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How Did The Gilded Age Affect The Economy During The Gilded Age

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Mike Kerstens U.S. History CP 01/22/2015 Rough Draft Junior Thesis. From Gilded age to progressive era; The Gilded age was one of the darkest times in the U.S. for many of the working class. The working conditions in the factories, mills, and mines were unsafe, unhealthy, and unorganized due to industry being left alone by the government, similar to the separation of church and state. Big business owners and corporation heads like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan could and would do almost anything to acquire unimaginable levels of wealth. These men had children working for them starting at the age of six years old, and paid their workers the minimum wage that they accepted to work for. Not only did these corporate …show more content…

They imposed their will on the sellers of everyday goods to gain more control of all facets of the economy. It got to the point where only a few immensely powerful people owned almost all of the industry in the U.S. which meant they could choose whatever price they wanted for their products because people had no other choice but to buy from them. After years of this the people finally had enough and strikes erupted all over the U.S. the people demanded change. Because of this reporters started unveiling what the working conditions were like and a chain reaction happened. All of a sudden everyone cared about something most people did not even notice. Unions started to erupt to protect the working classes rights and demanded rules to be set for working conditions and wages. The strikes and unions worked and corporation heads agreed to a 5-10% increase in wages and child labor under 14 was prohibited also because women had to care of the children that could not work they faced less hours so they could go home and provide care for her family. After Roosevelt got elected president he was focused on improving the quality of life for the working class and regulating big business. Because of his wealth and his big range of business J.P. Morgan did not agree with …show more content…

After journalist Upton Sinclair released his book “The Jungle” which describes the working conditions and their horrors, “There would be meat that would had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust. There would be meat stored in great piles in the rooms, and thousands of rats would race about on it. A man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats” (paragraph from the novel “The Jungle”). This made Roosevelt sick and he invited Sinclair to visit him in the White House. Roosevelt told Sinclair “The specific evils you point out shall, if their existence be proved, and if i have the power, be eradicated”.-Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt really started making changes when big business price fixing started, when they would make other small businesses go out of business by lowering the prices then buying them when they would go bankrupt and then jacking up the prices again. After this went on for a while the workers got sick of it and over 100,000 workers went on strike and demanded 20% increase in wages, 9 hour work days and all workers to be associated with a union. After 5 months of intense strike Roosevelt made them come to an agreement and gave them most of their demands. After this everything was different, from now on whenever a strike happened

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