but even better was asphalt
paving. With London and Paris as models, Washington laid 400,000 square
yards of asphalt paving by 1882, and served as a model for Buffalo,
Philadelphia, and elsewhere. By the end of the century, American cities
boasted 30 million square yards of asphalt paving, followed by brick
construction.
Street-level electric trolleys moved at 12 miles per hour, and became
the main transportation service for middle class shoppers and office
workers. Big-city streets became paths for faster and larger and more
dangerous vehicles, the pedestrians beware. In the largest cities,
street railways were elevated, which increased their speed and lessened
their dangers. Boston built the first subway in the 1890s followed by
New York a decade later.
The South and the West
The South
The South remained heavily rural and was much poorer than the North or West. In the South, Reconstruction brought major changes in agricultural practices. The most significant of these was sharecropping,
where tenant farmers "shared" up to half of their crop with the
landowners, in exchange for seed and essential supplies. About 80% of
the Black farmers and 40% of White ones lived under this system after
the Civil War. Most sharecroppers were locked in a cycle of debt, from
which the only hope of escape was increased planting. This led to the
over-production of cotton and tobacco (and thus to declining prices and
income), soil exhaustion, and poverty among both landowners and tenants.
Agriculture's Share of the Labor Force, 1890
| Northeast |
15%
|
| Middle Atlantic |
17%
|
| Midwest |
43%
|
| South Atlantic |
63%
|
| South Central |
67%
|
| West |
29%
|
There were only a few scattered cities – small courthouse towns
serviced the farm population. Local politics revolved around the
politicians and lawyers based at the courthouse. Mill towns, narrowly
focused on textile production or cigarette manufacture, began opening in
the Piedmont region
especially in the Carolinas. Racial segregation and outward signs of
inequality were everywhere, and rarely were challenged. Blacks who
violated the color line were liable to expulsion or lynching.
Cotton became even more important than before, as poor whites needed
the cash that cotton would bring. Cotton prices were much lower than
before the war, so everyone was poor. White southerners showed a
reluctance to move north, or to move to cities, so the number of small
farms proliferated, and they became smaller as the population grew.
Many of the White farmers, and most of the Blacks, were tenant farmers who owned their work animals and tools, and rented the land. Others were day laborers or very poor sharecroppers,
who worked under the supervision of the landowner. There was little
cash in circulation, because most farmers operated on credit accounts
from local merchants, and paid off their debts at cotton harvest time in
the fall. Although there were small country churches everywhere, there
were only a few dilapidated elementary schools. Apart from private
academies, there were very few high schools until the 1920s. Conditions
were marginally better in newer areas, especially in Texas and central
Florida, with the deepest poverty in South Carolina, Mississippi, and
Arkansas.
The vast majority of African Americans lived in the South, and as
the promises of emancipation and reconstruction faded, they entered the
nadir of race relations. Every Southern state and city passed Jim Crow laws that were in effect between the late 19th century and 1964, when they were abolished by Congress. They mandated de jure (legal) segregation in all public facilities, such as stores and street cars, with a supposedly "separate but equal"
status for Blacks. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations
that were dramatically inferior to those provided for White Americans,
systematizing a number of economic, educational and social
disadvantages. Schools for Blacks were far fewer and poorly supported by
taxpayers, although Northern philanthropies and churches kept open
dozens of academies and small colleges.
In the face of years of mounting violence and intimidation
directed at blacks during Reconstruction, the federal government was
unable to guarantee constitutional protections to freedmen. In the Compromise of 1877 President Hayes withdrew Union troops from the South; "Redeemers"
(White Democrats) acted quickly to reverse the groundbreaking advances
of Reconstruction. Black political power was eliminated in the 1880s,
and in the 1890s new laws effectively blocked over 90% of the Blacks
from voting (with some exceptions in Tennessee; blacks did vote in the
border states).
