The Gilded Age (1 янв 1870 г. – 1 янв 1900 г.)
Описание:
- Describes the new industrial era and its impact on society
- Coined by Twain coined the term to refer to the great wealth visible in places that masked the profound misery hidden on factory floors and in tenement buildings
- During this era, the US emerged as the world's leading industrial and agricultural producer
- Profits became increasingly centralized in the hands of fewer people
FACTORS FOR INDUSTRIALIZATION
- Capital -- ex. Andrew Carnegie had made huge money arranging transportation for the Union army --> has money to INVEST in new industries
- Tech. -- ex. Bessemer process makes it easy and cheap to produce steel --> revolutionized agricultural methods --> agricultural surplus, less need for farmers, more can become factory workers
- Raw materials -- Theft of Indian land opened up vast new sources of minerals, lumber, and farmland
- Labor -- factory jobs lure immigrants and migrants from rural areas
- Govt. Support -- including protective tariffs, subsidies, laissez-faire
- Transport -- transcontinental RR opens up a NATIONAL market
INDUSTRIAL PHILOSOPHY
- Social Darwinism: idea that wealth is based on the survival of the fittest, used to justify vast differences in classes
- Gospel of Wealth: belief that the wealthy were just trustees of their money and that they must use their efforts to benefit society
CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY / ROBBER BARONS
- Captains of industry: term for the leader of a large, efficient coproration
- Robber baron: term for business leaders who people felt used political means to achieve their own goals, often through questionable practices
- Certain tactics grew profits while concentrating wealth in fewer hand (ex. trusts, holding companies)
GROWING MIDDLE CLASS
- Included small businessmen, managers, professionals, government officials
- Enjoyed much improved living standards, more leisure, townhouses in the city, summer places at the shore or suburbs
- Division of labor, mechanization lowered general skill level required pushed many workers to LOWER WORKING CLASS
NEW BUSINESS PRACICES
- Lack of govt. regulation allowed for monopolies: single company controls the market for a product
- Vertical integration: own all aspects of a production process (ex. Carnegie and steel)
- Horizontal integration: control a majority of a specific industry (ex. Rockefeller's Std. Oil)
YELLOW JOURNALISM & MUCKRAKING
- Yellow Journalism: the practice of exaggerating news stories, seeking out particularly shocking stories, in order to increase sale of newspapers
- Yellow Journalism was fueled by the rivalry between Hearst's and Pulitzer's newspapers
- Muckrakers exposed the American public to the darker side of American society at the time (ex. child labor, monopolies, immigration)
- Ida Wells-Barnet: Black journalist and activist. Fought for racial justice and spearheaded anti-lynching campaigns. Sued a railroad for removing her off a 1st class train seat she had paid for
Добавлено на ленту времени:
APUSH REVIEW
Дата:
