View our current issue var inline_cta_2_url_278931 = ''; The great burst of industrial activity and corporate growth that characterized the Gilded Age was presided over by a collection of colourful and energetic entrepreneurs who became known alternatively as “captains of industry” and “robber barons.” They grew rich through the monopolies they created in the steel, petroleum, and transportation industries. placementName: "thenation_right_rail", Writers of many types of works contributed to a great body of literature that flourished between the Civil War and 1914—literature of social... Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. } tn_ptype: 'article', jQuery("#inline_cta_btn_278931").html(inline_cta_button_text_278931); Current Issue jQuery("#magazine_button_278931").html(magazine_button_text_278931); if( inline_cta_2_url_278931 !='' ){ Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In order to comment, you must be logged in as a paid subscriber. “The era’s problem, as Howells saw it, was adjusting the ideal of liberty to the necessity of order,” he writes; the solution “was to sever ‘administration’ from democracy” and, in Howells’s words, “evolve order out of chaos, government out of anarchy.” For Howells and other liberals of the era, this meant free trade, civil-service reform, a return to the gold standard, limitations on male suffrage, opposition to women’s suffrage, and replacing elected government officials with appointed ones. var magazine_text_278931 = ''; Our mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. jQuery("#magazine_button_278931 a input").css("background",magazine_button_bg_color_278931); Explore the similarities and differences between political parties during the Gilded Age, when political parties took strong stances on economic issues and “machine politics” dominated cities. cta_2_check_278931 = true; var magazine_button_bg_color_278931 = ''; To attract farmers and industrial workers, it embraced a wide range of issues, from railroad regulation, cooperative purchasing and marketing, and the eight-hour workday to mechanics’ lien laws, land reform, and progressive taxation. tn_articleid: [278931], Yet George’s politics also exposed the limits of anti-monopoly as a mass movement. Without state action at many levels—defeating slaveholding antagonists, securing private property and commercial contracts, offering generous incentives to developmental entrepreneurs, repressing labor agitation, and sending Native peoples to isolated reservations through military means—capitalism’s traction would have been shakier and more limited.21, White also highlights the violent confrontations that Gilded Age capitalism provoked and the wide-ranging popular critique it nurtured. }else{ tn_loc:'atf' In his impressive new book The Republic for Which It Stands, the latest volume in the ongoing “Oxford History of the United States,” White links the Gilded Age with Reconstruction—the two “gestated together,” he writes—and, in so doing, casts both in a different light while raising new questions about a nation born in the cauldron of civil war. jQuery("#magazine_text_278931").html(magazine_text_278931); var inline_cta_font_color_278931 = ''; jQuery("#inline_cta_2_module_278931").addClass("tn-inline-cta-module"); STUDY TIP: Content from the Gilded Age has appeared on the essays twelve times since 2000.Take a look at these questions before you review the key concepts & vocabulary below to get a sense of how you will be assessed. } Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. inline_cta_2_font_color_278931 = '#ffffff'; For Reprints and Permissions, click here. inline_cta_button_text_278931 = ''; Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy. • Gilded Age • America Becomes a World Power • Progressive Era • World War I • 1920s • Great Depression • World War II • Post-War Era • 1960s • Vietnam War • 1970-2000 • The 21st Century } }, Still, anti-monopoly was far more than a single-issue movement. )18, There were also the US invasions of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines (we call this the “Spanish-American War”), which give wider meaning to White’s important points about the federal state during the Gilded Age. The Imperial Republic: 1865-1914 25. Review Questions; Critical Thinking Questions; 6 America's War for Independence, 1775-1783. cta_2_check_278931 = true; Coined by Mark Twain, the term “gilded” shows what the United States really was. In effect, the government engaged in a form of land redistribution that it had refused to impose in the South, transferring lands from the control of Native Americans into the hands of aspiring white agricultural operators (through the Homestead Act) and railroad corporations (through the Pacific Railway Act and a raft of other incentives). cta_1_check_278931 = true; cta_2_check_278931 = true; jQuery("#inline_cta_btn_278931 a").attr("href",inline_cta_url_278931); if( inline_cta_font_color_278931 !='' ){ if( magazine_button_text_278931 !='' ){ } targeting:{ } if( inline_cta_2_text_278931 !