gilded age essay titles

WashU Libraries

A guide to american history.

• BOOKS & MORE...
• Databases & Primary Source Collections (Digitized)
• CITATION & BIBLIOGRAPHY...
• HIST 3091 - Poverty and Social Reform in American History
• HIST 48IB - New York, New York: The Empire City from Stuyvesant to Trump
• HIST 2561 - Urban America
• HIST 367 - America in the Age of Inequality: The Gilded Age & the Progressive Era, 1877-1919

Encyclopedias and Reference Works

Library of congress subject headings, u.s. newspaper databases, popular periodicals of the era, bound primary source collections & primary source subheadings, primary source databases.

• HIST 4918 Sexuality in the US/ HIST 301U US Sexuality
• HIST 49DM - Advanced Seminar: Meet Me in St. Louis
• HIST 487 - Race and Drugs in American History
• HIS 385 - American Immigration
• HIST 4884 - The Roots of the American Working Classes
• HIST 301U - Historical Methods: US History: Researching & Writing Difficult Local Histories
• American History Collection Development Policy
• Digital Collections Online
• Other Local Libraries
• Online Resources

Encyclopedia of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2005) - these three print volumes include list of contributors, thematic essays, illustrations, documents, chronology, bibliography, general index, bibliographical index, etc. 

The Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A student companion (2006) - eBook; an alphabetical encyclopedia including articles on overall trends (immigration, education, music, sports), social movements (anarchism, child labor movement, consumer movement, conservation movement), terms (armistice, chain store, chautauqua), organizations (American Expeditionary Force, Knights of Labor, Republican party), issues (gender relations, race relations), events (Haymarket Square massacre, Palmer raids, Pullman strike), legal cases (Lochner v. New York), laws (Chinese Exclusion Act, Meat Inspection Act, Selective Service Act), ethnic groups (Mexicans, Chinese), economic issues (trusts, scientific management), and biographies. The articles are cross-referenced and have sources for specific further reading. 

Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History (2010) - (7 print volumes) - Volume 4,  From the Gilded Age through Age of Reform, 1878 to 1920 )

United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918

United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918

United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-  

United States -- Intellectual life -- 1865-1918  

United States -- Economic Conditions -- 1865-1918

Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era - published quarterly by the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, this journal provides original essays, including online projects, and reviews scholarly books on all aspects of U.S. history for the time period from 1865 through 1920. WashU has access to all issues from the first (Jan. 2002) to the most recent indexed in...

America: History & Life (1964-)  contains only journals related history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. 

JSTOR  - multidisciplinary, a lot of full text articles, but subject headings are too broad

Historical American Newspapers (ProQuest)  includes The Atlanta Constitution , Boston Globe , Chicago Tribune , Hartford Courant , Los Angeles Times , The New York Times , San Francisco Chronicle , St. Louis Post-Dispatch , The Wall Street Journal , and The Washington Post

African American Newspapers (ProQuest)  includes Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Chicago Defender (1909-1975), Cleveland Call & Post (1934-1991), Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), Norfolk Journal & Guide (1916-2003), Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), and Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002).

Chronicling America  - begun in 2005, this website provides access to historic newspapers and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LoC). Its coverage period ranges from 1789 to 1963 and includes over 1000 newspaper titles available from 46 states & Puerto Rico.

Atlantic Monthly - 1862  to  01/31/1905  in  Literature Online (LION)

The Crisis (NAACP, NYC) 11/01/1910 to 12/31/1922 in  Modernist Journals Project

Harper's Weekly - 01/03/1857 to 1912 available through multiple sources  

The Masses - 01/01/1911  to  09/30/1915  in  Modernist Journals Project ; 1913-1917 in Special Collections  

The Nation - 07/06/1865 to 12/27/1877 available electronically through  AAS Historical Periodicals Collection ; all issues in print at West Campus library

School & Society - 1915 to 1972 available in print

The Survey - (WUSTL has Apr. 1909-Dec. 1937) "the primary publication vehicle by which settlement-house residents, professional social workers, amateur reformers, and academic social scientists communicated with one another and exchanged ideas and programs during the Progressive Era." - John D. Buenker

Primary Source Subheadings sources     biographies     maps      periodicals     newspapers     diaries     speeches     pictorial works

personal narratives     directories     interviews     sermons     anecdotes     caricatures and cartoons    fiction 

General (under  United States -- History -- 1865-1921 -- sources ):

America's Gilded Age: An eyewitness history (1992)

The Gilded Age and After; Selected readings in American history (1972)

The American Studies Anthology

Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt through Coolidge, 1901-1929: Debating the issues in pro and con primary documents

Reading the Twentieth Century: Documents in American history

Robber Barons and Radicals  

The American Nation: Primary sources 

The Diplomacy of World Power: The United States, 1889-1920

American Economic Development since 1860

Lifetimes: The Great War to the Stock Market Crash: American history through biography and primary documents

African Americans

Proceedings of the Black National and State Conventions, 1865-1900

T he Booker T. Washington papers , 1860-1915

The papers of A. Philip Randolph - there are a few items in this collection for the years 1909-1919

Reconstruction, the Negro, and the New South - primary source documents from 1866-1896 

Papers of the NAACP. Part 5, Campaign against residential segregation, 1914-1955  

Anarchist Voices: An oral history of anarchism in America  

The Debates of Liberty: An overview of individualist anarchism, 1881-1908

Emma Goldman: A documentary history of the American years (2003-2012) - print and eBook

Mother Earth - Vol. 1, no. 1 (Mar. 1906) - vol. 12, no. 6 (Aug. 1917); Mother Earth Bulletin - Vol. 1, no. 1 (Oct. 1917) - v. 1, no. 7 (Apr. 1918)

Anti-Asian Sentiment & Movements

China through American Eyes: Early depictions of the Chinese people and culture in the U.S. print media - caricature and cartoons

Racism, Dissent, and Asian Americans from 1850 to the Present: A documentary history

Yellow Peril!: An archive of anti-Asian fear

Anti-Catholicism -- United States -- Sources .

Anti-Imperialist League

The Anti-Imperialist Reader: A documentary history of anti-imperialism in the United States

Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-imperialist writings on the Philippine-American War

Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League, 1899

Edmunds, George F. (George Franklin), 1828-1919.   The Insular Cases: The Supreme Court and the Dependencies (Boston: New England Anti-imperialist League, 1901)

López, Sixto.   The "wild tribes" and other Filipinos (Boston: Anti-Imperialist League, 1911)

Black Nationalism

Classical Black Nationalism: From the American Revolution to Marcus Garvey

Turner, Henry McNeal, 1834-1915.  Respect Black; the writings and speeches of Henry McNeal Turner

Native Americans

Indians of North America -- History -- Sources

From Fort Laramie to Wounded Knee: In the West that was 

Wounded Knee Massacre, S.D., 1890 -- Personal narratives

A Whirlwind Passed through our Country: Lakota voices of the ghost dance 

Encyclopedia of American Indian removal

Organized Labor

Labor History Documents - two volumes 

United States' Department of Justice  Documents Relating to the IWW, 1910-1916  

Industrial Workers of the World,  The One Big Union Monthly   Vol. 1, no. 1 (Mar. 1, 1919)-v. 3, no. 1 (Jan. 1921)

National Woman's Trade Union League of America, Life and Labor - 1911-1921

The Samuel Gompers Papers  1850-1918

Populism and the election of 1896 (1994)

Populism, its rise and fall (1992)

The Populist Mind (1967)

Pragmatism (sort by "Year")

Progressivism

Hofstadter, Richard. ed.  The Progressive Movement, 1900-1915

Southern Women in the Progressive Era: A reader  

The Reform Spirit in America: A documentation of the pattern of reform in the American republic

The 1912 Election and the Power of Progressivism: A brief history with documents

Progressivism and Postwar Disillusionment, 1898-1928 

Prohibition

Anti-Saloon League of America

Radicalism (broadly conceived)

The Radical Reader: A documentary history of the American radical tradition  - includes utopian visions, suffrage and feminism, land and labor, anarchism, socialism, communism, environmentalism, and the "New Negro"

The Haymarket Affair and the trial of the Chicago anarchists, 1886 : original manuscripts, letters, articles, and printed material of the anarchists and of the State prosecutor, Julius S. Grinnell

Department of Justice Investigative Files, Part I : The Industrial Workers of the World  

State Department Collection of Intelligence, 1915-1927

The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World's Parliament of Religions, 1893

Socialism & Socialist Party (U.S.) 

American Socialist party newspaper - Vol. 1, no. 1 (July 18, 1914)-v. 4, no. 8 (Sept. 8, 1917)

SPUSA Pamphlet collection  

Simons, A. M. (Algie Martin), 1870-1950. Pamphlets on Social Conditions , v.1/2 (1906-1912)

Women - Equal Rights, Feminism, and Suffrage

International Council of Women  

The papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony - microfilm

The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

Public Women, Public Words: A documentary history of American feminism   - volume 1, beginnings to 1900

Modern American Women: A documentary history - Pt. 1 Modern Women in the Making, 1890-1920

World War I

World War I (1914-1919) 

The Gilded Age - Spanning from 1865 to 1902, The Gilded Age provides insight into the key issues that shaped America in the late nineteenth century, including race and ethnicity, immigration, labor, women's rights, American Indians, political corruption, and monetary policy. These materials are frequently rare and hard-to-find, and include songs, letters, photographs, cartoons, government documents, and ephemera. In addition, the collection features numerous critical documentary essays that provide scholarly commentary and annotations to selected primary sources.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000  - this collection currently includes 124 projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools. 

Jewish Life in America, 1654-1954 - primary sources addressing key topics such as the immigration process and evolution of early Jewish Settlements, differing strands of Judaism in America, Jewish schools and charitable institutions, and civil rights and minority rights issues.

Indigenous Peoples of North America - includes manuscript collections, rare books and monographs, newspapers, periodicals, census records, legal documents, maps, drawings and sketches, oral histories, and photos 

Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930 -  historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that concentrate heavily on the 19th century immigration to the US. By incorporating books, pamphlets, serials, diaries, biographies, and other writings capturing diverse experiences, the collected material provides a window into the lives of ordinary immigrants.

Black Economic Empowerment: The National Negro Business League (records from 1901-1928) - Booker T. Washington established the League with the support of Andrew Carnegie n 1900 "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro," and headed it until his death. It eventually included 320 chapters across the United States. The League included small African American business owners, doctors, farmers, craftsmen, and other professionals. Its goal was to allow business to put economic development at the forefront of getting African-American equality in America. Affiliated professional organizations included the National Negro Bankers Association, the National Negro Press Association, the National Association of Negro Funeral Directors, the National Negro Bar Association, the National Association of Negro Insurance Men, the National Negro Retail Merchants’ Association, the National Association of Negro Real Estate Dealers, and the National Negro Finance Corporation. 

Electing the President: Proceedings of the Democratic National Conventions, 1832-1988 - This collection includes the proceedings of the 1832-1988 Democratic National Conventions, providing gavel to gavel coverage, including speeches, debates, votes, and party platforms. Also included are lists of names of convention delegates and alternates. Records of the earliest proceedings are based in part on contemporary newspaper accounts. A similar database is also available for the Republican National Conventions, 1856-1988 . 

Revolution in Honduras and American Business: The Quintessential “Banana Republic” (1910-1930) -  In 1899, the first boatload of bananas was shipped from Honduras to the United States. The fruit found a ready market, and the trade grew rapidly. The American-based banana companies constructed railroad lines and roads to serve the expanding banana production. Perhaps even more significant, Honduras began to attract the attention of the U.S. government. This collection contains the largest single group of records relates to Honduran political affairs; pertaining chiefly to the turbulent political situation and almost continuous revolutionary activity in Honduras. It details both the political and financial machinations of the fruit companies, but also the graft and corruption of the national government, the American banking community’s loans, the U.S. government’s response and the various aborted popular/revolutionary uprisings. 

Trade Literature and the Merchandizing of Industry (1820-1926) (a within Smithsonian Collections Online) is comprised of items selected from the National Museum of American History, and contains about one million pages of primary source content. This digital collection allows researchers to: determine the history of companies/industries; discern styles from furniture to machinery; analyze marketing and management techniques, and examine illustrations of the items Americans used at home and in business. Key research areas covered include: railroads and railway equipment; agricultural machinery; transportation equipment; power generation; building and construction; iron and steel; mines and mining equipment, and motorized vehicles.

Sunday School Movement and Its Curriculum (1884-1920) - Early in the 19th century various denominations and non-denominational organizations began to create Sunday schools in an effort to educate the illiterate, particularly children. By mid-century, the Sunday school movement had become extremely popular and Sunday school attendance was a near universal aspect of childhood. Working-class families were grateful for this opportunity to receive an education. Religious education was, of course, always also a core component.

Union Label and the Needle Trades: Records of the United Garment Workers of America (1899-1994) - This collection consists of two full series and one partial series from the Records of the United Garment Workers of America—Series I: Time and Motion Studies; Series III: Office Files, 1899-1994—Meeting Minutes of the General Executive Board subseries; and, Series VIII: Index Card Files for plants and/or locals in. The Time and Motion Studies are made up of time study/ time and motion research files for the garment industry, as well as files relating to industry research and information from the first half of the twentieth century. The minutes from the early period cover issues such as immigration, sick benefits, and nine-hour work days. The overwhelming majority of the Series VIII index card files comprise information on various plants and union locals. These are in alphabetical order by city (with a few exceptions) and contain information about the locals, manufacturers, wages, garments, and efforts to organize locals in those cities.

First World War  - drawn from archival collections around the world, this collection provides an intimate glimpse into daily life in the army and auxiliary services, battles, trench warfare, weapons and equipment, and thoughts on the enemy, as seen through the eyes of the men and women who served in the First World War.  Rather than official publications or newspaper accounts, this collection includes diaries, letters, scrapbooks, sketches, and photographs.  Key features include interactive maps, 360° views of personal items and objects, and a virtual trench experience. 

Women, War, and Society, 1914-1918 women's essential contribution to the war in Europe is fully documented in this definitive collection of primary source materials brought together in the Imperial War Museum, London. These unique documents - charity and international relief reports, pamphlets, photographs, press cuttings, magazines, posters, correspondence, minutes, records, diaries, memoranda, statistics, circulars, regulations and invitations - are published here for the first time in fully-searchable form.

Digital Public Library of America offers a single point of access to millions of items including photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Their featured collections include subjects such as aviation, baseball, food, immigration since 1840, photography, and women in science.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries (colonial - 1950) includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters carefully chosen using leading bibliographies plus 7,000 pages of previously unpublished materials

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A period of technological progress, growing wealth, and social activism, the Gilded Age was also an era of widespread inequality and injustice.

Teaching guide

Questions for looking closely and thinking critically, images to download, and more.

• Thomas Hovendon, The Last Moments of John Brown

all videos + essays for this theme

1880–90 two sides of lakota life on a beaded suitcase.

This one-of-a-kind suitcase tells the surprising story of an artist, a wedding, and a people.

1880s Tlingit sovereignty and the Proud Raven ("Lincoln") Pole

A totem pole records Tlingit claims to land in southeastern Alaska by acknowledging the first sighting of a white man, who happens to be based on the likeness of Abraham Lincoln.

1881 The New York Obelisk, Cleopatra’s Needle

Why is this ancient Egyptian obelisk in New York City?

c. 1884 Martyr or murderer? The Last Moments of John Brown

John Brown has polarized political opinion from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement.

1884 Soaring above politics: the Washington Monument

Unlike the other monuments on the Mall, this monument tells us virtually nothing about the man it commemorates.

1885–91 Burnham and Root, The Monadnock Building

This early skyscraper stretches the limits of how tall a brick building could be

1886 The light of democracy — examining the Statue of Liberty

Two countries honor their love of democracy with a huge statue of a woman! Neither let women vote, though.

1890 “Leave it as it is”: Yellowstone and the creation of the National Parks

In order to capture the beauty of America’s national parks, Brown faced the prejudices of the lawless West.

c. 1890 Francisco Oller, Still Life with Plantains and Bananas and Still Life with Coconuts

Oller inspires a sense of monumentality in his paintings of common fruits from Puerto Rico.

c. 1890 Slums of New York: Jacob Riis and the Progressive era

Riis snapped photos of the urban poor during midnight police raids—but only because he cared.

1891 and late 19th century William F. Cogswell, Queen Lili'uokalani , and Maria Kealaulaokalani Lane Ena, ʻAhu ʻula (The Kalākaua Cape)

This royal portrait and cape convey the power of the Hawaiian monarchy and the tensions around the momentous historical events of 1898.

1893 The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

The critics at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago noted: "American art has made something of itself."

1893 Henry Ossawa Tanner: the first African-American celebrity artist

Tanner studied in Philadelphia and Paris, and his style combined elements of American Realism and the Old Masters.

1895 The closing of the frontier and The Fall of the Cowboy

Remington mourns the decline of the cowboy by depicting the very thing that destroyed his iconic lifestyle.

1895 A modern gem, the Reliance Building

How Chicago architecture sprung up thanks to new technology at the turn of the century

1890–2021 Monument Avenue and the Lost Cause

A conversation that took place on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, just before the last Confederate monument on the boulevard was removed in September 2021

1897–99 Louis Sullivan and the invention of the skyscraper

A miracle on Bleecker Street, ornament, invention, and one of the great early skyscrapers

19th century Haida potlatch pole

What is a potlatch? And how is it related to this totem pole?

19th century The story of the Oyster Man, a Tlingit totem pole

Learn the story behind this totem pole that no longer stands

An Era of Innovation

Essay by Dr. Kelly Enright

Charles Graham, “The Electric Light in Madison Square, New York,” an illustration in Harper’s Weekly , January 14, 1882 (photo: public domain )

On the sidewalks of Pearl Street in late 1882, New Yorkers could peer into the windows of homes and businesses glowing with the light of four hundred electric lamps powered by the first commercial central power plant in the nation. While neither electricity nor electric lamps were entirely new, what Thomas Edison achieved was the integration of elements into a single working system. Although Edison had earned the nickname The Wizard of Menlo Park a few years earlier when his phonograph recorded the human voice, his laboratory at Menlo Park, NJ involved the work of many men experimenting endlessly to find the best materials and methods to make technologies commercially successful.

With more than half a million patents granted, the end of the nineteenth century was an era of invention and innovation. People saw skyscrapers begin to tower over city streets while suspension bridges, electric street cars, and elevators facilitated movement through them. Telephones allowed communication across miles. All of these new systems were driven by cooperation between investors, inventors, and city leaders. Part of Edison’s genius was navigating that system, but no less significant was his recognition of the emerging consumer culture that swept America from the nineteenth century into the twentieth.

This time period earned the term the Gilded Age for seemingly beautiful and ambitious advances that masked corruption and exploitation beneath the surface. Even as technology promised to connect people, the nation remained socially, economically, and racially divided.

“Taylorism,” a specialized system of labor introduced by an engineer named Frederick W. Taylor, advocated the study of worker productivity and developed a more efficient system of specialized tasks meant to speed production and increase profits. Unregulated businesses thrived, giving rise to a wealthy elite, that resulted in monopolies like John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company which controlled 90% of the industry in 1885.