The West
Map of the United States, 1870–80. Orange indicates statehood, light blue territories, and green unorganized territories
In 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad—a combination of the Union Pacific from Omaha to Utah and the Central Pacific
from Utah to California—opened up the far west mining and ranching
regions. Travel from New York to San Francisco now took six days instead
of six months.
After the Civil War, many from the East Coast and Europe were
lured west by reports from relatives and by extensive advertising
campaigns promising "the Best Prairie Lands", "Low Prices", "Large
Discounts For Cash", and "Better Terms Than Ever!". The new railroads
provided the opportunity for migrants to go out and take a look, with
special family tickets, the cost of which could be applied to land
purchases offered by the railroads. Farming the plains was indeed more
difficult than back east.
Water management was more critical, lightning fires were more
prevalent, the weather was more extreme, rainfall was less predictable.
The fearful stayed home, while migrants were mainly motivated by a
search to improve their economic life. Farmers sought larger, cheaper
and more fertile land; merchants and tradesman sought new customers and
new leadership opportunities. Laborers wanted higher paying work and
better conditions. With the Homestead Act providing free land to
citizens and the railroads selling cheap lands to European farmers, the
settlement of the Great Plains was swiftly accomplished, and the
frontier had virtually ended by 1890.
Family life
In
the Gilded Age West, few single men attempted to operate a farm.
Farmers clearly understood the need for a hard-working wife, and
numerous children, to handle the many chores, including child-rearing,
feeding and clothing the family, managing the housework, and feeding the
hired hands.
During the early years of settlement, farm women played an integral
role in assuring family survival by working outdoors. After a generation
or so, women increasingly left the fields, thus redefining their roles
within the family. New conveniences such as sewing and washing machines
encouraged women to turn to domestic roles. The scientific housekeeping
movement was promoted across the land by the media and government
extension agents, as well as county fairs which featured achievements in
home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm papers,
and home economics courses in schools.
Although the eastern image of farm life on the prairies
emphasizes the isolation of the lonely farmer and the bleakness of farm
life, in reality rural folk created a rich social life for themselves.
For example, many joined a local branch of The Grange;
a majority had ties to local churches. It was popular to organize
activities that combined practical work, abundant food, and simple
entertainment such as barn raisings, corn huskings, and quilting bees.
One could keep busy with scheduled Grange meetings, church services,
and school functions. Women organized shared meals and potluck events,
as well as extended visits between families.
Childhood on western farms is contested territory. One group of
scholars argues the rural environment was salubrious because it allowed
children to break loose from urban hierarchies of age and gender,
promoted family interdependence, and produced children who were more
self-reliant, mobile, adaptable, responsible, independent and more in
touch with nature than their urban or eastern counterparts. However other historians offer a grim portrait of loneliness, privation, abuse, and demanding physical labor from an early age.
Native assimilation
A group of students, together with a non-native man, 1893
Native American policy was set by the national government (the states
had very little role), and after 1865 the national policy was that
Native Americans either had to assimilate into the larger community or
remain on reservations, where the government provided subsidies.
Reservation natives were no longer allowed to roam or fight their
traditional enemies. The U.S. Army was to enforce the laws. Natives of the West came in conflict with expansion by miners, ranchers and settlers. By 1880, the buffalo herds, a foundation for the hunting economy had disappeared. Violence petered out in the 1880s and practically ceased after 1890.
Native Americans individually had the choice of living on
reservations, with food, supplies, education and medical care provided
by the federal government, or living on their own in the larger society
and earning wages, typically as a cowboy on a ranch, or manual worker in
town. Reformers wanted to give as many Native Americans as possible the
opportunity to own and operate their own farms and ranches, so the
issue was how to give individual natives land owned by the tribe. To
assimilate the natives into American society, reformers set up training
programs and schools, such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
that produced many prominent Native American leaders. However,
anti-assimilation traditionalists on the reservations resisted
integration and the resulting loss of their traditional life.
