what did commentators mean when they referred to the late 20th

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Overview of the Gilt Historic period
Digital History ID 2916

Mark Twain called the late 19th century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but decadent underneath. In the popular view, the belatedly 19th century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display.

It is like shooting fish in a barrel to extravaganza the Gilded Historic period as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. Merely it is more than useful to recall of this equally modern America'south formative menstruation, when an agrestal society of small producers were transformed into an urban guild dominated by industrial corporations.

The belatedly 19th century saw the creation of a modern industrial economic system. A national transportation and advice network was created, the corporation became the dominant class of business arrangement, and a managerial revolution transformed business operations.

An era of intense partisanship, the Gilded Age was as well an era of reform. The Civil Service Human activity sought to curb authorities corruption by requiring applicants for sure governmental jobs to have a competitive examination. The Interstate Commerce Human activity sought to cease discrimination by railroads against small shippers and the Sherman Antitrust Act outlawed business concern monopolies.

These were turbulent years that saw labor violence, rise racial tension, militancy amongst farmers, and discontent among the unemployed. Burdened by heavy debts and falling subcontract prices, many farmers joined the Populist Party, which chosen for an increment in the amount of money in apportionment, government assistance to help farmers repay loans, tariff reductions, and a graduated income tax.

Closing the Western Frontier

In 1860, nigh Americans considered the Great Plains the "Neat American Desert." Settlement west of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana averaged simply 1 person per square mile. The merely parts of the Far West that were highly settled were California and Texas. Betwixt 1865 and the 1890s, yet, Americans settled 430 1000000 acres in the Far Westward--more land than during the preceding 250 years of American history. By 1893, the Census Bureau was able to claim that the unabridged western frontier was at present occupied.

The discovery of gold, silver, and other precious minerals in California in 1849, in Nevada and Colorado in the 1850s, in Idaho and Montana in 1860s, and South Dakota in the 1870s sparked an influx of prospectors and miners. The expansion of railroads and the invention of barbed wire and improvements in windmills and pumps attracted ranchers and farmers to the Great Plains in the 1860s and 1870s. This affiliate examines the forces that collection Americans westward; the kinds of lives they established in the Far Due west; and the ascension of the "Due west of the imagination," the popular myths that go on to exert a powerful hold on mass civilisation.

The Tragedy of the Plains Indians

The 250,000 Native Americans who lived on the Great Plains were confined onto reservations through renegotiation of treaties and 30 years of war. This section examines the consequences of America's westward movement for Native Americans.

The Gold Age

The 1880s and 1890s were years of unprecedented technological innovation, mass immigration, and intense political partisanship, including disputes over currency, tariffs, political abuse and patronage, and railroads and business trusts.

The Making of Modern America

The late 19th century saw the advent of new communication technologies, including the phonograph, the telephone, and radio; the rise of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines; the growth of commercialized entertainment, as well as new sports, including basketball, bicycling, and football, and appearance of new transportation technologies, such as the automobile, electrical trains and trolleys.

Industrialization & the Working Class

This chapter examines the impact of and responses to industrialization amongst American workers, including the attempt to form labor unions despite potent opposition from many industrialists and the courts.

The Huddled Masses

Effectually the plow of the 20th century, mass immigration from eastern and southern Europe dramatically altered the population's indigenous and religious limerick. Dissimilar earlier immigrants, who had come from Britain, Canada, Federal republic of germany, Ireland, and Scandinavia, the "new immigrants" came increasingly from Republic of hungary, Italy, Poland, and Russia. The newcomers were oft Catholic or Jewish and 2-thirds of them settled in cities. In this chapter yous will learn nearly the new immigrants and the anti-immigrant reaction.

The Rise of Big Business

Between the Civil War and Earth War I, the modern American economy emerged. A national transportation and communication network was created, the corporation became the dominant form of business organization, and a managerial revolution transformed business operations. By the beginning of the 20th century, per capita income and industrial product in the United states of america exceeded that of any other land except Britain.

Unlike the pre-Civil War economic system, this new one was dependent on raw materials from effectually the world and it sold appurtenances in global markets. Business concern organization expanded in size and calibration. There was an unparalleled increase in factory product, mechanization, and business organisation consolidation. By the beginning of the 20th century, the major sectors of the nation'due south economy--banking, manufacturing, meat packing, oil refining, railroads, and steel--were dominated past a small number of giant corporations.

The Rise of the City

This section traces the changing nature of the American metropolis in the tardily 19th century, the expansion of cities horizontally and vertically, the problems caused by urban growth, the depiction of cities in art and literature, and the emergence of new forms of urban entertainment.

The Political Crisis of the 1890s

The 1880s and 1890s were years of turbulence. Disputes erupted over labor relations, currency, tariffs, patronage, and railroads. The most momentous political conflict of the late 19th century was the farmers' revolt. Drought, plagues of grasshoppers, boll weevils, rising costs, falling prices, and high interest rates made information technology increasingly difficult to make a living equally a farmer. Many farmers blamed railroad owners, grain elevator operators, state monopolists, commodity futures dealers, mortgage companies, merchants, bankers, and manufacturers of farm equipment for their plight. Farmers responded by organizing Granges, Farmers' Alliances, and the Populist Political party. In the election of 1896, the Populists and the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan for president. Bryan's decisive defeat inaugurated a period of Republican ascendancy, in which Republicans controlled the presidency for 24 of the next 32 years.

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Source: https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraid=9

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