Progressive Movement and the Gilded Age

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 Warner were the first to call the years after the Civil War 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 these serious problems been veiled with a thin coating of gold.

Rapid economic growth during this time generated vast wealth and new products and technologies improved the quality of life for the middle class. However industrial workers and farmers did not share in this new found prosperity. They worked long hours in dangerous conditions for low pay. As the economy grew unprecedented levels of wealth were generated. Railroads and telephone lines stretched across the country creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs and cheaper goods for customers. These events resulted in a society that became increasingly divided between the haves and the have nots, many poor workers struggled just to survive while an emerging industrial and financial aristocracy lived in ornate homes and indulged in opulent pastimes. The governments of the period were dominated by corruption as politicians took bribes and rewarded supporters with posh government jobs. Most Americans wanted political and social reforms, but they disagreed strongly on what kind of reform.

Corruption was rampant, at the national level the Grant presidency was inundated with graft and unethical administrators. Succeeding administrations were less corrupt, but the influence of America's expanding wealth pushed many politicians to accept a governing philosophy based on the supposition that the economic elite should be allowed to pursue its endeavors with minimal government interference. At the local level this was the era of the political machine. Politics were run by powerful organizations that exchanged jobs and contracts for political loyalty. Graft was common, with such bosses as Tammany Hall in New York, Boss Ruef in San Francisco and Tom Dennison in Omaha.

In the meantime industrial workers struggled to survive bleak working conditions, low wages and long hours. These conditions lead to a budding labor movement were workers banded together to try to improve their lot. These efforts led to long strikes that shook the economy and raised the prospect of outright class warfare. Farmers suffered during this period, saturated markets and falling prices for their produce diminished their share of the national wealth.

At the turn of the century a shift in public consciences began to emerge. A growing belief surfaced that earlier confidence that industrial leaders would build a prosperous and equitable society may have been misplaced. While strikes multiplied and grew more violent and farmers bolted from the traditional political parties, political machines began to break down, and a large portion of America's middle class began to embrace a new understanding of government. The reform they ushered in became known as the Progressive Movement and recast the role of government for the modern state within the industrial world.

The Progressive Movement

The Progressive Movement was an effort to cure many of the ills of American society that had developed during the great spurt of industrial growth in the last quarter of the 19th century. The frontier had been tamed, great cities and businesses developed, and an overseas empire established, but not all citizens shared in the new wealth, prestige, and optimism.

The Progressive Movement encompassed a wide range of economic, political, social and moral reforms including efforts to outlaw the sale of alcohol, regulate child labor and sweatshops, scientifically manage natural resources, restrict immigration and breakdown and regulate trusts.

At the beginning of the twentieth century muckraking journalists were calling attention to the exploitation of child labor, corruption of city governments, and the ruthless business practices employed by businessmen such as John D. Rockefeller. Locally Progressives worked to suppress red-light districts expand high school education, construct playgrounds and replace political machines with a more efficient system of municipal governments. At the state level minimum wage laws for women workers, industrial accident insurance, restricted child labor, and improved working conditions in factories were enacted. At the federal level Congress passed laws establishing federal regulation of the meat-packing, drug, and railroad industries, and strengthened anti-trust laws. It also lowered the tariff, established federal control over the banking system, and enacted legislation to improve working condition. Four constitutional amendments were adopted during the Progressive Movement, which authorized an income tax, provided for the direct election of senators, extended the vote to women, and prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.