Gilded Age1870-1900

Why “Gilded Age”?

Answer: Mark Twain

Why: By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface like gold but corrupt underneath.

What was the Gilded Age?

A time where:

1. Rapid economic growth generated vast wealth: upper class.

2. New Products and technologies improved middle class quality of life.

3. Industrial workers did not share in the new prosperity: poor working conditions.

4. Politicians were corrupt

Gilded Age: Points of Interest

Westward Expansion Industrial Revolution ImmigrationUrbanizationLabor MovementPolitical Corruption

Westward Expansion

Many Immigrants headed West in the mid to late 1800’s in search of cheap land and new jobs

Homesteaders:Homestead Act (1862) gave 160 acres to citizens who pledged to “improve the land” for at least 5 years.

Life in the Plains was difficult: There were few trees so homesteaders built sod houses

60% of homesteaders failed

Exodusters were black farmers who moved West to escape crop liens & Jim Crow laws in the South

Native Americans vs Homesteaders

Agreements between Native Americans and the Government fell apart because they had different concepts of land ownership

Industrial Revolution

What is an Industrial Revolution: a change from hand and home production to one of machine and factory production.

Discuss with your groups

What is something you know is made in a factory

What is something you know is made locally

There were two Industrial Revolutions

1800 – 1850

Occurred in Great Britain.

Involved textiles or clothing.

Eli Whitney: Cotton Gin

1850-1900

Focused on:

Transportation: Transcontinental Railroad

Communication: Telephone

Electricity: Work at Night

Production Improvements:

1. assembly line: mass production

2. Interchangeable parts: exp Guns

First Industrial Revolution Second Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

Effects of the Industrial Revolution

1. Immigration: Europeans, Mexicans and Asians came to the U.S for jobs.

2. Urbanization: Growth of cities occurred because of the number of new Americans arriving.

3. Westward Expansion: Find natural resources: “Gold” and free land.

4. Most Americans did not trust industrialists

Different Waves of Immigration

Old Immigration

1820-1890

Great Britain: for land

Ireland: Potato famine

Germany: political unrest

Scandinavia: land and industrial jobs

Chinese: railroad jobs

Came for cheap land and to get rich

New Immigration

1890-1914

Italians

Greece

Russians

Jews

Came to escape political persecution and get rich.

Urbanization

With the arrival of new immigrates and people leaving the farms for factory jobs, American cities begin to grow.

Problems

1. Overcrowding

2. Slums

3. Unsanitary Conditions

Discuss with your groups

Specific problems that could be causes by overcrowding and unsanitary conditions

Inventors and Inventions

Eli WhitneyInterchangeable

partsAssembly Line

production.

Inventors and Inventions

Thomas Edison Light BulbElectricity

Inventors and Inventions

Alexander G Bell

Telephone

Discuss in your groups

How has those three inventions changed your life

Rise of Big Business

It occurred because of a lack of government regulation which allowed companies and business men to build large fortunes on the backs of their workers.

Big Business

Historians use these two terms to describe powerful industrialists during the Gilded Age.

Captain of Industry: served their nation in a positive way.

Robber Barons: Built their fortunes by stealing from the public.

Big Business

Andrew Carnegie Captain of Industry

Steel Industry

Argued that the success of wealthy industrialists helped the entire nation.

Vertical Consolidation : owned every part of the steel making process from digging the iron ore to shipping the finished product.

Big Business

John D Rockefeller

Captain of Industry

Oil Industry

Horizontal Consolidation: bought smaller oil companies and consolidated them into one big business.

Labor Movement

Factory Work: 1. 6 days a week, 10 to 16 hour work day.

2. Paid by completed product: exp: number of finished chairs built, not by the hour.

3. Unskilled paid$1.00 to 1.50 a day

4. Skilled Worker paid $3.00 to 4.00 a day

5. Poor, unsafe working conditions: poor lighting, loud and dangerous machines, little training, no breaks, disciplined by management, accidents and fires.

Labor Movement

Child Labor:

1. Children left school at 12 to work:

2. Would work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day to earn a dollar a week.

3. Average 50-70 hours a week.

Rise of Labor Unions

Why join a union?

Workplace accidents were common, and the idea of compensating workers injured on the job was unheard of at the time. To help each other through illness, injury, and deaths, workers formed mutual benefit societies, but the assistance these groups provided was minimal. The most serious problem for factory workers was unemployment. It was common for a worker, particularly an unskilled one, to be out of a job at least part of the year.

Ticket out the door

One thing you learned today that you didn’t know when you came to class