he late 19th century witnessed the birth of modern America.
It saw the closing of the Western frontier. Between 1865
and the 1890s, Americans settled 430 million acres in
the Far West--more land than during the preceding 250
years of American history. But to open lands west of the
Mississippi River to white settlers, the Plains Indians
were pushed in a series of Indian wars onto restricted
reservations.
This period also witnessed the creation of a modern industrial
economy. 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
twentieth century, per capita income and industrial production
in the United States exceeded that of any other country
except Britain. Long hours and hazardous working conditions
led many workers to attempt to form labor unions despite
strong opposition from industrialists and the courts.
An era of intense political partisanship, the Gilded Age
was also an era of reform. The Civil Service Act sought
to curb government corruption by requiring applicants
for certain governmental jobs to take a competitive examination.
The Interstate Commerce Act sought to end discrimination
by railroads against small shippers and the Sherman Antitrust
Act outlawed business monopolies.
These years also saw the rise of the Populist crusade.
Burdened by heavy debts and falling farm prices, many
farmers joined the Populist party, which called for an
increase in the amount of money in circulation, government
assistance to help farmers repay loans, tariff reductions,
and a graduated income tax.
Background
Mark Twain called the late nineteenth century the "Gilded
Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering
on the surface but corrupt underneath. In the popular
view, the late nineteenth 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 easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption,
conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But
it is more useful to think of this as modern America's
formative period, when an agrarian society of small producers
was transformed into an urban society dominated by industrial
corporations. |
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