Innovations of the Gilded Age helped usher in modern America. Urbanization and technological creativity led to many engineering advances such as bridges and canals, elevators and skyscrapers, trolley lines and subways. The invention of electricity brought illumination to homes and businesses and created an unprecedented, thriving night life.
Click here for sample essays written by our professional writers. Technology transformed the United States during the Gilded Age in many ways. First, it allowed for businesses to find new ways to do old tasks and do them more efficiently. It also developed communication and transportation, making it easier for businesses to reach their consumers.
Many escaped their drudgery by watching a vaudeville show or a spectator sport such as boxing, baseball or football, all of which enjoyed a surge during the Gilded Age. Upper-class women of the Gilded Age have been compared to dolls on display dressed in resplendent finery.
Innovations of the Gilded Age helped usher in modern America. Urbanization and technological creativity led to many engineering advances such as bridges and canals, elevators and skyscrapers, trolley lines and subways. The invention of electricity brought illumination to homes and businesses and created an unprecedented, thriving night life.
Innovations of the Gilded Age helped usher in modern America. Urbanization and technological creativity led to many engineering advances such as bridges and canals, elevators and skyscrapers, trolley lines and subways.
“The Gilded Age” is the term used to describe the tumultuous years between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century. The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today was a famous satirical novel by Mark Twain set in the late 1800s, and was its namesake. During this era, America became more prosperous and saw unprecedented growth in industry and technology. But the Gilded Age had a more sinister side: It was a period where greedy, corrupt industrialists, bankers and politicians enjoyed extraordinary wealth and opulence at the expense of the working class. In fact, it was wealthy tycoons, not politicians, who inconspicuously held the most political power during the Gilded Age.
Robber Barons. Railroad tycoons were just one of many types of so-called robber barons that emerged in the Gilded Age. These men used union busting, fraud, intimidation, violence and their extensive political connections to gain an advantage over any competitors.
Limits to Power. Many other pivotal events happened during the Gilded Age which changed America’s course and culture. As muckrakers exposed corrupt robber barons and politicians, labor unions and reformist politicians enacted laws to limit their power.
Upper-class women of the Gilded Age have been compared to dolls on display dressed in resplendent finery. They flaunted their wealth and endeavored to improve their status in society while poor and middle-class women both envied and mimicked them.
It also made it much easier to transport goods over long distances from one part of the country to another. This enormous railroad expansion resulted in rail companies and their executives receiving lavish amounts of money and land—up to 200 million acres, by some estimates—from the United States government.
Some of America’s most famous mansions were built during the Gilded Age such as: Biltmore, located in Asheville, North Carolina, was the family estate of George and Edith Vanderbilt. Construction started on the 250-room chateau in 1889, prior to the couple’s marriage, and continued for six years.
Social Darwinism in the Gilded Age. The belief that white, wealthy, Anglo-Saxon Americans were biologically superior to other groups fueled many social and political trends of the Gilded Age.
Many sociologists and political theorists turned to Social Darwinism to argue against government programs to aid the poor, as they believed that poverty was the result of natural inferiority, which should be bred out of the human population.
Soon, some sociologists and others were taking up words and ideas which Darwin had used to describe the biological world, and they were adopting them to their own ideas and theories about the human social world . In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these Social Darwinists took up the language of evolution to frame an understanding of the growing gulf between the rich and the poor as well as the many differences between cultures all over the world.
During and after World War II, the arguments of Social Darwinists and eugenicists lost popularity in the United States due to their association with Nazi racial propaganda. Modern biological science has completely discredited the theory of Social Darwinism.
Charles Darwin is a theory of biological evolution developed in the English naturalist. The ideas of social Darwinism had influence politics and society in the Glided Age by the majority of those who have been categorized as social Darwinisms that identify themselves by such a label which helped.
Many whites believed that these new immigrants, who hailed from Eastern or Southern Europe, were racially inferior and consequently "less evolved" than immigrants from England, Ireland, or Germany. Similarly, Social Darwinism was used as a justification for American imperialism in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines following ...
The two major definitions are the idea that there are biological reasons why there is wealth inequality (that rich people are biologically superior), and the other is the idea that there are biological reasons for racial inequality (that white people are biologically superior). Comment on Bennett's post “"Social Darwinism" refers...”.
Technology transformed the United States during the Gilded Age in many ways. First, it allowed for businesses to find new ways to do old tasks and do them more efficiently. It also developed communication and transportation, making it easier for businesses to reach their consumers. By creating new jobs and getting more workers into ...
The American labor force changed during the period of industrialization due to the large amount of people immigrating to the United States. Historically, the Gilded Age was known as a time of mass immigration to the United States.
Therefore, powerful industrialists of the late 1800s were known both as captains of industries and robber barons, the American labor force changed, emerging inventions and technology helped big businesses, and developments in communication and transportation affected big businesses.
Thus, the American labor force changed through the addition of immigrants and children as laborers. Big businesses benefitted from new inventions and technologies of the late 1800s because they helped them improve efficiency and produce more products. To start, many new technologies were emerging during the Gilded Age.
Now a steel industrialist, Carnegie was one of the richest men in the United States. Because of the ways books helped Andrew Carnegie, he used his profit to help give books and bring education to others.
Improvements in technology such as rollers helped increase the efficiency of mills. Rollers were tools that were used in substitute of mill stones that did the same job faster and better. Air purifiers with air blowers made in France that separated unwanted particles from the wheat once it was broken.
Some immigrants came to the United States as contract laborers with the companies that hired them. The companies agreed to pay for their trip to the United States if they would work for the company and have a downgraded salary for a certain amount of time. These laborers worked for big businesses in factories.
Industrialization played a great role in the shaping of American society. It was known as the “Gilded Age” from 1869-1901. There were both social and economical changes taking place. One of the major changes was the construction of the transcontinental railroad that finished in 1869.
There were many major massacres such as Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 where many Indian women and children were killed. Then in 1860 and 1870 Sioux Wars happened in Colorado. Even though the tribes put up a fight and tried to defend their homes, they were defeated and forced to move from their homes.
Industrialization also had a major impact on the lives of women and children. Women were subjected to work the same amount of hours as men, however they got paid half of the men wages. They were often hired to do the jobs that men wanted to do, working in unsanitary and dangerous conditions.
And the last major group of people that suffered from industrialization were the Native Americans. As the railroad use became more common, many people moved westward and destroyed the Native American homes.