The Gilded Age: America's Era of Progress and Inequality

Introduction: The Gilded Age Defined

The era immediately following the Civil War has been described as the Gilded Age of United States history. There are several apt reasons for this moniker. Technological and scientific advancements during this time created a tremendous improvement in the nation's standard of living. Transportation innovations brought the people of the country much closer together physically. Economically, large companies began to amass great wealth, and workers fled the farms for the secure wages of the factories and plants of the cities.

All of this change and progress came with a steep price, however. As wealth accumulated in the hands of a few, as Americans fanned out across the continent, as more and more people of different cultures and heritages moved here, and as technology and industrialization created unforeseen problems that required innovative solutions, the America of the Gilded Age often proved to be a breeding ground for social issues. Some historians go so far as to argue that the years from 1865 to 1900 were anything but gilded. One thing historians agree upon is that the Gilded Age was a time of unprecedented change in the United States, which gave rise to the foundations of modern American society.

Impact of Reconstruction on the Rise of the Gilded Age

The Gilded Age is said to have started in 1865, and certainly this was a time of marked and tangible change, especially in the South. No fewer than four million former slaves had at once become emancipated, and the federal government struggled to devise a strategy for protecting their rights and assimilating them into a free society (Brown, Reconstruction 2). The South — an entire half of the nation — was physically, financially, and emotionally decimated. It was now being required to adopt a way of life it found repugnant to its basic ideology, one that relegated its economic system to a relic of the past. On top of all this, the North was far from certain on how to proceed with Reconstruction (Ibid).

This Reconstruction era (1865–1878, a subset within the Gilded Age) helped shape the Gilded Age in several ways. First and foremost, the end of slavery all but ended the South's ability to rely on planting and picking by human labor as its sole means of income. As a result, the South saw the rise of many commercial magnates and empires throughout the Gilded Age.

A second impact Reconstruction had on society over the following decades was the use of force and terror-based coercion to prevent recently freed Black Americans from voting, holding public office, and otherwise asserting their place as equals in society (Foner 36). Where overt violence, or the threat of it, was not used, the South employed legislation to pre-empt the freedmen's hard-earned gains of independence. Aside from curtailing the rights of Black Americans, early Jim Crow legislation laid a foundation for further persecuting legislation against ethnic groups in the form of exclusion laws.

The final impact that Reconstruction had on the rest of the Gilded Age was its facilitation of federal intervention into matters hitherto considered outside the purview of government and certainly not a matter of federal jurisdiction (Brown, Gilded Age 3). Congress passed a multitude of measures aimed at regulating the personal affairs of citizens of the states. To establish authority for this, Congress orchestrated the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, whose due process clause made the Bill of Rights applicable to the actions of all states. Over the next several decades, government would extend its reach over the affairs of individuals and industry in a manner not previously contemplated.

A Changing Nation

The nature of change in Gilded Age America was immense and broad. Nearly every facet of life was different in 1900 than in 1860. While America was industrially prominent in 1860, by 1900 it stood atop the world as by far the most industrially productive nation on earth (Gutman 166). The industrial and technological changes fueled transformation throughout the American fabric. Americans no longer lived sprawled across vast farmland with a handful of industrious cities interspersed. American cities became the commercial and residential focal point for most of the country, with only a few remaining farms dotting the countryside (Brown, Gilded Age 2).

Aside from reshaping where Americans lived, increases in technology gave rise to big business and the business tycoon. Mechanized production, skilled labor, mass distribution, and the ubiquitous railroads all converged in the Gilded Age. This allowed individuals who had the means and the savvy to tap into brand-new markets to amass staggering amounts of wealth by becoming the sole source supplying a national market. The business tycoon at once became a landmark personality in the United States. These figures were hailed for their entrepreneurial spirit and for creating a model for others to aspire to — "the American Dream" — while at the same time they were reviled for their ruthless business practices, exploitation of labor, corrupt political dealings, and their tendency to thwart the American Dream for others by establishing consolidated monopolies in their industries (Bridges 10). Society blamed the business tycoon — who, midway through the era, began to be referred to as the "Robber Baron" — for creating a plethora of social problems that society at large would have to fix.

The face of America was also rapidly changing. The white Protestant with roots in Western Europe was the predominant ethnic group at the time of the Civil War and certainly the group that wielded the most clout. The Gilded Age saw a rapid influx of Eastern and Southern Europeans who were practicing Catholics and Jews, as well as Chinese immigrants into California. This influx of different peoples led to a rise in aggressive attitudes toward immigrants among native-born Americans (Brown, Gilded Age 5). All of these groups — along with Mexicans, Native Americans, and others — began to feel a consistent barrage of physical, economic, and legislative attacks designed to deprive them of a share of the American Dream.

