Children could work in dangerous jobs, people could be forced to work long days, and many did not have the option to deny dangerous work.
In response to these conditions, various labor unions organized, especially in the city of Chicago, where they were encouraged by government officials. The goal of organized labor was to achieve fair working conditions for immigrants and working class people. The orkingmen's Party of the United States was one group whose socialist goals managed to earn them several offices in Chicago. Other, more moderate, labor unions, like the Knights of Labor, used tools like boycotts to achieve their goals of higher pay, better working conditions, and fairness (VandeCreek). Although organized labor succeeded in creating the constraints that exist in working conditions today, thanks to the American Federation of Labor, had to face the fact that many people initially did not have a positive opinion of labor…...

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Works Cited

Gilded Age." America's Story. n.d. 22 February 2009. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/gilded

VandeCreek, Drew. "1878-1884: Immigration, Labor, and Politics." Illinois During the Gilded Age. 2002. 22 February 2009. http://dig.lib.niu.edu/gildedage/narr5.html

hile some of the wealthy were philanthropic and socially conscious, most of the business magnates believed their financial success proved them to be the most capable and entitled to the spoils of the success. This created a system of social and economic inequity which created a reaction to the Gilded Age well before the Age itself closed.
Impact of and Reaction to the Gilded Age of Big Business

The Progressive era is the period people generally associate with pro-labor reforms, slum clearing and equal rights. However, all of these movements generally started in earnest before the close of the Gilded Age in 1900. This paper has already set forth the changes in Society and the challenges presented by these changes. The rest of this paper will seek to identify the impact of the changes on those that felt the impact most, the working class, women and minorities.

History has not looked back…...

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Works Cited

Bridges, Hal. The Robber Baron Concept in American History. The Business

History Review 32 (1958): 1-13.

Brown, Maria A. The Failure of Reconstruction. 2010: 1-17.

Brown, Maria A. The Gilded Age, The Period of Transition (1865-1900). 2010: 1-17.

As is indicative in the U.S. and, especially Japan, this has led to an increase in stress, psychological problems, substance abuse and even suicides when students fail to pass their entrance exam for a respected school.
The Chinese are quickly learning that everything is a tradeoff. They may be getting better jobs, bigger houses and their first cars. However, such "gifts" normally come hand-in-hand with such downsides as depression, stress and anxiety, physical illness and overall discontent. Last year a study in the U.S. found that Americans are making a lot more money than in the 1950s, but they are not any happier. In addition, the amount of medication keeps on soaring higher. For the first time, more than half of all insured Americans are taking pharmaceuticals for chronic health problems. In fact, younger adults showed the steepest increase in chronic medication use and nearly a third of the nation's…...

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References

Child Youth and Children Research Center. Retrieved May 15, 2008  http://www.childwatch.uio.no/key_institutions/asia/cycrc_kina.html 

Chang, L. "Gilded Age Gilded Cage." National Geographic. June 2008.

Retrieved May 15, 2008.   / china/middle-class/leslie-chang-texthttp://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/05 

Jackson, W. (May 14, 2008). "New report calls U.S. 'chronic medication nation.'"

Railroads
Any person looking for a better life needs to get on the next boat to the United States of America. There are great opportunities to build a nation from the ground up. The Civil War is long over now, and Reconstruction is in full swing. This means railroads, factories and cities. The factories and cities are tremendous sources of urban employment, and workers are finding no end of great opportunities in dozens of growing cities.

For those interested in the rural life, the United States has untold acres of land just waiting to be farmed. It's not like in Europe, where all the land is owned and the people working on the land earn just enough to survive. In America, every farmer owns his own land, and lots of it. Land is cheap, and any enterprising man and his family can start a new life with land, crops and ample markets…...

Gilded Age
A Brief Look at the Progressive Movement and the Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was a period of seemingly unbounded economic expansion in the United States that lasted roughly from the election of Ulysses S. Grant to the elevation of reformer Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency at the turn of the twentieth century. This period coincided with the expansion and emergence of the nation as the conquest of the west was completed and the country took the lead among other nations in industry and trade. The rapid transition from an agricultural and mercantile economy to industrialization presented unprecedented opportunities for speculators and entrepreneurs.

Mark Twin and Charles Dudley arner were the first to call the years after the Civil ar the "gilded age." They were satirizing a society where they perceived rampant greed and wild speculation in the market place fostered corruption in national and local politics. The inference was that…...