Jacob August Riis, “Knee-pants” at forty five cents a dozen—A Ludlow Street Sweater’s Shop , c. 1890, 5 x 4 in ( The Museum of the City of New York )

Industrialization and urbanization brought wealth to some, but left many behind. Workers organized in order to protest their conditions, hours, and wages through strikes and boycotts. Progressive reformers studied social problems and sought resolutions to safety and health in homes and factories. As a reporter and reformer, Jacob Riis saw first-hand the destitute living conditions of the urban poor. He used photography to share what he observed in tenement sweatshops, using the power of images to communicate the inequities of the thriving garment industry and the lives of laborers. Riis himself was an immigrant who had come from Denmark seeking opportunities promised by America’s industry and urbanization.

Liberty and destiny

Between 1877 and 1890 more than six million immigrants arrived in the U.S. Many found roads not as open as they had hoped. Anglo-Americans increasingly sought to maintain the nation as both white and Protestant and sought to restrict the right to vote by establishing literacy and residency requirements, poll taxes, and immigration restrictions. The arrival of Catholic and Jewish immigrants was seen as conflicting with mainstream values and the economic successes of Chinese immigrants in the West challenged the idea of Manifest Destiny .

John Gast, American progress , 1872, oil on canvas, 29.2 x 40 cm ( Autry Museum of the American West )

Many groups established towns or sections of cities where they could retain some of their native culture. Germans in the upper Midwest, for example, had strong communities and the language of instruction in schools was German.

In 1886, the dedication of the Statue of Liberty drew one million people. A powerful symbol of freedom and international cooperation, the statue was celebrated for its ideals. But the statue was almost a failure. While the French paid for the statue itself, the Americans were to provide its pedestal. Without the support of enough wealthy donors, funds ran dry. It was not until Pulitzer raised funds through his newspaper with ads calling upon individual citizens to donate small amounts that the statue found its footing. Its torch—illuminated by electric lamps—shone as a symbol of the power of the people.

Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (sculptor), Gustave Eiffel (interior structure), Richard Morris Hunt (base), Statue of Liberty, begun 1875, dedicated 1886, copper exterior, 151 feet/ 46 m high (statue), New York Harbor (photo: William Warby , CC-BY-SA 2.0)

Reconstruction

In the South, industry and urbanization lagged in the decades after the Civil War (1861 – 65). Reconstruction policies attempted to foster equal opportunity but resentments boiled beneath the surface.

In the contested 1876 presidential election, Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, walked away the victor after an electoral committee decided the outcome. As a concession to the Democrats, Hayes ordered federal troops away from state houses throughout the South. When federal troops pulled out, bi-racial governments and the rights of former slaves deteriorated. Southern states enacted discrimination laws, collectively known as “Jim Crow”—a pejorative term derived from an early-nineteenth century song popularized by a blackface performer. Separation of blacks and whites pervaded spaces throughout the South from restaurants and parks to hospitals and prisons. Interracial marriage was outlawed. The end of Reconstruction marked the spread of legally-sanctioned segregation.

The Weekly Messenger , May 23, 1896 ( Chronicling America, Library of Congress )

While these laws did not go unchallenged, the federal government’s laissez faire policies enabled these restrictions to freedom. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation was allowed, as long as some accommodations for both races existed. This “separate but equal” doctrine cemented segregation practices and laws. For freed blacks, these power structures limited opportunities. Those who sought to own and operate their own farms struggled with a system of tenant farming that trapped them in debt.

The end of the western frontier

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, so too did the western frontier. By 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s analysis of census data led him to declare the era of expansion that had defined American individuality and ideas of progress, had ended. Turner announced his Frontier Thesis at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition where the nation was displaying the newest technologies alongside monumental buildings meant to demonstrate American greatness in an area known as the White City.

Advertisement for the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition, c.1893 (photo: public domain )

By contrast, progress as it related to “others” was trivialized. Native Americans were essentially put on display on the fair’s Midway wearing traditional dress and surrounded by tipis and totem poles, while model schools at the Exposition showcased government programs to teach trades and establish boarding schools for their children.

This ambiguity between education and entertainment was also on display in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show (staged outside the Exposition) which recounted the famous battles that had driven Native American culture to near extinction. Be yond the battlefield, the Dawes Act of 1887 which established a land allotment system and boarding schools meant to erase native culture, language, and traditions, and advance assimilation, had adversely impacted Native American society. Intended as a measure to “civilize,” this act took away traditions of communal land ownership and undermined tribal authority and identity.

Frederic Remington, The Fall of the Cowboy , 1895, oil on canvas, 24 x 35-1/8 in ( Amon Carter Museum of American Art )

The western landscape, too, had changed dramatically. Cattle had replaced bison as the key bovine residents of the plains. The cattle boom reached a peak from 1880-1885, but by the middle of that decade, the ecosystem could not support increased grazing. Open range and cattle driving collapsed causing corporations to move in, build fences, and turn enterprising cowboys into hired hands. Railroads connected agricultural and ranching lands with major urban production centers, bringing technology to a place that had once symbolized its absence.

