Dcush Semester 2

• The Gilded Age, the period between the end of Radical Reconstruction (1877), and the beginning of the Progressive Era (1901), was a brassy, flamboyant age dominated by big business values, political corruption, and extremes of wealth and poverty.
• During the Gilded Age, the United States changed from a predominantly rural agrarian nation to an urban industrial era.
• The "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain: on the outside beautiful, expanding economy, extravagant displays of wealth by America's upper class; hiding the rotten side such as political corruption, scandals, greed, child labor, materialism, racial discrimination, etc.
• Era characteristics: Strong and rapid growth of industry, mass production, mechanization, and the factory system.
• Consolidation of wealth and creation of an American aristocracy.
• Political and corporate corruption and laissez-faire/hands-off approach to government involvement.
• Exploitation of cheap, immigrant labor, Urbanization of the West, Rapid population growth, beginning of political, social, and labor reform movements, and increased tensions in those areas as well.
• The "Gilded Age" years were 1870-1900.
• South was still very agricultural during the Gilded Age.
• Causes of Rapid Industrialization (Before the Civil War): 1
• The steam revolution of the 1830s-1850s most factories were located around fast-moving rivers.
• The railroad field the growing US economy (The first big business in the US, a magnet for financial investments, the key to opening the West, aided the development of other industries)
• Technological innovations such as the Bessemer process, refrigerated cars, and Edison (light bulb- allows for production to continue at night)
• Unskilled & semi-skilled labor in abundance
• New, talented group of businessmen [entrepreneurs] and advisors
• Market growing as a US population increased
• Abundant natural resources.
• Andrew Carnegie: led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history
• Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the Oil industry.
• Entrepreneurs with the talent, vision, and willingness to take risks were able to achieve unprecedented wealth and power
• Bessemer Process: In 1856 Henry Bessemer devised a way of converting iron into steel on a large scale
• His invention involve blowing air through molten iron in a converter, or furnace, in order to burn off the excess carbon
• His invention revolutionized the Industrial AGe
• Steel used in railroads, barbed wire, farm machines
• Changes in construction: Brooklyn Bridge, steel-framed skyscrapers
• Vertical integration refers to the merger of companies that are in the same business but in different stages of production or distribution.
• Horizontal integration is a business strategy in which one company acquires or merges with another that operates at the same level in an industry.
• The Gospel of Wealth is the belief that the wealthy are the "fittest" citizens and are therefore responsible to look out for the well being of those less fortunate.
• Many Industrialists shared wealth although rarely through direct welfare.
• Industrialists started museums, libraries, etc.
• Social Darwinism used Darwin's theory to explain business, Natural Selection, survival of the fittest, govt should not interfere, laissez-faire - policy that US had followed since inception to not allow govt to interfere with business.
• Most factory workers worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week; steel mills often demanded 7 days a week; no vacations, sick leave, unemployment compensation, or workers compensation for injuries on the job; children as young as 5 often worked as much as 12 or sometimes 14 hours a day, for as little as .$27 a day.
• The purpose of a labor union was "strength in numbers"—attempted to gain better working conditions and pay.
• Between 1870 and 1920, 20 million Europeans (mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe) came to America (mostly Jews/Catholics).
• Hundreds of thousands more came from Mexico, Caribbean, and China.
• New immigrants looked and sounded different than Natives.
• Nativism is a movement to ensure that native-born Americans received better treatment than immigrants.
• In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, prohibiting Chinese laborers from entering the country.
• The Chinese Exclusion Act was not lifted until 1943.
• Urbanization is the growth of cities.