What Was the Gilded Age?

The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth and industrialization that lasted from the late 1870s until the early 1900s. It was characterized by extreme inequality; the wealthy, including the famous 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:robber barons, experienced high levels of prosperity, while the working classes experienced extreme poverty and labor exploitation.

Economic and Industrial Change

During the Gilded Age, the United States shifted from a primarily agricultural society to an economy driven by industry and manufacturing. Workers moved from farms to cities, and industrial growth brought rapid innovation and technological advances. New railroads fueled westward migration and improved communication across the country.

Railroads

In 1862, the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Pacific Railway Act authorized the first transcontinental railroad. This led to a rapid expansion of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:railroads across the U.S. Before 1871, there were approximately 45,000 miles of railroad track across the United States. Between 1871 and 1900, workers laid another 170,000 miles. By 1900, five transcontinental railroads connected the Pacific Coast to the eastern states.

Mechanization

Mass production had been growing throughout the 19th century; by the late 1800s, most industries had moved from production by skilled craftspeople to mechanized production. Factory workers ღwere generally responsible for overseeing a single, repe♊titive task in the production process.

Mechanization and mass production allowed goods to be produced at lower cost and greater speed, allowing companies to increase output while lowering consumer prices. Factory work became known for its rapid pace, dangerous conditions, and long hours.

Communication

New communication technologies during the Gilded Age included the phonograph, telephone, and radio. Newspapers and magazines reached larger audiences with mass circulation. These new forms of communication supported the westward expansion that the new railroad systems had begun, and listening to and reading the news became 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:leisure-time activities for the middle class and wealthy.

Gilded Age Economic Inequality

Economic disparities between wealthy industrialists and the workers who propped up their bus𒁃in෴esses grew rapidly during the Gilded Age.

Robber Barons

During the Gilded Age, businessmen gained control of entire industries by forming 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:monopolies. Figures like 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:J.P. Morgan, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:John D. Rockefeller, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Andrew Carnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt built up extreme wealth by controlling the banking, oil, steel, and railroad industries. Because their businesses were built on exploitative practices, including low wages, dangerous working conditions, price fixing, and political bribes, these men became known as robber barons.

Wages and Poverty

Technological advancements in the Gilded Age contributed to a real wage increase for unskilled labor of 1.43% per year, which was larger than the 0.56% increase during the Progressive Era (1900-1915) and the 0.44% increase from 1990 to 2005.

However, this increase did little to fix income and lifestyle disparities in the Gilded Age. In 1890, 11 million of the 12 million families living in the U.S. earned less than $1,200 per year (equivalent to just over $37,000 in 2025). The average wage for this group was significantly lower, at only $380 per year (equivalent to just under $12,000 in 2025). This was well below the poverty line at the time. Families who moved to cities in search of industrial jobs often lived in extreme poverty, crowding into tenement buildings and working at low-paying factory jobs.

Labor Unions

By 1866, nearly 200,000 workers across the United States were part of local 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:labor unions; these unions advocated for higher wages, shorter workdays, and safety measures throughout the Gilded Age. Businesses ꦡused intimidation and violence to suppress strikes and blacklisted workers who participated in union activities.

In addition to local and regional labor activity, labor organizers attempted to create national organizations, including the National Labor Union and Knights of Labor. However, these rose and fell in popularity and success. In December 1886, labor leader Samuel Gompers was elected president of the newly formed national union known as the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which would eventually become part of the AFL-CIO. Under Gompers's leadership, the AFL advocated for shorter workdays, local organizing, safer working conditions, and higher wages.

Child Labor

During the Gilded Age, there was no federal law and few state laws against child labor, so many factory workers were young children and teenagers. Children could be hired more cheaply than adults; they were also more likely to be abused by supervisors, as well as injured or even killed due to dangero༒us working conditions.

The United States did not pass a federal law prohibiting child labor until the Keating–Owen Child Labor Act of 1916, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1918. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which prohibited child labor, was finally passed in 1938 and upheld by the courts.

Social Change in the Gilded Age

Journalism

Investigative journalism became prominent in the Gilded Age as reporters worked to expose corruption among politicians and businessmen, as well as unequal or dangerous social and economic conditions. These journalists, often known as "muckrakers," included:

• Jacob Riis reported on the conditions of New York City slum life in 1890
• Lincoln Steffens uncovered political corruption in St. Louis in 1902
• Ida Tarbell exposed the unethical business practices of Rockefeller, leading to the breakup of the Standard Oil Company
• Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle," detailing horrific conditions in the meatpacking industry, leading to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.
  

Immigration

Over 11 million immigrants arrived in the United States during the Gilded Age. Around 90% of the immigrant population, or approximately 10.6 million, came from Europe. The majority of other immigrants came from Canada and Asia.

The influx of immigrants contributed to the economic growth of the era, as many immigrants worked jobs that native-born Americans were unwilling to do. They were welcomed by business owners but opposed by many nativist groups. Chinese and other Asian immigrants, in particular, were targeted by immigration quotas to limit their numbers. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first significant U.S. law to restrict immigration and the first of many anti-Asian immigration bills that would become law during the Gilded Age and early 20th century.

Women

The economic movement away from farms and into factories created jobs outside the home for women. By the beginning of the 20th century, one in seven women were employed, many of them young, single women working in large cities as domestic servants or factory workers. However, the overall social expectation was that women would return to the domestic sphere once they married.

The Gilded Age also made college education available to more women at institutions like Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, and Radcliffe. Many college-educated women went on to professional fields. In the mid-Gilded Age, the most common occupations for college-educated women were nursing and teaching. At the turn of the twentieth century, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:women began working as accountants, lawyers, and doctors.

The Black Experience

In the post-Reconstruction Gilded Age, Black Americans migrated west or moved into cities in search of economic independence. Black workers found employment on railroads and in mines, factories, farms, and lumber yards. Many Black families moved west in pursuit of land ownership. However, in some Southern states, sharecropping replaced slavery, preventing Black families from migrating while still barring them from ownership.

The Gilded Age also ushered in a new class of Black elites. These included business owners, activists, and politicians such as Josephine Beall Willson Bruce, a teacher and women's rights activist; her husband, Blanche K. Bruce, a Republican senator for Mississippi and the first Black person to preside over the Senate in 1879; and journalist T. Thomas Fortune, journalist and editor of leading Black newspaper The New York Age.

However, the post-Reconstruction dismantling of Civil Rights statutes by courts and politicians began to chip away at the growing economic and political power of Black Americans before the Gilded Age had ended.

The Bottom Line

The Gilded Age transformed the United States from an agrarian economy to one centered on cities and factories. Production and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:per capita income rose, ♈but it was als🌼o a time of rampant economic inequality.