Certainly Black Americans were included in this aggression. The deterioration of gains made by Black Americans culminated in the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Court held that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional, clearing the way for literacy tests, poll taxes, and other obstacles to Black voting (Brown, Gilded Age 4). The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups perpetrated hundreds of lynchings and bombings in order to terrorize Black Americans into accepting second-class citizen status (Brown, Reconstruction 11).

Perhaps the biggest change in America during the Gilded Age was a shift in values, thoughts, and principles. Of the old principles and values, some were embraced with renewed energy and some evolved to reflect the times, while new principles and values also emerged. As already demonstrated, notions of racism and white superiority remained essentially unchanged from the period before the Civil War. Racists now added xenophobia to their vocabulary due to the large number of non-Protestant immigrants (Brown, Gilded Age 6).

Another familiar concept that once again took root in the American consciousness was Laissez Faire economics. In the Gilded Age, Laissez Faire meant industry free from government regulation and intrusion. Business leaders wanted to run their enterprises subject only to the rules of the market (Brown, Gilded Age 3). At the same time, they also sought government assistance in the form of land grants and financial kickbacks. Laissez Faire economics in the Gilded Age was philosophically justified by the emerging doctrine of Social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism was, as much as any other ideology, the predominant value system of the Gilded Age. It extended the "survival of the fittest" principle from Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to all human matters of economics and society. Social Darwinism served as the philosophical and moral justification for the excesses enjoyed by successful business magnates and for the exploitative conditions and abject poverty suffered by the common worker whose toil created the magnate's wealth (Wyllie 629).

The Gilded Age also saw Protestant values re-emerge as the ideal standard for individuals and families. America, due largely to the size of its Protestant population, had come to identify itself as a Protestant nation (Brown, Gilded Age 7). The values of prudent morality, hard work, earnestness toward life and religion, and strong faith once again took hold as the defining American values. Not only did the majority Protestant population endorse these values — they feared any dilution of them through Catholic education. Many Protestant groups attempted to prevent the establishment of Catholic schools, and the state of Ohio passed a law requiring all students to attend public school (Ibid).

As is evident from the above, scarcely a facet of life was left unaffected for each major ethnic group living in America during this period. The most fundamental change was a shift in morality that subjugated the welfare of the masses to the will of the wealthy few. While some of the wealthy were philanthropic and socially conscious, most business magnates believed their financial success proved them most capable and most entitled to the spoils of that success. This created a system of social and economic inequity that provoked a reaction to the Gilded Age well before the era itself had closed.

Conclusion

The Gilded Age truly represents the best and worst of American society in one self-contained 35-year period. The backdrop of the period was nothing less than the Reconstruction of the Union — far from ideal circumstances for launching the most dramatic and comprehensive industrial and economic expansion in modern history. Nonetheless, this is exactly what happened. History tells us that a number of forces converged at once, collectively enabling the ascendancy of American industry: technological advances in manufacturing and distribution, a well-orchestrated and functioning rail system, an ample supply of cheap labor, an abundance of domestic and international markets for finished goods, and half a continent of mostly arable land to expand into as need arose and means allowed.

Several individuals emerged from this phase of growth and prosperity who would become known as the captains of industry. Their names still command considerable respect: J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Flagler, and Carnegie are only a few of the moguls whose success helped define what would become known as the American Dream. Much of the world marveled at the striking recovery of a nation not yet 100 years old and so recently emerged from a bloody and prolonged Civil War.

But the Gilded Age has a very dark underside beneath its illustrious appearance. These same captains of industry are also considered Robber Barons in light of their ruthless business practices, including fomenting political graft and the exploitation of labor. Worse still, the Barons sought to defend their avarice with a self-serving distortion of one of the great intellectual achievements of the modern age — Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and the survival of the fittest in the natural world. After sheltering behind the protections of government, the Barons then sought to avoid any government regulation by claiming that Laissez Faire capitalism should allow them to engage in any behavior the market permitted.

Common workers were subjected to depressed wages and sixty-hour weeks in dangerous conditions for the sake of someone else's fortune. Many of these workers were Black Americans who also faced terrifying and deadly acts of violence, often carried out under the tacit approval of local governments. Immigration led to calls for exclusionary laws, while those Native to the continent were massacred or rounded up and relocated to reservations in remote Western locations. Politicians were regularly exposed as corrupt and embroiled in various scandals.

The balance of available evidence points to more problems and scandals associated with the Gilded Era than to the successes of a rebuilt economy and a reborn nation. The period between 1865 and 1900 was certainly a healing salve for the Union and for a select few individuals, but for the average American, the Gilded Age was anything but gilded. The thrill of new material possessions was outweighed by the constant mistreatment of Americans by fellow Americans.