Chapter 6Section 3

The Gilded Age

• The Gilded Age lasted from around 1870 to around 1900 and was named for a term from a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Warner.

Gilded

• It was a time of new inventions, industrial growth, and growing cities. Something “gilded” is covered with gold only on the outside but made of cheap material on the inside.

Why Gilded

• The writers meant that there was corruption, poverty, and crime beneath the Gilded Age’s shiny surface.

Individualism v. Social Darwinism

• New ideas took hold at this time. One of the strongest beliefs of the time was individualism, the idea that any person could succeed if he or she worked hard enough.

• Horation Alger wrote more than one hundred books expressing the idea of individualism in American society.

• Another powerful idea of the time was Herbert Spencer’s Social Darwinism. Spencer applied Charles Darwin’s ideas about evolution to human society. He claimed that human society evolved through competition and natural selection.

• The catch phrase for Social Darwinism “survival of the fittest”

Philanthropy

• The laissez-faire doctrine opposed government interference in business. Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth held that the wealthy should engage in philanthropy to help the society that made them rich.

Realism

• The nineteenth century was a time of great cultural change. Realism in art and literature became popular. This means artists and writers tried to portray the world more realistically.

Thomas Eakins

• Thomas Eakins painted people doing everyday activities such as swimming.

• The painting to the right is titled, The Gross Clinic (1875)

Mark Twain

• Realistic writers like Mark Twain tried to show the world as it was. His novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn presented realistic characters, dialect, and setting.

What to do with money?

• At this time, industrialization provided people with more money for recreation and entertainment. Saloons played a major role in the lives of workers and served as political centers. Families in the late 1800s enjoyed amusement parks.

Saloons

• People could go to saloons to use a free toilet and water for their horses.

Sports

• Many people enjoyed watching professional sports such as baseball and football.

• Some played tennis, golf, and basketball.

• They also enjoyed these sports because they involve physical exercise.

Music Entertainment

• Vaudeville and Scott Joplin’s ragtime music also provided entertainment.

Civil Service Reform

• President Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States.

• Elected in 1876, tried to fire people who were given job because they supported the political party. – This was known as the

spoils system, a system were government jobs are handed out to the friends of the president and political party.

Republican Party Divided

Halfbreeds• They did not like the

spoil system • Nominated James A.

Garfield for president in 1880.

Stalwarts• They liked the spoil

system• Nominated Chester A.

Arthur for Vice-President in 1880.

Mugwumps

• Mugwumps, Republicans who supported Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, for president

Republican Win

• James A Garfield becomes the 20th President of the United States

• President Garfield was shot and killed by someone seeking a job under the spoil system.

Reaction to the Spoil System

• People were upset with the assassination of President Garfield.

• In 1883, Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which required some government jobs to be filled by competitive written examination.

Interstate Commerce Commission

• Americans were concerned by the power of large corporations, especially small businesses and farmers were angry at the railroads.

• Corporations such as Standard Oil able to negotiate rebates from the railroads because they shipped a large volume of goods.

• Both parties did not want to interfere with business.

• State legislatures began regulating businesses (railroad).– Supreme court ruled that

individual states could not regulate businesses.

• Public pressure forced Congress to create the Interstate Commerce Commission which made it illegal to charge prices to different consumers.

Republicans Gain Control

McKinley Tariff• William McKinley (from Ohio)• Pushed through a bill that cut tobacco

taxes and sugar tariffs rates.• Increased tariffs on imported goods.• The McKinley Tariff was suppose to

protect American industry from foreign competition but triggered a rise in prices for all goods.

Social Gospel

• A movement that tried for better conditions in cities according to the biblical ideals if charity and justice.

• This movement inspired many churches to take on new community functions like building gyms and providing child care.

Salvation Army and YMCA

• Salvation Army offered practical aid and religious counseling to the urban poor.

• YMCA helped industrial workers and urban poor by organizing bible studies, citizenship training, and group activities.– YMCA offered libraries, gyms, and low-cost

hotel rooms on a temporary basis to those who needed it.

Settlement House

• In the late 1800s, many college-educated women established settlement houses in poor, immigrant neighborhoods.

• Settlement houses were community centers where reformers lived and offered medical care, English classes, and recreation programs.

• Jane Adams opened the Hull House in Chicago in 1889.

Public Education

• After the Civil War, the number of children attending public schools increased.

• Public schools were important because:– Industrial workers needed to be educated.– Important to the success of immigrant children to learn

English.– Introduces discipline, neatness, and and a strong work

ethic.

• Not everyone attended, those living in rural areas did not attend school as much as in urban areas, African American children also did not have as much equal access to education.