Cotton prices were much lower than before the war, so everyone was poor. "[64], 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. [155][156] However other historians offer a grim portrait of loneliness, privation, abuse, and demanding physical labor from an early age. 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). Manhattan alone had 130,000 horses in 1900, pulling streetcars, delivery wagons, and private carriages, and leaving their waste behind. ", John D. Fairfield, "Rapid Transit: Automobility and Settlement in Urban America", Chad Montrie, "'Men Alone Cannot Settle a Country:' Domesticating Nature in the Kansas-Nebraska Grasslands,", Karl Ronning, "Quilting in Webster County, Nebraska, 1880–1920,", Nathan B. Sanderson, "More Than a Potluck,". 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. The growth of railroads from 1850s to 1880s made commercial farming much more feasible and profitable. [184] 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. They generated political unrest. Furthermore, a majority of natives responded to intense missionary activity by converting to Christianity. The 'Gilded Age' was a sarcastic and derogatory term coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner to describe the time when many Industrialists acquired wealth ⦠Business rivals and political reformers accused him of every conceivable evil. [54] 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. [78] There were 37,000 strikes between 1881 and 1905. They also denounced imperialism and overseas expansion. Travel from New York to San Francisco now took six days instead of six months. The German American communities spoke German, but their younger generation was bilingual. It can be taken to ⦠First, continued exploitation of the public could result in a violent uprising that could destroy the whole system. July 28: The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States and guarantees due process and equal protection of the laws. Blacks who violated the color line were liable to expulsion or lynching. [176], Many young women worked as servants or in shops and factories until marriage, then typically became full-time housewives. [48][49] 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. According to historian Henry Adams the system of railroads needed: The impact can be examined through five aspects: shipping, finance, management, careers, and popular reaction. Local governments across the North and West built public schools chiefly at the elementary level; public high schools started to emerge. 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. [154], Childhood on western farms is contested territory. They were not fast, and pedestrians could dodge and scramble their way across the crowded streets. 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. In most large Northern cities, the Irish Catholic women dominated the market for servants. [81], Severe economic recessions—called "panics"—struck the nation in the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893. [17], Increased mechanization of industry is a major mark of the Gilded Age's search for cheaper ways to create more product. George Westinghouse invented air brakes for trains (making them both safer and faster). Railroads invented modern management, with clear chains of command, statistical reporting, and complex bureaucratic systems. "[98][99], Overall, Republican and Democratic political platforms remained remarkably constant during the years before 1900. Together with rapid growth of small business, a new middle class was rapidly growing, especially in northern cities. [80], The new American Federation of Labor, headed by Samuel Gompers, found the solution. [114], The "New Immigration" were much poorer peasants and rural folk from southern and eastern Europe, including mostly Italians, Poles and Jews. Farmers sought larger, cheaper and more fertile land; merchants and tradesman sought new customers and new leadership opportunities. [150], In the Gilded Age West, few single men attempted to operate a farm. They strongly supported the GOP, as the table shows. Such corruption was so commonplace that in 1868 the New York state legislature legalized such bribery. The United States dominated the global industry into the 1950s. 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)[97] who served in the White House during this period. The result was a transforming impact on most sectors of the economy including manufacturing, retail and wholesale, agriculture, and finance. American steel production rose to surpass the combined totals of Britain, Germany, and France. Railroads were the major growth industry, with the factory system, mining, and finance increasing in importance. [50] For instance, Andrew Carnegie donated over 90% of his wealth and said that philanthropy was their duty—the "Gospel of Wealth". Religious lines were sharply drawn. She worked from home to handle banking business. 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