='' ){ The preposterously prolific Samuel Hopkins Adams was born 150 years ago today, and his large body of work ran the gamut, from muckraking investigative journalism to tawdry fiction. ‘Gilded Age’ Ambani spent most of 2020 raising $27 billion in equity investments -- a record for India -- for his technology and retail businesses … Buy this book, Richard White takes another approach. Corrections? If you are a manufacturer or retailer and have something you would like to send for review on CO or would like to advertise on the site and videos, please email me. Gilded Age, period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption in U.S. history during the 1870s that gave rise to important novels of social and political criticism. cta_2_check_278931 = true; White does an excellent job of explaining the complex manifestations involving gold, greenbacks (the paper currency first issued by the federal government during the Civil War), and silver. It was also encouraged by one of Radicalism’s offspring: anti-monopoly. var inline_cta_button_text_278931 = ''; tn_pos: 'rectangle_4', The time is the late 1800s and young George Washington Vanderbilt II has built Biltmore House in the Appalachian Mountains. magazine_button_url_278931 = 'https://www.thenation.com/email-signup-module-donate/'; The racism of these movements was endemic and cannot be explained away by reference to political overtures across the lines of race and ethnicity; it grew out of a deep hostility toward the propertyless poor and those who symbolized the slave and the abjectly dependent (thus the Chinese as well as African Americans). inline_cta_bg_color_278931 = '#ffcf0d'; jQuery("#inline_cta_btn_278931 a input").css("color",inline_cta_font_color_278931); Learn about his policies, ‘Cross of Gold’ speech, and role in the Scopes monkey trial. The Jim Crow segregation that increasingly characterized the South in the 1890s and early 1900s needs to be considered in relation to the apartheid policy of reservations, while the escalating racism and anti-Catholicism of the period—both absorbed and reconfigured by reformers—fueled the imperial warfare of the late 1890s. Readers of Railroaded, White’s 2011 book, will see much of what they admired there in this volume, including deft treatments of policy-making and corrupt bargains at all levels. } Reconstruction also threw a dominant liberal ideology into crisis, as the dramatic expansion of the federal state and the mobilizations of working people in the South, North, and West posed new questions about the world that the abolition of slavery appeared to make possible.6, Here White turns to Howells, who seemed to put his finger on the political dilemma that most of his fellow liberals found themselves confronting. Coining silver as well as gold served inflationary ends and won the favor of many small producers whose debt burdens would be lightened; it also stoked the enmity of bankers and financiers, who were creditors and thus worshipped at the altar of gold. tn_articleid: [278931], Democracy in the 19th century was widely understood in the gendered terms of masculinity and patriarchy, and could be imagined as a central component of populist and anti-monopoly movements whose social base was constituted by male household heads. } This is my current review list. }else{ It is a symbol of corruption, greed, extravagance, and exploitation, of a country gone wild with excess. cta_1_check_278931 = true; } The mass inequality of America’s first Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. Ask for players’ emails to identify them. Writers of many types of works contributed to a great body of literature that flourished between the Civil War and 1914—literature of social revolt. } In 2021, we’re headed down the same path. ... 20 Politics in the Gilded Age, 1870-1900. freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ magazine_button_text_278931 = ''; “Reformers pushed against the bonds of the status quo,” he writes, “but when they broke those bonds their own lack of common purpose became all too apparent.” They achieved piecemeal victories, but a larger reconstruction seemed elusive, especially given the juggernaut of centralization and industrial consolidation they were up against. } 4.25/5 ⭐ Full review on my Blog: The Dacian She-Wolf As always, I have a mean confession to make: I started this book because of the pretty cover. Among the best known of them were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, and J.P. Morgan. And they blamed the moneyed corruption of party politics for their collective plight. tn_keyword: ['antitrust', 'monopoly'], To submit a correction for our consideration, click here. By signing up to receive emails, you agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation's journalism. Many of the same soldiers and officers then served in the Philippines and the Caribbean during the Spanish-American War. The period takes its name from a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. For all of these reformers, whether workers and farmers who faced impoverishment and dependency or temperance advocates who attempted to tie the evils of drink to those of industrialization, the “home,” and the dangers it faced in the Gilded Age, proved to be the animating image.15, Yet, as White sees it, reform’s very capaciousness was also its weakness. U.S. Historycovers the breadth of the chronological history of the United States and also provides the necessary depth to ensure the course is manageable for instructors and students alike. “Transnational developments mattered, but during the Gilded Age the nation took shape in response to these larger changes rather than as a simple reflection of them.”17, Perhaps. Democracy today cannot possibly be imagined without including relations of power that 19th-century populism and anti-monopoly