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Works Cited

"The Gilded Age." Shmoop.com. (NDI). 3 March 2012. <  http://www.shmoop.com/ >

"Learn About the Progressive Era." Digital History. (2012). 3 March 2012.

"The Progressive Movement." United States History: Ideas and Movements, 19th Century. (NDI). 4 March 2012.

New omen of the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age in America oversaw the creation of a new middle class within the American social fabric, as a result of the increased wealth generated by industry during the period. The economic and social opportunities created by industry were significant for the country not simply in terms of the unprecedented wealth and prosperity generated and the increasing amounts of leisure time the middle classes were able to enjoy. Now, the daughters as well as the sons of these rising and aspiring middle-class elites could be educated and become politically aware, because their family had more funds to support their children, and because families were having less children. Furthermore, even lower class women such as the Lowell girls of the Massachusetts mills could attain a certain level of economic and personal autonomy through industry and become separate from their homes in newly urban areas.…...

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Works Cited

Flexnor, Eleanor. "Century of Struggle." Accessed on the World Wide Web. Web page of American History maintained last in 2000 by Danielle Mastromarino. Accessed at On December 15, 2003.http://www.historyteacher.net/USProjects/DBQs2000/APUSH2000-DBQ6.htm.

Gage, Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, Eds. History of Women's Suffrage: 1878-1885." Accessed on the World Wide Web. Web page of American History maintained last in 2000 by Danielle Mastromarino. Accessed at On December 15, 2003.http://www.historyteacher.net/USProjects/DBQs2000/APUSH2000-DBQ6.htm.

Gilfoyle would start off each of his chapters with a selection from a primary source that would be used to frame the chapter and ground it in reality. For instance, there are excerpts from Appo’s diary at the start of most chapters, which serve to present a backdrop of Gilfoyle’s story: the primary source serves as the ground floor of the narrative, and Gilfoyle expands the reader’s vision by constructing a sense of what the world that Appo inhabited would have looked like. Primary sources are littered throughout the chapters as well, a poem by Driscoll to the Sisters of Charity included in the chapter on Danny Driscoll. Driscoll’s conversion from thug and brute into a Roman Catholic martyr of sorts for the working class Irish community in New York is made more vital and alive by the inclusion of Driscoll’s poem to Sister Mary. The poem is a touching…...

ole of Art in America Since the Gilded Age
Beginning with the Gilded Age, how has Art been a eflection of Society?

The Gilded Age was an epoch of immense societal change and economic growth in the United States. In particular, this was a period of quick industrialization, where the nation transformed from one that was founded on agriculture to one that became urbanized and industrialized. This encompassed the formation of roads, railways, advancements in science and technology, and also the development of major businesses. All these transformations can be tied to the aspect of evolving and also the influence of increasing wealth. And with all these changes in the society, so was art influenced in the process. In particular, art became somewhat of a reflection of the society. This change within the society also had an influence on art, which changed in a radical pace (Arnesen et al., 2006). Subsequent…...

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References

Arnesen, E., Barrows, R. G., Les Benedict, M., Campbell, B. C., Carlson, W. B., Cordery, S. A.,. .. & Fry, J. A. (2006). The Gilded Age: Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Frank, P. (2014). 11 African-American Artists Who Helped Shape The Civil Rights Movement. The Huffington Post.

Garfias, R. (1991). Cultural diversity and the arts in America. Public money and the muse, ed. Stephen Benedict. New York: Norton.

Jasper, J. M. (2008). The art of moral protest: Culture, biography, and creativity in social movements. University of Chicago Press.

The Crises of the 1890\sThe first primary document on The Omaha Platform of the Peoples Party (1892), was written by the Peoples Party whereby they created a platform known as Omaha Platform. The aim of the said platform was to highlight the corruption that took place in the Gilded age in the United States, whereby there was material, political, and moral ruin. Essentially, during this age, the Peoples party indicate that people were demoralized, land concentrated in the hands of capitalists, labor impoverished, homes covered in mortgages, businesses prostrated, public opinion silenced, and newspapers muzzled.The main audience for this document happens to be the government whereby the party indicates certain policies in their Omaha platform that would help the government end corruption and decay. In addition, the party also indicated that if the power of the government was to be expanded, then poverty, injustice, and oppression would end in their…...