By the dawn of the twentieth century, technologies, such as electric lighting, first brought to the marketplace for practical uses, became increasingly common, illuminating not just offices and homes, but even trivial items such as Christmas trees. In the new social atmosphere of amusement parks like Coney Island , technology provided distraction and thrills rather than progress and industry. Such places also offered a space where Americans of different classes could mix outside the segregation of urban centers. Leisure, escape, and entertainment increasingly connected Americans with a sense of common identity in the absence of its earlier myth of manifest destiny, which had lost its unifying concept as the American population became more diverse and its social problems more complex.

Explore the diverse history of the United States through its art. Seeing America is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.

Your donations help make art history free and accessible to everyone!

The Gilded Age: an Era of Transformation and Contradiction

This essay is about the Gilded Age, a period in American history from the 1870s to the early 1900s marked by rapid economic growth and industrialization. It explores the era’s contrasts, where immense wealth coexisted with deep social and economic inequalities. Key figures like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie built vast fortunes while workers faced harsh conditions, leading to the rise of labor unions and significant labor disputes. Urbanization, political corruption, and technological advancements also defined the period. The essay highlights the dual nature of the Gilded Age, recognizing both its achievements and the social challenges that spurred reform movements and shaped modern America.

How it works

The epoch known as the Gilded Age, spanning approximately from the 1870s to the early 1900s, heralded a profound metamorphosis in the annals of the United States. It bore witness to an exponential surge in economic prosperity, industrialization, and an alarming juxtaposition between the opulent affluence of a select few and the abject destitution of the masses. This era, often romanticized for its grandeur and ingenuity, also laid bare profound socioeconomic disparities that would indelibly shape the fabric of American society for generations to come.

The appellation “Gilded Age” was coined by the literary luminaries Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their seminal 1873 novel, “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.” The very title conveys the notion of a slender veneer of gold masking grave societal maladies beneath. This dichotomy is pivotal to apprehending the intricacies of the era. Ostensibly, America teemed with technological marvels and industrial preeminence. The nation was crisscrossed by a labyrinth of railways, factories operated at an unprecedented clip, and urban sprawls burgeoned, metamorphosing into bustling epicenters of commerce and activity.

Titans of industry such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan epitomized the economic hegemony of the epoch. They amassed colossal fortunes through ventures in oil, steel, and finance, often resorting to cutthroat business stratagems to vanquish rivals and consolidate their dominion. These “captains of industry” were hailed for their triumphs yet vilified for their exploitation of laborers and manipulation of markets. Their munificence, which endowed libraries, universities, and cultural bastions, further obfuscated their legacies, entwining genuine societal benefaction with personal aggrandizement and societal stature.

The toiling masses that propelled this economic juggernaut grappled with grim verities. Factory laborers, many of whom hailed from immigrant stock, endured protracted hours, meager remuneration, and perilous working environs. In response, labor unions began to coalesce, championing equitable wages, reasonable labor durations, and safer workplaces. Instances of industrial strife and labor skirmishes became rife, with seminal episodes like the Haymarket Affair and the Pullman Strike laying bare the fissures between laborers and industrial magnates.

Urbanization emerged as another hallmark of the Gilded Age. Metropolises such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco witnessed an exodus of denizens in pursuit of vocational opportunities. This precipitous urban sprawl engendered a litany of quandaries, including congested domiciliary spaces, inadequate sanitary provisions, and burgeoning criminality. Tenements, often teeming with inhabitants and bereft of hygiene, became the de facto residence for myriad working-class households. Yet, notwithstanding these tribulations, cities burgeoned as crucibles of cultural cross-pollination and intellectual ferment, incubating nascent ideologies and sociopolitical movements.

Political venality was rampant during the Gilded Age, with a plethora of governmental functionaries ensnared in graft and patronage networks. The notorious Tweed Ring in New York City, spearheaded by William “Boss” Tweed, epitomized the era’s moral decadence. Political fiefdoms, which wielded hegemony over local governance via bribery and patronage, were rife across urban enclaves. This pervasive corruption sapped public confidence in governance structures and catalyzed calls for rectification.

Notwithstanding these vicissitudes, the Gilded Age also heralded epochal strides in technological innovation and societal modernization. Technological marvels permeated quotidian existence, from the advent of the telephone and electric illumination to the mechanization of agrarian endeavors. The proliferation of the railway network not only catalyzed commercial transactions but also knit together disparate regions, fostering a collective national consciousness and camaraderie. Educational standards and literacy rates burgeoned, concomitant with the ascendancy of mass amusement mediums like vaudeville spectacles and the nascent cinematic industry.

