The Gilded Age - Paper 2
The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age was an era in America that took place between 1865 and 1900. It was a time marked by substantial growth in population and decadence in the United States. It was an era defined by its increased competition, greed, political corruption, and excessive displays of wealth and gross materialism by the rich and wealthy. This gross materialism did not go unnoticed. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner published a novel called the Gilded Age (providing the era with its most notable label), which satirically described the greed, materialism, and political corruption that accompanied the growth of industry and cities.
It was an extremely productive but divisive age in America. By definition, the term gild is to give an attractive but often deceptive appearance to. This deceptive appearance to outsiders, while seemingly perfect and in order, was plagued with crime, corruption, poverty, and many other issues between the rich and poor in American society.
Successful businessmen and captains of industry such as Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and William Vanderbilt enjoyed astonishing profits. But while the rich and wealthy like Carnegie, Morgan, and Vanderbilt enjoyed this unprecedented rise in profits and spent lavishly on things such as diamonds, homes, and clothes, many of the poor wore rags and lived in crowded tenements. Many of the poor were immigrants with limited education, limited work skills, and limited knowledge of the English language. They often labored in hazardous factories on a rigid, regimented, and exhaustive work schedule. Until The Gilded Age, never in America’s history had there been such economic disparity between the rich and poor. Although workers were moving up, there was still a huge disparity between the wealthy (owners) and workers. By 1890, the wealthiest 1 percent of the American population owned as much property as the remaining 99 percent. In contrast, the average annual income for rural Americans and new
The Gilded Age was an era in America that took place between 1865 and 1900. It was a time marked by substantial growth in population and decadence in the United States. It was an era defined by its increased competition, greed, political corruption, and excessive displays of wealth and gross materialism by the rich and wealthy. This gross materialism did not go unnoticed. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner published a novel called the Gilded Age (providing the era with its most notable label), which satirically described the greed, materialism, and political corruption that accompanied the growth of industry and cities.
It was an extremely productive but divisive age in America. By definition, the term gild is to give an attractive but often deceptive appearance to. This deceptive appearance to outsiders, while seemingly perfect and in order, was plagued with crime, corruption, poverty, and many other issues between the rich and poor in American society.
Successful businessmen and captains of industry such as Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and William Vanderbilt enjoyed astonishing profits. But while the rich and wealthy like Carnegie, Morgan, and Vanderbilt enjoyed this unprecedented rise in profits and spent lavishly on things such as diamonds, homes, and clothes, many of the poor wore rags and lived in crowded tenements. Many of the poor were immigrants with limited education, limited work skills, and limited knowledge of the English language. They often labored in hazardous factories on a rigid, regimented, and exhaustive work schedule. Until The Gilded Age, never in America’s history had there been such economic disparity between the rich and poor. Although workers were moving up, there was still a huge disparity between the wealthy (owners) and workers. By 1890, the wealthiest 1 percent of the American population owned as much property as the remaining 99 percent. In contrast, the average annual income for rural Americans and new