for the most part ignored or actively excluded: those involving racialized groups, stateless people, and women and men as well as the rich and poor, or the “people” and the “interests.”26, In The Republic for Which It Stands, Richard White re-creates the rich textures of a world that still speaks to ours and from which we have much to learn—a world that created forms of wealth and power that still bedevil us, while invigorating notions of economic justice that had emerged across the 19th century and would remain consequential well into the 20th. The results predictably saw African Americans sink into the mire of a “coercive labor system, which although not slavery, was not free labor either,” dependent as it was on “extralegal violence, coercive laws, burdensome debt relations, and the use of convict labor.”4, In the trans-Mississippi West, part of the “Greater Reconstruction” (a term that White borrows from the historian Elliott West), the federal government—acting as an “imperial state”—extended its reach and promoted railroad development at the expense of Native peoples, who fought back with ferocity and determination before being relegated to reservations. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Steven HahnSteven Hahn teaches history at New York University and is writing a book on the illiberal tradition in American history. In 48 episodes, John Green will teach you the history of the United States of America! magazine_button_bg_color_278931 = '#dd3333'; Readers will find a veritable kaleidoscope of subject matter, from electoral politics, political economy, and industrial warfare to popular culture, literature, and sports. They would also find organized expression in the Grange, the Greenback-Labor Party, the Knights of Labor, the Farmers’ Alliance, and, eventually, the Populists.9, Anti-monopolists bridled at the inequalities of wealth that surrounded them. It then kept those territories under federal control for a lengthy period and established a number of substantial hurdles involving race, religion, family (“home”), and belonging that all had to be cleared before the territories could be admitted to the Union as states. Meanwhile, anti-monopoly tickets—some associated with the Knights of Labor—emerged victorious in towns small and large across the country. … Discover tips on marketing your produce and managing your business. The Reconstruction Acts, the high point of Republican Radicalism, enfranchised African-American men, but the rapidly shrinking US Army of Occupation was often unable to protect the exercise of their new rights. if( inline_cta_url_278931 !='' ){ inline_cta_2_button_text_278931 = ''; As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 83,000 lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Delegates to the First (1774) and then the Second (1775–1781) Continental Congress were chosen largely through the action of committees of correspondence in various colonies rather than through the colonial or later state legislatures. targeting:{ This weekend was a gilded one, as newly inaugurated President Vincent E. Anti-monopoly identified exploitation mainly in the sphere of exchange; its focus was on control over the money supply (greenbacks), cooperative marketing (subtreasury), and the regulation of vital infrastructure, especially railroads. inline_cta_2_url_278931 = 'https://ssl.drgnetwork.com/ecom/NAT/app/live/subscriptions?org=NAT&publ=NA&key_code=68F1CGS&type=S'; The Course challenge can help you understand what you need to review. if( is_user_logged_in != null ){ tn_ptype: 'article', (William Seward, the Republican luminary and Lincoln’s secretary of state, played a central role in this, while the anti-monopolist farmers, as William Appleman Williams long ago showed, bought into it readily. placementName: "thenation_article_indent", Anti-monopoly sentiments took hold among urban workers, family farmers, and small-town merchants and retailers, fed by the traditions of Euro-American republicanism, free-labor ideology, and socialism. The 'Forgotten' Presidents of the Gilded Age. It also serves as a yardstick to measure the indiscretions and inequalities of subsequent times, not least our own. inline_cta_2_text_278931 = '

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'; slotId: "thenation_right_rail_278931", inline_cta_button_text_278931 = ''; White’s treatment of Populism, the largest of these movements and the one best embodying the Greenback and anti-monopoly traditions, thus emphasizes both its “essential moderation” and its contradictory views of the state: simultaneously distrusting federal power and demanding federal intervention in the American economy to the benefit of small producers. The novel gives a vivid and accurate description of Washington, D.C., and is peopled with caricatures of many leading figures of the day, including greedy industrialists and corrupt politicians. var inline_cta_2_font_color_278931 = ''; Holding the more than 900 sprawling pages together is a framework in which party politics and national elections are set as the chronological markers for a developing battle between the forces of liberalism and anti-monopoly, all carried along by the commentary of the novelist, editor, and critic William Dean Howells, whose intellectual journey in many ways mirrored the political drift of the times.3, White’s early chapters on Reconstruction unspool many of the thematic threads that he then weaves