Gilded Age

Why “Gilded Age”?  Answer: Mark Twain  Why: By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface like gold but corrupt underneath.

What was the Gilded Age?  A time where: 1.Rapid economic growth generated vast wealth: upper class. 2.New Products and technologies improved middle class quality of life. 3.Industrial workers did not share in the new prosperity: poor working conditions. 4.Politicians were corrupt

Gilded Age: Points of Interest  Westward Expansion  Industrial Revolution  Immigration  Urbanization  Labor Movement  Political Corruption

Westward Expansion  Many Immigrants headed West in the mid to late 1800’s in search of cheap land and new jobs  Homesteaders:Homestead Act (1862) gave 160 acres to citizens who pledged to “improve the land” for at least 5 years.  Life in the Plains was difficult: There were few trees so homesteaders built sod houses  60% of homesteaders failed  Exodusters were black farmers who moved West to escape crop liens & Jim Crow laws in the South

Native Americans vs Homesteaders Agreements between Native Americans and the Government fell apart because they had different concepts of land ownership

Industrial Revolution What is an Industrial Revolution: a change from hand and home production to one of machine and factory production.

Discuss with your groups  What is something you know is made in a factory  What is something you know is made locally

There were two Industrial Revolutions  1800 – 1850  Occurred in Great Britain.  Involved textiles or clothing.  Eli Whitney: Cotton Gin   Focused on:  Transportation: Transcontinental Railroad  Communication: Telephone  Electricity: Work at Night  Production Improvements: 1. assembly line: mass production 2. Interchangeable parts: exp Guns First Industrial RevolutionSecond Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution Effects of the Industrial Revolution 1.Immigration: Europeans, Mexicans and Asians came to the U.S for jobs. 2.Urbanization: Growth of cities occurred because of the number of new Americans arriving. 3.Westward Expansion: Find natural resources: “Gold” and free land. 4.Most Americans did not trust industrialists

Different Waves of Immigration Old Immigration   Great Britain: for land  Ireland: Potato famine  Germany: political unrest  Scandinavia: land and industrial jobs  Chinese: railroad jobs  Came for cheap land and to get rich New Immigration   Italians  Greece  Russians  Jews  Came to escape political persecution and get rich.

Urbanization  With the arrival of new immigrates and people leaving the farms for factory jobs, American cities begin to grow.  Problems 1.Overcrowding 2.Slums 3.Unsanitary Conditions

Discuss with your groups Specific problems that could be causes by overcrowding and unsanitary conditions

Inventors and Inventions Eli Whitney  Interchangeable parts  Assembly Line production.

Inventors and Inventions Thomas Edison  Light Bulb  Electricity

Inventors and Inventions Alexander G Bell Telephone

Discuss in your groups How has those three inventions changed your life

Rise of Big Business It occurred because of a lack of government regulation which allowed companies and business men to build large fortunes on the backs of their workers.

Big Business  Historians use these two terms to describe powerful industrialists during the Gilded Age.  Captain of Industry: served their nation in a positive way.  Robber Barons: Built their fortunes by stealing from the public.

Big Business Andrew Carnegie  Captain of Industry  Steel Industry  Argued that the success of wealthy industrialists helped the entire nation.  Vertical Consolidation : owned every part of the steel making process from digging the iron ore to shipping the finished product.

Big Business John D Rockefeller  Captain of Industry  Oil Industry  Horizontal Consolidation: bought smaller oil companies and consolidated them into one big business.

Labor Movement Factory Work: 1.6 days a week, 10 to 16 hour work day. 2.Paid by completed product: exp: number of finished chairs built, not by the hour. 3.Unskilled paid$1.00 to 1.50 a day 4.Skilled Worker paid $3.00 to 4.00 a day 5.Poor, unsafe working conditions: poor lighting, loud and dangerous machines, little training, no breaks, disciplined by management, accidents and fires.

Labor Movement  Child Labor : 1.Children left school at 12 to work: 2.Would work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day to earn a dollar a week. 3.Average hours a week.

Rise of Labor Unions Why join a union? Workplace accidents were common, and the idea of compensating workers injured on the job was unheard of at the time. To help each other through illness, injury, and deaths, workers formed mutual benefit societies, but the assistance these groups provided was minimal. The most serious problem for factory workers was unemployment. It was common for a worker, particularly an unskilled one, to be out of a job at least part of the year.

Ticket out the door One thing you learned today that you didn’t know when you came to class