PROCESS

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Big Business Segment
 Laissez-faire capitalism ruled the day during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. In this atmosphere of unbridled money-making, numerous types of business organizations gave rise to Big Business. Were the leaders of these companies Captains of Industry or Robber Barons? While some used ruthless business practices to wipe out their competition and earn large profits, others gave enormous sums of money to charities and their communities

 

Required Content:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standard Oil Refinery in California

 

Invention Segment
Technology, and an abundance of natural resources, were the driving forces behind the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The telegraph, railroads, the telephone, and ultimately the use of electricity led to the shift from an agrarian to an industrial America.

Required Content:
  • Industrial Revolution
  • Use of Natural Resources:
    • Iron
    • Coal
    • Oil
  • Inventors and their Inventions:
    • Eli Whitney  
    • Henry Bessemer
    • Alexander Graham Bell
    • Thomas Alva Edison

Chinese railroad workers.

 

Urbanization Segment

 Urbanization was a direct result of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Burgeoning factories were centralized in cities which offered a central location for resources and workers to fuel their production. Immigrants and displaced rural workers flooded cities in the hopes of finding employment. Throughout the Gilded Age there were several positive, as well as negative, effects that can be attributed to urbanization.

Required Content:
  • Negative Effects of Urbanization:
    • Housing (tenements, slums, etc.)
    • Health (disease, sanitation, etc.)
    • Working Conditions (child labor, etc.)
    • Political Machines (Tamany Hall)
  • Positive Effects of Urbanization:
    • New Technologies (elevators, skyscrapers, street lighting, water and sewage systems, etc.)
    • Cultural Benefits (museums, theaters, parks, libraries, education, etc.)
  • Philosophies:
    • Puritan Work Ethic
    • Social Darwinism

NYC Tenament

 

Immigration Segment
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. However, during the Gilded Age, immigration to America increased tremendously. Not only were more people coming to the United States than ever before, but they were also coming from different places, and in doing so they added to the culture of America. But was America becoming a "melting-pot," or a "salad-bowl" of differing cultures?

 

Required Content:
  • Periods of Immigration:
    • Colonial Immigration (time period, place of origin, difficulties, etc.)
    • "Old" immigration (time period, place of origin, difficulties, etc.)
    • "New" Immigration (time period, place of origin, difficulties, etc.)
  • Reaction Against Immigration:
    • Nativism
    • Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 ("Yellow Peril")
    • Other Minorities
  • Theories of Immigration:
    • "Melting-Pot" Theory
    • Assimilation
    • "Salad-Bowl" Theory (Pluralism)

 

A Thomas Nast Cartoon: "Pacific Chivalry"

 

Labor and the Workers Segment

While business leaders like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller took advantage of corporations and trusts to increase their wealth and commercial power, mass production and mechanization threatened the economic independence of American workers. Before the Civil War, labor organization had been relatively insignificant. After 1865, however, more and more workers joined unions, went on strike, and challenged collectively the growing power of corporate capitalists in American society.

Required Content: 

 Factory / work

Sweatshops

Child labor

Strikes

Labor Unions

Samuel Gompers

American Federation of Labor

 

 

The Gilded Age and Politics Segment

The term "The Gilded Age" comes from a novel of the same name published in 1873 by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, which, though fictional, is a critical examination of politics and corruption in the United States during the nineteenth century.  This lecture explores how rampant economic and political corruption colored American society and culture during the Gilded Age.

Required Content: Some questions to keep in mind:

How did the federal government transform the American economy during the Gilded Age?

Why was corruption so rampant in American politics during this period?  Was it worse than today?  If so, why? Political Machine

Was there really any difference between the Republican and Democratic parties at this time?  If so, what?

Who coined the name Gilded Age?