Essay On Social Class During The Gilded Age

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Kailey Durnez History 132 Dr. Liles During the gilded age it was a time when individual freedom and governmental regulations meant differently from those of upper and middle class to working class. The differences these social classes faced were mainly due to the wealthy of the people. Upper and middle class consisted of wealthy doctors and lawyers as the working class consisted of factory workers who could barely put food on the table. The upper and middle class believed in social Darwinism, as the working class had denied social Darwinism. The upper and middle class accepts Social Darwinism theory as it is known for being the evolution of nature, in other words natural selection. With social Darwinism it was known that the weak had to be …show more content…

During the Gilded age it was important for the men from generation to generations to have this power to keep their family powerful. “Especially misguided, in this view were efforts to uplift those from the bottom of the social order, such as laws regulating condition of work or public assistance to the poor” (Voices of Freedom, 32). By the upper and middle class being the top of the social order they feel as if the governmental regulations will try to cater to the poor so they can rise. They feel as if the working class does not work as hard for their money, and they don’t deserve to be brought up on the social order. “We shall thus lesson the inequalities. We shall favor the survival of the unfittest and we shall accomplish this by destroying liberty” (Voices of freedom 35). With this quote it states that with government regulations and the individual freedom they do not combine due to the Social Darwinism they follow. They have the feeling that is this were to continue that there would be no social order and to be able to continue this social class they …show more content…

The working class almost feels the opposite about how the upper and middle class feel such as they agree with have regulations on working wages and other things like that because they are the class that is working hard for their money and doing everything they can to support their family. “Not all Americans adhere to the social Darwinism definition theory of liberty as frank accepted of social inequalities in an unregulated market” (Voice of Freedom, 36). As the upper and middle class accepts Darwinism as being the proper way to run a country it is because they are not they ones to be working in the conditions the working class is and the working class believes that having and “unregulated market” would bring the country not success. “For it is true that laborers ought to have as little as possible of the wealth they produce, South Carolina slaveholders were right and the Massachusetts abolitionists were wrong. Because, when the working classes are denied everything but the barest necessities of life, they have no decent use for liberty” (Voices of Freedom, 37). With the working class being compared to slaves it could be possible to have the advantage that the upper and middle class wants to destroy the use of liberty. But in such… “Resolved, that while the fourth of July was heralded a hundred years ago in the name of liberty, we

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