together for the remainder of the book. var inline_cta_2_button_text_278931 = ''; var magazine_button_text_278931 = ''; jQuery("#inline_cta_btn_278931 a input").css("background",inline_cta_bg_color_278931); 35 questions Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. var is_user_logged_in = getCookie('SESSname'); inline_cta_url_278931 = 'https://www.thenation.com/donate-website/?sourceid=1020084'; }, Liberalism’s retreat into an antidemocratic search for order was not precipitated by the ambitions of Radical Reconstruction alone. Reviewed Click here for Cigars M-Z PLUS accessories and extras! Contemporary activists looking for inspirations from history—a “usable past”—often find this period rich in examples. tn_subject: ['business', 'corporatio', 'economic-p', 'history', 'inequality'], inline_cta_bg_color_278931 = '#ffcf0d'; “Look to the Midwest, East, and South,” White observes, “and the Knights seemed the vanguard of at least a limited racial equality; look to the West and they appeared very different. There can also be little doubt about who led the charge against political democracy, not only in the South, where that effort had the most repressive effect, but in the Northeast, Midwest, and West as well: the businessmen, financiers, and liberals of the Gilded Age, along with the planters and other large-scale agricultural interests.23 Alexander Graham Bell: A Scottish-born scientist. Indeed, there’s a sense in which White has the Gilded Age effectively encompass the Reconstruction era; both periods, he argues, were defined by ongoing, and often explosive, struggles over the fundamentals of society and state in postbellum America: Who would rule and be ruled, whose vision of political economy and social relations would prevail, and who would pay the price? Narcissa Florence Foster was born July 19, 1868, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Charles Dorrance Foster (1836–1909), an attorney and scion of a wealthy land-owning Pennsylvania family, and Mary Jane Hoagland Foster (1851–1930). var cta_1_check_278931 = false; This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/event/Gilded-Age, Digital History - Overview of the Gilded Age, America's Story from America's Library - Gilded Age, Gilded Age - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by American author Edith Wharton.It was her twelfth novel, and was initially serialized in 1920 in four parts, in the magazine Pictorial Review.Later that year, it was released as a book by D. Appleton & Company.It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize. As White portrays it, Reconstruction—in the South and the West—was largely an uneven process of state-building that advanced a highly repressive brand of capitalist development.5, In this way, despite the gains of emancipation and of advancing the principles of civil and political equality, Reconstruction laid the groundwork for the Gilded Age, with its growing wage-labor force, expanding industries, swelling cities, massive population movements, and unprecedented consolidations of wealth and power. White doesn’t attempt to duck this matter: “Most of the changes examined in this volume took place on national and regional scales, not the transnational,” he notes in the introduction. Some saw him as an ambitious demagogue, others as a champion of liberal causes. cta_1_check_278931 = true; Joseph Keppler, The Bosses of the Senate. magazine_text_278931 = '

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'; They will find figures of political and cultural prominence as well as those who are now relatively obscure, but who at the time were consequential for their ideas and activism. The federal government created a number of large new territories in the trans-Mississippi West during the Civil War to secure its power and authority there. Related Article Updates? Personal life and early career. inline_cta_url_278931 = 'https://www.thenation.com/donate-website/?sourceid=1020084'; Never before, or since, have national elections been more closely contested or “third” parties—Greenback-Labor, Knights, Readjusters, Populists—more successful in competing for power at the state and local levels. tn_author: ['steven-h'], The Gilded Age Gold mined in the jungles of Peru brought riches to three friends in Miami—but it also carried ruin. tn_author: ['steven-h'], And there can be little doubt that a commitment to democratic practice was most strongly embraced by those who marched under the banners of Radical Republicanism and anti-monopoly—especially African Americans, whose political struggles don’t get the attention they deserve in this volume. By enabling player identifier, you'll know the real person behind the nickname in your game. Click here to log in or subscribe. if( inline_cta_2_font_color_278931 !='' ){ At various times, the Knights distrusted Italians, Finns, Hungarians, and more, but the one racial or ethnic group they banned from the organization was the Chinese.”13 The Forgotten Writer Who Chronicled America from the Gilded Age to the Space Age. var inline_cta_2_text_278931 = ''; Progressivism 26. The proponents of anti-monopoly mounted a withering attack on the sources and nature of power in American society—a more fundamental attack, I believe, than White allows—that rallied millions of Americans to their side, whether through independent parties or a large variety of social movements.
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