Big Business In The Gilded Age Essay

In the late years of the Antebellum Era, the Second Industrial Revolution began to take root in America. By the 1870s, mass production and other efficient manufacturing methods allowed industry and big business to emerge and define an age referred to as the Gilded Age. Although the wealth of the businesses of the time cast an outward appearance of goodness and prosperity on the United States, in reality, big business was responsible for increasing social stratification as new depths of poverty and heights of affluence were defined. Although some Americans saw the growth of big business and industry of the Gilded Age in a positive light, most Americans approached the changes they caused in economics and politics hesitantly, seeing them as a change for the worse and attempted to slow their advances. While most people were adversely affected by the economic and political changes brought about by big business, some people profited from and reacted positively to them. As industrialism prospered, more frugal methods of assembly such as the assembly line, variations on division of labor, and mass production were able to
Businesses exploited their workers, providing meager wages and below satisfactory work conditions, in order to maximize the profit margin and cut costs. Businesses that grew large enough to influence national matters found themselves in a position to bargain with government officials and acts of corruption were not uncommon. American politics was a realm into which big business cast a puppeteering arm into. In response, laborers often organized themselves into labor unions to protest the vast economic and political privileges commercial leaders had granted