The 1865-1900 time period was very rough for the people at that time. The Gilded Age had a lot to do with that. The Age was bad but there were a few good things that came from the era that we still use today, while some things we don’t. The Gilded Age was an era where the politics were corrupted. “It was labeled Gilded Age for its greed and vulgarity, and was a time marked by conspicuous consumption by the newly rich as they flaunted their enormous personal wealth.”
One of the biggest downfalls of the Gilded Age was the urban growth effects. The United States was a nation dominated by rapidly growing cities, where the population went from 8 million to 30 million (page 847). People were living in overcrowded places all over, which brought a lot of problems. “Some of the large problems were poverty, unsanitary living conditions, and new forms of political corruption” (page 848). There were neighborhoods in the small towns that had racial and religious tensions. The central conflict was between city and country, and industry and agriculture. On page 848, it says, “The poor farmers felt let down by the political process; they struggled with falling crop prices, growing indebtedness to banks and railroads, while large farmers prospered.”
Not only was the Gilded Age a bad time, but there were a few good things too. The Gilded Age was about the railroads and transportation. As you can see on the chart below, the railroad miles quickly were on a rise.
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I watched a video on Youtube, and it says some of the same things the book says, but the one thing it said many times was that “railroads supplied cities and towns with food, fueling, building materials, and access to markets. Just these things alone would let the simple presence of railroads bring more prosperity to the wealthy”(“Gilded Age Politics”). The railroads got better over time, even though the ICC failed. The failure of the ICC meant the railroads were going to keep charging high rates and making secret pricing deals (875).
Today, railroads are not used as much for transportation as they were back in the day. Don’t get me wrong, they are used a lot for transporting cargo, but they aren’t used as much today for transporting people as they were then. Another good thing that came from the Gilded Age was the invention of movie theatres, sports, music halls, circuses, and museums. One of my favorite things to do on the weekends and with my family and friends is to go to the movie theatre. Without the creation of these luxuries, I would not get to experience all the ones I do today. In the last ten years, there have been more art museums and even more sports and movie theatres created. There are more sports for both men and women, which there wasn’t then. “Politics as a form of public entertainment attracted large crowds. Saloons were created for the working-class men” (857).
The end of the Gilded Age was not so good. It was a part of the Panic of 1893, which was a deep depression that lasted until 1897 (“Gilded Age Politics”). On page 889 it says that “the election of 1896 was one of the most dramatic in history because of the striking contrast between the candidates and because the depression made the stakes so high.” William J. Brian had 6.5 million votes, but William McKinley had 7.1 million. Although Bryan lost, he had changed the minds of the Democrat’s party to a party of liberal reform (891). On page 891 of chapter 19 it says the “economic prosperity was returning by the time that McKinley was inaugurated, and soon he signed a bill affirming that the nation’s money supply would be based only on gold.”
Citations
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_United_States_presidential_election
- Gilded Age Politics”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spgdy3HkcSs