Essay Topic Examples
1. The Gilded Age: A Facade of rosperity:
     Exploring how the seemingly prosperous era of the late 19th century, characterized by rapid industrialization and economic growth, masked severe social problems like income inequality, labor unrest, and political corruption.

2. The Robber Barons: Captains of Industry or Agents of Greed?:
     Analyzing the influential industrialists and financiers of the Gilded Age, such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, to determine whether their practices and legacies were positive for the United States or if they contributed to the era's stark inequities.

3. Technological Innovations and Transformations:
     Detailing the technological advancements of the Gilded Age, such as the expansion of the railroad, the rise of the steel industry, and the invention of the telephone, and evaluating how these innovations changed the American economy and society.

4. Social Darwinism and the Ideology of the Gilded Age:
     Examining the influence of Social Darwinism on the era's…...

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Primary Sources

Twain, Mark, and Charles Dudley Warner. The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. American Publishing Company, 1873.

Morgan, J. Pierpont. Ledger of J. Pierpont Morgan: Manuscript Collection. Pierpont Morgan Library.

Carnegie, Andrew. The Gospel of Wealth. North American Review, 1889.

Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. Scribner\'s, 1890.

Congressional Record. Proceedings and Debates of the Congress of the United States. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

rise of business and the new age of industrial capitalism forced Americans to think about, criticize, and justify the new order -- especially the vast disparities of wealth and power it created. This assignment asks you to consider the nature and meaning of wealth, poverty and inequality in the Gilded Age making use of the perspectives of four people who occupied very different places in the social and intellectual spectrum of late nineteenth-?century America:, the sociologist William Graham Sumner, the writer enry
George, a Massachusetts textile worker named Thomas O'Donnell, and the steel tycoon

Andrew Carnegie.

For Andrew Carnegie, wealth was a good thing. In his "Gospel of Wealth," Carnegies talks about the problem of "our age" which is the proper administration of wealth. e has his own philosophy of how wealth has come to be unequally distributed with the huge gap existing between those who have little and those who are…...

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Henry George, Progress and Poverty, Major Problems, pp. 20-?22.

Thomas O'Donnell Testimony before a U.S. Senate Committee, 1885 U.S. Congress,

Capital (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1885

How does the growth of (relatively unregulated) industrial corporate capitalism have on peoples lives and on crime?During the Gilded Age businesses began to grow. During this time there was a lot of racial tension and fear because these businesses would try to pay as little as possible to their employees and thus favored recent immigrants. Recent immigrants could work hard for very little and directly competed with the Americans who were impoverished looking for a decent paying job. The great fear back then was that America would be swallowed by immigrants. A good example of this were Chinese railroad laborers. ith increased wealth stratification in cities thanks to the industrial revolution, the wealthy were very wealthy, and the poor had to live in slums.Examples of the wealthy homes were Astor Mansion and Vanderbilt. However, poor people were in such dire straits, some slept outside huddled together. If they lived in…...

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What is Progressivism? How does it fit with the history of the Gilded Age? The Progressive Era began in 1900 and ended in 1919. Progressives were often not a unified movement but were religiously driven with majority being women. They were Anti-Trust and Anti-Big Business and aimed to end government corruption as well as improve social welfare. While the Progressives aimed to reform, they ignored specific segments of the population like farmers and minorities. Furthermore, they had to contend with differing viewpoints regarding immigration. Businesses loved the cheaper labor immigrants brought, but labor did not want immigration because worker competition created lower wages. During the Gilded Age there was a lot of racial tension with 90% of the 5,000-people lynched being black. Along with the tension from the Gilded Age, the Progressive era brought with it an increase in race riots from fear of immigrants taking jobs and soldiers frustrated after retuning home post-war. Many blacks were killed during the 25 race riots that occurred across the country in 1919. The most notable one was in East St. Louis 1917. They estimated around 250 blacks were killed by angry whites. The whites also burned the “Negro Section” of St Louis attempting to destroy their ‘competition. One man, Leo Frank, was a Jewish man accused of murdering Mary Phagan (13 years old). He was not found guilty and an angry mob lynched him. From this event, the KKK resurged. The film, “The Birth of a Nation”, represented the KKK’s frustrations and desire to preserve their race and themselves. Various branches of the KKK emerged from this and led to an era where whites would freely pose in pictures with innocent black men they killed. This heinous and atrocious behavior was seen in the Gilded Age and demonstrates how the Progressive movement may have sparked the fire for continued and widespread racial hatred in the U.S..

