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Social changes in the industrial revolution
Changes in society during the Gilded Age
Social changes in the industrial revolution
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During the 19th and 20th century the divide between the rich and the poor grew immensely. The reason behind such an extensive gap was the expansion of industrialization and immigration. Thousands of immigrants came to American during the late 19th century and early 20th century looking for work and religious freedom. Many immigrants soon found work in factories and on railroads. immigrants worked in dangerous environments and performed labor intensive tasks without much pay. This caused for wealthy factory owners to make huge profits hence the huge gap between rich and poor. Events also played a huge part in the socioeconomic gap such as the Panic of 1873, which was caused by the over-enterprising of factories and railroads. This made debts
The U.S. has the highest income gap between the wealthiest and poorest in the industrial world, which is approximately 12 to 1. In 2004, the affluent experienced a wage increase by 12%, whereas the 99% of average income makers saw an increase of 1%.
The inequalities in America during the gilded age came from an unequal distribution of wealth, leaving only a small percentage of individuals with riches while the rest suffered in poverty even with constant overproduction of everyday necessities. People argued that social darwinism would chose who was meant to be rich and the survival of the fittest would deem who was better than the rest. From 1870-1895, journalists and critics dismantled the inequality during the period and some offer their own solutions.
If you have ever read the book 1984 by George Orwell, then an interesting topic may have crossed your mind. The way the classes of people break down can be quite similar, and very different at times. In the United States, we have classes like the lower class, the working class, and the middle class. In 1984, there were such classes as the Proles, the Outer Party, and the Inner Party. The way the classes are broken down in 1984 reminds me a little bit of my old history class. When I studied medieval times and the classes back then were broken down into the nobles, the bourgeois, and the serfs.
The view on the wealthy in the society was different from one person to another and this actually led to publications and criticisms one after another. Actually the discovery of new economic opportunities made United States to be viewed as a land of economic glory and prosperity. This in turn attracted more people from different parts of the world. Ironically, some of the optimistic immigrants got overly involved relentless poverty and had to struggle for cont...
Throughout the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, the United States economy changed dramatically as the country transformed from a rural agricultural nation to an urban industrial gian, becoming the leading manufacturing country in the world. The vast expansion of the railroads in the late 1800s’ changed the early American economy by tying the country together into one national market. The railroads provided tremendous economic growth because it provided a massive market for transporting goods such as steel, lumber, and oil. Although the first railroads were extremely successful, the attempt to finance new railroads originally failed. Perhaps the greatest physical feat late 19th century America was the creation of the transcontinental railroad. The Central Pacific Company, starting in San Francisco, and the new competitor, Union Pacific, starting in Omaha. The two companies slaved away crossing mountains, digging tunnels, and laying track the entire way. Both railroads met at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869, and drove one last golden spike into the completed railway. Of course the expansion of railroads wasn’t the only change being made. Another change in the economy was immigration.
During the industrializing era in the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century, unskilled laborers and skilled blue-collar men struggled to even put food on their tables; the emerging middle class struggled greatly as well, but had little trouble feeding themselves in this time period. It was the wealthy elite who prospered in this period, dining and living lavishly. Labor leaders and reformers tried to used many tactics to persuade prosperous Americans to concern themselves with the issues of the day; the main tactic used was the manipulation of emotion to get others to join the reformers’ cause. This trend was part of a greater global pattern of economic insecurity in the United States, which only heightened during the Great Depression in the decades to come.
With the rise of big business and industrialization came several problems associated with the economic boom. The rich were getting richer. The poor were getting poorer. The gap between the "haves" and the "have nots
The dramatic price level decrease in the late 19th century, which is closely related to the “Panic of 1873 and 1893”, caused a major inequity in the national economy. During this depression unemployment skyrocketed, stock prices fell, thousands of businesses, banks, railroads and farms ceased operation, leaving thousands of people poor and on the brink of starvation. This is also a popular time for soup kitchens, prostitution.
As a nation coming out of a devastating war, America faced many changes in the 1920s. It was a decade of growth and improvements. It was also a decade of great economic and political confidence. However, with all the changes comes opposition. Social and cultural fears still caused dichotomous rifts in American society.
In the 1920fs, because of the separation of the rich and the poor, there were separate social classes and with that came conflict between the classes.
Throughout American history, wealth inequality has taken many different forms, and has affected many people and groups in different ways. In the following analysis, two measures of 'wealth inequalities' will be used. First is a more traditional view, regarding the distribution of income and wealth among the upper to lower classes. The size of the gap has varied over time, widening and compressing throughout American history. While America has been thought of as a middle class nation, this is a fairly recent phenomena that began after World War II. In this context of today, this idea appears to be fading as wealth is becoming more concentrated towards the upper classes. Additionally, these effects of both the concentration and equalization of income distribution can differently affect groups of people.
In the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, big business began to boom. For the first time, companies were developing large factories to manufacture their goods. Due to the new mechanics and cheap labor, factory owners can now produce their goods at a cheaper rate. As big businesses brought wealth and capitalism, it also widened the gap between the wealthy elite and the poor. One class in particular was horribly affected by the growth of big factories.
In closing, at the close of the 19th century government spending on public goods and services was minimal, resulting in growing disparity between the new upper class and the working class. Some wealthy people, such as Andrew Carnagie, felt that it was their responsibility to bridge this gap. Others utilized social Darwinism to justify the widening gap between upper and working classes. Both theories failed to meet the needs of an expanding working class in an era of increasing disparity and oppression masked by unprecedented economic growth known as the Gilded Age.
There were many public owned capital, which meant that the government controlled the means of production. The economy was now based more on industrial production instead of agricultural. The wealth was more with the government than with individual powerful elites of the nineteenth-century; moreover, the government distributes the goods and services evenly to the nation’s citizen’s by giving one a credit card to purchase what they need. Ultimately, the government is doing this to manage the nation’s wealth; however, this helped give citizens an improvement on their standard of living and an increase in personal freedom. As a matter of fact, everyone received a college-level education so that people were allowed to retire at the age of forty-five now from the career that they chose. However, in the nineteenth-century, only the wealthy received an education and social immobility was a big problem. This meant that many people in the United Sates were unskilled due to lack of access, so the poor worked any job they could so they would not starve. In the twentieth century, there were not people suffering from poverty and hunger because people helped one another avoid that because everyone was required to perform the same amount of labor as their duty towards the common
In the world today there is a lot of poverty. There is a great divide