The denouement of the Gilded Age witnessed the nascent stirrings of reformist fervor. Progressives endeavored to redress the socioeconomic imbalances that had become conspicuously pronounced. They advocated for legislative edicts to curtail monopolistic predations, ameliorate labor circumstances, and mitigate urban indigence. These nascent endeavors laid the cornerstone for substantive transformations in the nascent 20th century, culminating in a panoply of legislative and societal reforms emblematic of the Progressive Era.

In summation, the Gilded Age was a crucible of profound transformation in the annals of American history, underscored by economic expansion, technological innovation, and entrenched socioeconomic disparities. While it stood as an epoch of unparalleled opulence and advancement, it also exposed the yawning chasms and impediments within American society. Grasping the essence of the Gilded Age necessitates grappling with its paradoxes, acknowledging both its triumphs and tribulations that indelibly defined this seminal era. Its labyrinthine legacy continues to reverberate in contemporary discourses surrounding economic parity, sociopolitical reform, and the imperative of governmental intervention in assuaging inequality.

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The Gilded Age as an Important Political Turning Point in American History Term Paper

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Introduction

The political corruption of the grant administration, the end of reconstruction and the loss of black rights, social changes brought by industrialization, the economy dominated by giant trusts, works cited.

It is generally believe that the modern America was born in the late nineteenth century and this period saw the closing of the western frontier. Historically speaking, four hundred and thirty million acres area in the far west was occupied by the Americans during 1865 and the 1890s period. “But to open lands west of the Mississippi River to white settlers, the Plains Indians were pushed in a series of Indian wars onto restricted reservations”. (The Gilded Age, n.p.).

It is also believe that the gilded age period was full of political corruption, unfettered capitalism, conspicuous consumption and so forth. Because of the fact that during that gilded age period small producers of agrarian society was transformed into an urban society prevailing by both small and large scale industrial organizations, one can also say that, that was the period of modern American formation. (The Gilded Age, n.p.).

According to statistics, except Britain, industrial goods production and per capita income in the U.S. during 19 th century, was also rapidly increased as compare to other nations. As a matter of fact, dangerous working conditions, less fringe benefits and lengthy working hours were all those factors which led the workers to make, join and participate in labor unions. (The Gilded Age, n.p.).

During gilded age period, Grant, the famous but not the richest politicians like others; his administration party was declared as one of the most corrupt politician party. In spite of infrequent futile reforms attempts, most of the politicians in the gilded age were monopolized by the two patronage-fattened companies, which vied smartly for spoils while fundamentally agreeing on most national rules and policies. Moreover, various constituencies, difference of culture, and profoundly felt domestic concerns fueled intense party competition and unexampled voter participation. However, “periodic complaints by “Mugwump” reformers and “soft-money” advocates failed to make much of a dent on politics”. (The Gilded Age, n.p.).

Furthermore, during gilded age, rapid decline in labor wages and huge debts burden were some of the main reasons which compelled farmers to joined Populist Party. Harding administration during gilded age was not in the position to stop political corruption. Interestingly, it stayed particularly hale in domestic politics, where planned crime milked former political machines that had been countermined by the advent of the ‘New Deal’.( Wilentz, p.20).

In the year 1890, during the Mississippi convention, black peoples were constrained by white peoples to take part in election. In this regard, in most of the southern states, in order to stop illiterate black person from voting, secret ballot was adopted. “The secret ballot limited the amount of intimidation that could go on at polling stations. Once this ballot was an adopted nationwide, party boss had no way of knowing who voted how, and secret ballots put a near end to machine politics. However, Jim Crow’s law was accepted by the southern states between 1982 and 1908. As far as the southern black was concerned, Jim Crow’s laws were really effective. In the year 1896 it was found by the Supreme Court in Ferguson vs Plessey that radical sequestration stated that cars, houses, automobiles could be separate but they had to be equal.

Besides all aforementioned ground breaking realties, the gilded age was marked by quick industrialization, reconstruction, vulgarity and political corruption. Nonetheless, America was started to regroup as a new nation soon after the end of civil war. In this regard, many new changes were seen during this reformation, such as industrialization was taken over by the former agricultural country. One can say that all the changes occurred during gilded age badly affected politics, labor, farmers and businessmen.

In this regard, between 1870s and 1880s labor activism and radical thoughts were as it peak level in Chicago. Thousands of working men and women belonged to different fields of work started to join labor unions, and the main objectives behind this radical movement were involved: demand for shorter hour of work, higher wages and fringe benefits and safe & clean working environment. Federation of Labor and Knight of Labor were some of the active labor unions in Chicago during above-mentioned radical movements. (Auditorium Theatre, n.p.)

Somehow, women workers were neglected by Knights of Labor organization in some respect, and lower opportunities were available for women in Knights of Labor organization as compare to men. According to VandeCreek, “few women in Illinois cities went away to work early in Gilded Age, but more found jobs later in the period.” (VandeCreek, n.p.).