In 1887, the Dawes Act proposed to divide tribal land and parcel out 160 acres (0.65 km2)
of land to each head of family. Such allotments were to be held in
trust by the government for 25 years, then given to owners with full
title, so they could sell it or mortgage it. As individual natives sold
their land, the total held by the native community shrank by almost
half. The individualized system undermined the traditional communal
tribal organization. Furthermore, a majority of natives responded to
intense missionary activity by converting to Christianity. The long-term
goal of Dawes Act was to integrate natives into the mainstream; the
majority accepted integration and were absorbed into American society,
leaving a trace of native ancestry in millions of American families.
Those who refused to assimilate remained in poverty on reservations,
supported until now by Federal food, medicine and schooling. In 1934,
national policy was reversed again by the Indian Reorganization Act which tried to protect tribal and communal life on reservations.
Art
The Chess Players, Thomas Eakins (1876)
The Cup of Tea, Mary Cassatt (ca. 1879)
Some well-known painters of the Gilded Age include: Jules Breton, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Childe Hassam, John Henry Twachtman and Maurice Prendergast.
The New York Art world took a major turn during the Gilded age,
seeing an outgrowth of exhibitions and the establishment of major
auction houses with a focus on American Art. The Gilded Age was pivotal in establishing the New York Art world in the international art market.
New York Art Galleries, Clubs, and Associations During the Gilded Age
Women's roles
Social activism
This 1902 cartoon from the
Hawaiian Gazette shows a
WCTU activist using the water cure to torture a brewmaster as the
Anti-Saloon League mans the pump
During the Gilded Age, many new social movements took hold in the United States. Many women abolitionists who were disappointed that the Fifteenth Amendment
did not extend voting rights to them, remained active in politics, this
time focusing on issues important to them. Reviving the temperance
movement from the Second Great Awakening, many women joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in an attempt to bring morality back to America. Its chief leader was Frances Willard
(1839–1898), who had a national and international outreach from her
base in Evanston, Illinois. Often the WCTU women took up the issue of
women's suffrage which had lain dormant since the Seneca Falls Convention. With leaders like Susan B. Anthony, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was formed to secure the right of women to vote.
Employment
Many young women worked as servants or in shops and factories until marriage, then typically became full-time housewives.
However, black, Irish and Swedish adult women often worked as servants.
In most large Northern cities, the Irish Catholic women dominated the
market for servants.
Heavy industry was a male domain, but in light industries such as
textiles and food processing, large numbers of young women were hired.
Thousands of young unmarried Irish and French Canadian women worked in
Northeastern textile mills. Coming from poor families these jobs meant
upward social mobility, more money, and more social prestige in their
community that made them more attractive marriage partners. In Cohoes, New York,
mill women went on strike in 1882 to gain union recognition. They
fought off Swedish strike breakers to protect the status they had
achieved.
After 1860, as the larger cities opened department stores, middle-class women did most of the shopping; increasingly they were served by young middle-class women clerks.
Typically, most young women quit their jobs when they married. In some
ethnic groups, however, married women were encouraged to work,
especially among African-Americans, and Irish Catholics. When the
husband operated a small shop or restaurant, wives and other family
members could find employment there. Widows and deserted wives often
operated boarding houses.
Career women were few. The teaching profession had once been
heavily male, but as schooling expanded many women took on teaching
careers. If they remained unmarried they could have a prestigious but poorly paid lifetime career in the middle class. At the end of the period nursing schools opened up new opportunities for women, but medical schools remained nearly all male.
Business opportunities were rare, unless it was a matter of a
widow taking over her late husband's small business. However the rapid
acceptance of the sewing machine made housewives more productive and opened up new careers for women running their own small millinery and dressmaking shops. When her husband died, Lydia Moss Bradley (1816–1908) inherited $500,000; shrewd investments doubled that sum and she later became president of his old bank in Peoria, Illinois.
