Gilded Age Essay

Remembered as an era in American history characterized by great prosperity and industrial growth, the three decades following the Civil War have often been referred to as “The Gilded Age,” so called in part because of the 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner entitled The Gilded Age. The satirical novel, written in just a few months and intended as a caricature of the era, describes what the authors viewed as the greed and hypocrisy of American society and the folly of countless numbers of ordinary citizens who firmly believed that some magical scheme would lead them to riches. As articulated by Twain and Warner, the term “Gilded Age” refers primarily to the middle-class experience of the time, an experience typified by what author Thorstein Veblen called “conspicuous consumption”—of dress, home décor, and all material goods which were considered signs of “good taste.” Along with the increased aestheticism of the age, and perhaps in direct response to it, developed more self-conscious literary criticism and realism.

The Gilded Age was characterized most significantly by the rapid industrialization that transformed the country from a primarily rural and agriculturally-based republic whose citizens for the most part shared a belief in God, into an industrial and urbanized nation whose values were changing rapidly due, in part, to increased wealth and to the ramifications of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller and steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie—both of whom virtually monopolized their respective industries—symbolized both the “self-made man” and the spirit of acquisition that dominated the late nineteenth century. This “spirit” is what Twain and Warner criticized in The Gilded Age, drawing attention to the artificial standards of taste attributed to the growing American bourgeoisie. As individual income levels increased due to such factors as improved communications resulting from the introduction of the telephone, technological innovations such as electricity, and rapid transportation via the new transcontinental railroads, many individuals—the “new rich”—could afford to indulge in finer clothing (which had become cheaper and more accessible), home decorations (which were mass-produced), and leisure activities that would previously have been considered impractical. The steam engine, the railroads, and the industrial boom following the Civil War years produced the country's first moguls and monopolies and created a collective dream both at home and abroad of self-made fortunes and streets “lined with gold.”

But all that glittered was not gold. Economic change came unpredictably. In 1873-78, 1883-85, and again in 1893-97, the nation experienced serious economic depressions. African-Americans, betrayed by the false promises of Reconstruction, were subjugated in new and more subtle ways. Black Americans in the South were subject to Jim Crow laws (legal segregation sanctioned by the Supreme Court). These laws were often enforced with violent methods involving torture and lynchings. The North, too, was not entirely committed to racial equality: blacks there were typically relegated to subservient and subordinate roles. Critic James H. Dormon, studying the “coon song craze” of the late nineteenth century, has found that these immensely popular songs, which depicted stereotypical caricatures of black Americans, reflected the nationwide feeling that blacks should be held in subordinate and segregated positions in society. According to Dormon, these songs rationalized white America's perception of blacks not only as silly buffoons, but also as dangers to the existing social structure. Black Americans were not the only ones to suffer hardships during this period; many farmers lost their holdings as railroads and new machinery lowered their crop prices. Cities became crowded with immigrants eager to succeed but whose only real opportunity was to provide an endless supply of cheap labor. In

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