Phillips believes that “the gilded age after the civil war–it was 1873 when Mark Twain coined the term–lifted the American economy to not only new heights of success and industrialization, but also of economic polarization, and it introduced the nation to new lows of corruption”. Nevertheless, in the year 1861 when the civil war was ended fifteen million dollar range was considered as one of the big fortune in the history of country. Furthermore, two giant business players John D. Rockefeller in oil sector and Andrew Carnegie in steel sector were worth three hundred million to four hundred million dollars. In the year 1860, more or less there had been three hundred millionaires in the country. However, by the end of 1900 there were just 4,000 to 5,000. Phillips also believes that “because there was little change in the value of a dollar between 1860 and 1900, the gains were real and not the product of inflation”. (Phillips, p.8)

Finally, in American philosophy the period of gilded age is considered as a turning point. However, Kawachi and Chapman believe that the “notion that government should not interfere on the side of the rich was reworked into the theorem that government had no business interfering on behalf of the downtrodden”. (Kawachi and Chapman, p. 42–43).

Conclusively, gilded age is considered as one the periods in American history in which political corruption were as its peak level. Most importantly, during that period almost all the corporations became the leading form of business companies. On the other hand, in fact that was the period in which American economy was flourished. In addition, introduction of modern industrial economy was also developed in that period. Both, network of communication and network of national transportation were established. Moreover, managerial revolution was also occurred during that period which literally transformed all the business operations.

Auditorium Theatre :: Auditorium Theatre – “CHICAGO & THE WORLD”. 2007. Web.

Kawachi, I, Chapman, P.H. “Literature And Epidemiology”: Five American authors on wealth, poverty, and inequality. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (2004) 58, 738-742.

Kelleher P. “Young Irish workers: class implications of men’s and women’s experiences in gilded age Chicago – Statistical Data Included.” Eire-Ireland:Journal of Irish Studies. (2001): 5, p. 12.

Phillips, K. How Wealth Defines Power: “The Politics of the New Gilded Age”. The American Prospect. (2003): 14, P.8.

“The Gilded Age.” 2007. Web.

VandeCreek, D. “Women’s Experience and Gender Roles.” 2007. Web.

Wilentz S. “A Scandal for Our Time”: Republicans Ruled; Ergo, Enron, The American Prospect.(2002): 13, P. 20.

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IvyPanda. (2021, September 17). The Gilded Age as an Important Political Turning Point in American History. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-gilded-age-as-an-important-political-turning-point-in-american-history/

"The Gilded Age as an Important Political Turning Point in American History." IvyPanda , 17 Sept. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-gilded-age-as-an-important-political-turning-point-in-american-history/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'The Gilded Age as an Important Political Turning Point in American History'. 17 September.

IvyPanda . 2021. "The Gilded Age as an Important Political Turning Point in American History." September 17, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-gilded-age-as-an-important-political-turning-point-in-american-history/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Gilded Age as an Important Political Turning Point in American History." September 17, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-gilded-age-as-an-important-political-turning-point-in-american-history/.

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What was the Gilded Age?

The Gilded Age was a period of flashy materialism and overt political corruption in the United States during the 1870s.

Who were some of the key figures of the Gilded Age?

Among the best known of the entrepreneurs who became known, pejoratively, as robber barons during the Gilded Age were John D. Rockefeller , Andrew Carnegie , Cornelius Vanderbilt , Leland Stanford , and J.P. Morgan .

Who coined the term Gilded Age?

The Gilded Age took its name from the novel The Gilded Age , written by Mark Twain in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner and published in 1873

Gilded Age , period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption in U.S. history during the 1870s that gave rise to important novels of social and political criticism . The period takes its name from the earliest of these, The Gilded Age (1873), written by Mark Twain in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. The novel gives a vivid and accurate description of Washington, D.C. , and is peopled with caricatures of many leading figures of the day, including greedy industrialists and corrupt politicians.

The great burst of industrial activity and corporate growth that characterized the Gilded Age was presided over by a collection of colourful and energetic entrepreneurs who became known alternatively as “captains of industry” and “ robber barons .” They grew rich through the monopolies they created in the steel, petroleum, and transportation industries. Among the best known of them were John D. Rockefeller , Andrew Carnegie , Cornelius Vanderbilt , Leland Stanford , and J.P. Morgan .

Twain’s satire was followed in 1880 by Democracy , a political novel published anonymously by the historian Henry Adams . Adams’s book deals with a dishonest Midwestern senator and suggests that the real source of corruption lies in the unprincipled attitudes of the wild and lawless West . An American Politician, by Francis Marion Crawford (1884), focuses upon the disputed election of Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, but its significance as a political novel is diluted by an overdose of popular romance.

The political novels of the Gilded Age represent the beginnings of a new strain in American literature , the novel as a vehicle of social protest, a trend that grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the works of the muckrakers and culminated in the proletarian novelists.

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