The Age Of Big Business In The 19th Century

Throughout the 19th century, America faced a new era as industrialization marked a shift toward powered, specialized machinery, factories and mass production allowing many businesses to begin to bloom. New philosophies unfolded as Americans faced many challenges and aimed to develop solutions to fix such problems. Yet, despite the attempts of the working class to create a better life for themselves in this new era, many business moguls would soon take over and begin to monopolize their respective industries. The technological revolution, capitalist ideals, and industrialization created an Age of Big Business that would greatly influence Americans positively then and for many years to come.

The Age of Big Business got its pivotal start after
Capitalism would become a very “American” concept because Americans were acclimated to doing whatever it took to make it to the top as long as their actions were ‘legal’. Even then, some people were willing to commit illegal crimes and later pay off the necessary individuals and/or use excessive amounts of money to cover their tracks. As electricity was harnessed and many people moved into “white collar” jobs, the competition for limited resources inspired people to work harder to gain whatever the ‘prize’ was. Workers were seen doing majority of the work for the family’s company just to get paid very little as the members of the family lived in prosperity. This led to the evolution of many robber barons and captains of industry as business moguls such as JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and John D Rockefeller would start to monopolize the industries as they became some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the county. Not only did Morgan dominate so much of the business world, he, along with many others, treated his workers very poorly- possessing child labor factories and having workers work in miserable conditions with little pay. This created a difficult life for people in the working class as many of them lived under the poverty line and had to search for scarce resources in order to make a living in the world. Kids as young as seven were forced to work in textile factories which were unsafe as these kids lacked the proper protective gear needed to work in such an environment. These dangerous conditions led to the creation of labor