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What does Gilded mean?
• Gilded – An expensive and usually beautiful covering of something raw or cheap
• Meant to represent poverty covered by the wealth of a few
A Growing Economy
• Post-Civil War American economy growing– Much more national and international
• Most of the wealth concentrated at the top
• The top – “Robber Barons”– Reference to their mentality of “gain at any
costs”• Including government
Vertical vs. Horizontal Integration
• Vertical – Andrew Carnegie
• Steel• Control everything
about its production from start to finish
• Mining – Transporting – Processing - Distribution
• Horizontal – John D. Rockefeller
• Oil• Control of all the
companies in the same business
• Forming of “Trusts”– All the company heads
working together and not against each other
Laissez-Faire
• French for “let it be” or “let go”
• Doing business with little government interference
• Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” applied– Justified why the wealthy were wealthy– Discouraged reforms
Socialists and Anarchists
• Those looking to eliminate capitalism in favor of a more balanced system
• Consider extremely radical– Never as popular here as in Europe
• Need for reforms to help lower class necessary
Labor Unions
• Workers have grievances– Low wages– Machines are taking their jobs– Dangerous working conditions– Inability to control the pace of work– Lost sense of autonomy
• Labor Unions formed to gain back rights through collective bargaining
Strikes and Violence
• Great Railroad Strike (1877) – Between 100,000 and 500,000 workers strike after a ten percent wage cut
• Haymarket Square (1886) – Bomb attack against police results in open fire against striking workers
• Homestead Strike (1892) – Carnegie closes Penn. Plant to union workers on strike