She worked from home to handle banking business. In an age when
philanthropists such as Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Purdue, Vanderbilt,
Stanford, Rice and Duke were perpetuating their names by founding
universities, she lifted her aspirations from the original idea of an
orphanage to the loftier goal and in 1897 founded Bradley University in Peoria.
Social thought
A leading magazine, The Nation, espoused Classical liberalism every week starting in 1865, under the influential editor E. L. Godkin (1831–1902).
Science played an important part in social thought as the work of Charles Darwin became known among intellectuals. Following Darwin's idea of natural selection, English philosopher Herbert Spencer proposed the idea of social Darwinism.
This new concept justified the stratification of the wealthy and poor,
and it was in this proposal that Spencer coined the term "survival of the fittest".
Joining Spencer was Yale professor William Graham Sumner whose book What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1884) argued that assistance to the poor actually weakens their ability to survive in society. Sumner argued for a laissez-faire and free-market economy. Few people, however, agreed with the social Darwinists, because they ridiculed religion and denounced philanthropy.
Henry George proposed a "single tax" in his book Progress and Poverty.
The tax would be leveled on the rich and poor alike, with the excess
money collected used to equalize wealth and level out society.
The Norwegian American economist Thorstein Veblen argued in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) that the "conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure" of the wealthy had become the basis of social status in America.
In Looking Backward (1887), the reformer Edward Bellamy
envisioned a future America set in the year 2000 in which a socialist
paradise has been established. The works of authors such as George and
Bellamy became popular, and soon clubs were created across America to
discuss their ideas, although these organizations rarely made any real
social change.
Religion
The Third Great Awakening
which began before the Civil War returned and made a significant change
in religious attitudes toward social progress. Followers of the new
Awakening promoted the idea of the Social Gospel which gave rise to organizations such as the YMCA, the American branch of the Salvation Army, and settlement houses such as Hull House, founded by Jane Addams in Chicago in 1889.
The Third Great Awakening was a period of religious activism in
American history from the late 1850s to the 20th century. It affected
pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong sense of social
activism. It gathered strength from the postmillennial theology that the Second Coming
of Christ would come after mankind had reformed the entire earth. The
Social Gospel movement gained its force from the Awakening, as did the
worldwide missionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as the Holiness movement and Nazarene movements, Theosophy and Christian Science.
The Protestant mainline denominations (especially the Methodist,
Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches) grew rapidly in
numbers, wealth and educational levels, throwing off their frontier
beginnings and becoming centered in towns and cities. Leaders such as Josiah Strong advocated a muscular Christianity with systematic outreach to the unchurched
in America and around the globe. Others built colleges and universities
to train the next generation. Each denomination supported active
missionary societies, and made the role of missionary one of high
prestige. The great majority of pietistic mainline Protestants (in the North) supported the Republican Party, and urged it to endorse prohibition and social reforms.
The Awakening in numerous cities in 1858 was interrupted by the American Civil War. In the South, on the other hand, the Civil War stimulated revivals and strengthened the Baptists, especially. After the war, Dwight L. Moody made revivalism the centerpiece of his activities in Chicago by founding the Moody Bible Institute. The hymns of Ira Sankey were especially influential.
Across the nation, "drys" crusaded in the name of religion for the prohibition of alcohol. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union
mobilized Protestant women for social crusades against not only liquor,
but also pornography and prostitution, and sparked the demand for
women's suffrage.
The Gilded Age plutocracy came under harsh attack from the Social Gospel preachers and reformers in the Progressive Era who became involved with issues of child labor, compulsory elementary education and the protection of women from exploitation in factories.
All the major denominations sponsored growing missionary activities inside the United States and around the world.
Colleges associated with churches rapidly expanded in number,
size and quality of curriculum. The promotion of muscular Christianity
became popular among young men on campus and in urban YMCAs, as well as
such denominational youth groups such as the Epworth League for Methodists and the Walther League for Lutherans.
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