Transcript Guilded Age America

S ee handout
The term "Gilded Age” was created by Mark Twain to describe
how American society during the late 1800’s. Everything
seemed shiny and golden on the outside, but underneath
was a society filled with poverty, crime, and a large disparity
between the rich and the poor.
Bottom Line = Something is gilded if it is covered with gold on
the outside but made of cheaper material inside.
1. Many new inventions led to industrial growth (Cause)
2. Farm machines meant less need for farm labor (effect)
3. Factory jobs and service jobs in the cities (effect)
4. Disposable income drives new industry and wealth (effect)
5. Growing income gaps.
Social Gospel
Social Darwinism
Political Machines
Americanization
 Discrimination (blacks, minorities, immigrants, women)
 Corrupt Political Machines
 Poor Working Conditions
 No Equality between Lower Class and Upper Class
Sweat Shop
 Upton Sinclair wrote a
book to expose and
explain the difficulties of
the immigrant
experience. The book led
directly to the Meat
Inspection Act.
 Sinclair said- “I aimed for
the country’s heart and I
hit its stomach.”
 Social Gospel – Reaction to social problems
 Movement strove to improve conditions in cites according
to the biblical ideals of charity and justice.
 Government had no real role in public assistance.
 “Going to church doesn’t
make you a Christian any
more than going to a
garage makes you an
automobile.”
 “The fellow that has no
money is poor. The
fellow that has nothing
but money is poorer
still.”
 Social Darwinism is an
ideology of society that
seeks to apply biological
concepts of Darwinism or
of evolutionary theory to
sociology and politics,
often with the assumption
that conflict between
groups in society leads to
social progress as superior
groups outcompete inferior
ones. (Wikipedia)
"The law of competition may be sometimes hard for the
individual, [but] it is best for the race , because it insures the
survival of the fittest in every department."
---Andrew Carnegie, "The Gospel of Wealth, (1889)
"A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be...The
law of survival of the fittest was not made by man, and it
cannot be abrogated by man. We can only, by interfering with
it, produce the survival of the unfittest."
--- William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to
Each Other (1883)
 Social Darwinists don’t
believe that the
government should help
people. They oppose
natural rights theories.
But in the absence of
organized government
support, political
machines gained
momentum.
 Urban political
machines, built largely
on the votes of diverse
immigrant populations,
dispensed jobs and
assorted welfare benefits
while offering avenues of
social mobility at a time
when local governments
provided a paucity of
such services.
 The theory of Social
Darwinism also dictated
that immigrants lose
their native culture and
assimilate into American
culture. This
assimilation was called
Americanization.
Schools were a central
part of this movement.
 The Americanization
movement was a nationwide
organized effort in the 1910s to
bring millions of recent
immigrants into the American
cultural system. 30+ states
passed laws requiring
Americanization programs; in
hundreds of cities the chamber
of commerce organized classes
in English language and
American civics; many factories
cooperated.