Morgan, Vanderbilt, and an Engineer from Dearborn: The

Gilded AgeHonors U.S. History

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

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