The National League was formed in 1876 and enabled spectators to observe touring athletes play the game. The first World Series was played between the National League and its rival, the American League, in 1903. The popularity of baseball allowed for the financing of large baseball fields such as Fenway Park, Shibe Park, and Wrigley Field (Sports and Leisure, 2011). This era also saw the rise of collegiate football, boxing, and basketball.
The rise of entertainment was meteoric in the Gilded Age. With Americans working less and having a higher expendable income, they were able to enjoy entertainments such as expositions, amusement parks, vaudeville shows, sports, and music. To this day, the influence of these innovations and pastimes can still be seen in modern entertainment outlets and continue to amuse audiences everywhere.

Jim Crow Laws:

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that were enacted between 1876 and 1965 that severely…...

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References

About Vaudeville. (1999). Retrieved from American Masters:

 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/vaudeville/about-vaudeville/721/ .

An Introduction to American Cultural Expression during the Gilded Age and Progressive

Era (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://bss.sfsu.edu/cherny/cultlexp/expo.htm

hen Alger's Ragged Dick put himself forward for hire as a guide for a rich boy who is visiting the city, the boy's businessman uncle hesitated to entrust his nephew to him. But after reflection the older man decided that although Dick "isn't exactly the sort of guide I would have picked out...he looks honest. He has an open face, and I think he can be depended upon "(55). Thus, although Alger believed that private generosity and charity alone were necessary to remedy the evils of capitalism, he knew no one could truly succeed alone. Dick's contact with the rich boy Frank because of Dick's shining honesty resulted in his becoming a young gentleman, not just because Dick was a hard worker. And, in the story of Tom, the street tomboy, rather than rise to prosperity through her labor, Tom became the genteel 'Jane Lindsay' at the end of the…...

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Works Cited

Horatio Alger: Gender and Success in the Gilded Age. Edited by Charles Orson Cook. Houston: Brandywine Press. 2001

hen Edith harton tells us that "it was the background that she [Lily] required," we understand that both Emma Bovary and Lily have a very important thing in common. They are first of all women in the nineteenth century society, fettered by social conventions to fulfill any kind of aspirations or ideals. A woman, as it is clearly stated in both novels, had no other means of being having a place in society than by acquiring respectability and money through a good marriage. To marry was the only vocation of a woman, as harton tells us.
Of course, there interferes a great difference between the two heroines here, because Madame Bovary, as her very title proves it, is already a married woman, while Lily in harton's book is in constant pursue of a redeeming marriage. But, essentially the frustration of the two heroines is the same, as Emma is as…...

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Works Cited

The American Experience: Andrew Carnegie- The Gilded Age. PBS Online. 1999. 1 Oct. 2006  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/gildedage.html .

Byatt, A.S. Scenes from Provincial Life. The Guardian. July, 27, 2002. Oct.2006  http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_n1_v30/ai_18631915 .

Cahir, Linda Costanzo Solitude and Society in the Works of Herman Melville and Edith Wharton. New York: Greenwood Press, 1999

Deppman, Jed. "History with style: the impassible writing of Flaubert - Gustave Flaubert." Style. 1996. Oct 2006

The Forgotten Chapters of American History: Uncovering Lesser-Known but Captivating Essay Topics

Beyond the familiar narratives of the American Revolution, Civil War, and westward expansion, American history is a tapestry woven with countless lesser-known stories that offer valuable insights and provoke thought. Here are some intriguing essay topics that illuminate hidden aspects of our nation's past:

1. The Forgotten Pioneers: Exploring the Contributions of Women in the Transcontinental Railroad

While the construction of the transcontinental railroad is often attributed to male workers, over a thousand women played a crucial role as cooks, laundresses, nurses, and telegraph operators. Their contributions were essential to the....

The Rise of Urban Political Machines: A Symphony of Urbanization, Industrialization, and Corruption

The Gilded Age, stretching from the end of the Civil War in 1865 to the dawn of the 20th century, witnessed a remarkable transformation of America's urban landscape. Cities became teeming cauldrons of human activity, fueled by a ceaseless stream of immigrants seeking better lives. This rapid urbanization, coupled with the transformative power of industrialization, created fertile ground for the emergence of a peculiar political phenomenon: urban political machines.

Mass Immigration: A Tide of Human Capital and Political Opportunity

The surge of immigrants during the Gilded Age was staggering. Between....