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For industrial workers in Gilded Age America
Workers freedom during the Gilded Age
Industrial laborers faced during the Gilded Age
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The inability for the working class laborers to achieve a means of prosperity can be primary attributed to unusual structure of American Politics in the United States during the Gilded Age. This is seen through the discrepancies associated with the working class, labor unions, local and state politics, and national politics. This struggle was augmented by the mere notion that it was difficult to transcribe local labor interests into a national power. Often we see the competing fronts crash to produce ineffective and meaningful policy. Accounting for the diversified interests amalgamated into a water-down version of politics used to resolve inequality differences. This is evident in The Jungle as Jurgis sifts through labor unions, local political …show more content…
Immigrant workers, who arrived in American with the promise of the American Dream, were quickly disillusioned by the inescapable caste system known as wage slavery. Jurgis arrives in American will his philosophy that he can work his way success, often saying “I will work harder” whenever an issue arises. As he acclimates to the conditions and life in Packingtown, he becomes a prisoner of the capitalist system. He realizes how workers and constrained by long hours, sickeness, and injuries—leaving no time to pursue other endeavors or dreams. It soon transforms from a means on improvement to a meals of survival. Jurgis begins to take each day as it comes, tryignt o provide food and shelter for his family. The lack of politcla protections enables workers to be constantly subjected into a state of poverty and oppression, “The family had nothing to do buy give up and submit to one more misery for the rest of their days…” (Sinclair …show more content…
Thus although Jurgis underwent all the toil and hardship, perhaps his son would live a better life because of it. This dream is shared by many during the Gilded Age. When they first arrive, only the adults seek employment, reasoning that their kids should get an education and improve their socioeconomic status; however, after only a short time, Jurgis insists that Stanislovas get a job to help support the family. This represents the fact that generation and generation will continue to perpecuate the inescapable cycle of poverty. One’s children will be immersed into the system of wage-slavery and so will the children’s children and so
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”, three common goals immigrants came to America seeking with hopes of the promise to prosper and gain success. However, during the Gilded Age it seemed as though these were attainable only for the select few, while others left the land they knew to spend their lives toiling away in pursuit of the American dream, many never understanding how unattainable it really was. While the Gilded Age was a time of an industrial boom and a growing economy, those working by the sweat of their brow to make the success of this time possible, were not actually ever grasping this wealth, but rather putting right back into the pockets of the wealthy. The Gilded Age compromised the American Dream by limiting the chances of the immigrant working class, and thus creating a cycle of missed opportunities keeping the immigrants from progressing much further then when they came to America to begin with.
After the Civil War, business and corporations have expanded significantly throughout the United States. During this time period, known as the Gilded Age, many aspects of the United States were influenced by these large corporations. The Gilded Age was given that name after Mark Twain referenced it in one of his works. In the post Civil War period, big businesses governed by corrupt acts and held power of both the political system and the economy.
The period of time running from the 1890’s through the early 1930’s is often referred to as the “Progressive Era.” It was a time where names such as J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould and John D. Rockefeller stood for the progress of America and their great contributions to American industry and innovation. This chapter however, has a much darker side. Deplorable working conditions, rampant political corruption and power hungry monopolies and trusts threatened the working class of America and the steady influx of European immigrants hoping to make a better life for themselves and their families. What started as a grass-roots movement pushing for political reform at the local and municipal levels soon began to encompass
When arriving to America the family sees the real way that the people live in the city and immediately know it is not the life they thought it would be. When arriving to the city Jurgis says, “Tomorrow, I will get a job, and perhaps Jonas will get one also; and then we can get a place of our own”(Sinclair 35). Jurgis arrives to america with an eagerness to find work to support his family which becomes more and more difficult for him as the story goes on. The constant bad luck that happens to Jurgis is later connected to the faults of capitalism and how corrupt it is for the working class in this society. Soon Jurgis could not support his family on his own and eventually the entire family needs to get a job to pay for their costs. Sinclair builds sympathy for Jurgis and his family throughout the beginning of the novel but also depicts the poverty of the working class and how they are equally struggling to make a living.
Foreigners, who were uneducated about America’s customs, were unable to find jobs or prevent swindlers from causing their already insufficient wealth to subside. Because of this, Jurgis and his family’s economic and social lives have changed drastically. For instance, in Lithuania, Jurgis and his family had many friends and, therefore, were well-respected in their community.... ... middle of paper ...
The Gilded Age was the last three decades of the nineteenth century, when America’s industrial economy exploded generating opportunities for individuals but also left many workers struggling for survival. With the many immigrants, skilled and unskilled, coming to America the labor system is becoming flooded with new employees. During this period, the immigrants, including the Italians, were unskilled and the skilled workers were usually American-born. There was also a divide in the workers and the robber barons. Robber barons were American capitalist who acquired great fortunes in the last nineteenth century, usually ruthlessly. There was much turmoil throughout the business and labor community. Two major organizations, the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, helped represent the workers in this time of chaos. The Knights of Labor, founded in 1869, were representing both skilled and unskilled workers. They were quite popular with a large boost in membership becoming the biggest union in 1885. They sought for equal pay and equal work. All were welcomed to the Knights of Labor; there was no discrimination on race, gender, or sex. They called for an eight-hour day in order to reduce fatigue and for safety issues. The Knights of Labor Declaration of Principles states their purpose is to “make industrial and moral worth, not wealth” (Reading 9, p. 1). This means the moral worth is to what they could contribute to society rather than monetary gains. They were working towards this improvement of the common mans life to advance in civilization and create new ideas for society. They also called upon the employer to treat the employee with respect and fairness so they can contribute to not only their company but to Amer...
The Gilded Age gets its name from a book by Mark Twain called The Gilded Age: a Tale of Today. It was written in 1873, and unfortunately was not that successful. While the Gilded Age conjures up visions of ostentatious displays of wealth and decorative parties, the over all topic was politics. The book gives an extremely negative assessment of the state of American democracy at that time. Which does not come as a huge surprise coming from Twain, who famously said "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” So when faced with sweeping changes in the American economy after the Civil War, the American political system both nationally and locally dealt with these problems in the best way possible, by inevitably and incredibly becoming corrupt.
The life of an immigrant in the United States during the Gilded Age was a rough life. During this time period the U.S. went through a dramatic change in dealing with changing infrastructure and masses of people coming over from different countries for a chance at a better life. This time period was characterized by small wage jobs, poor working conditions and the struggle to survive. The Jungle embodies the themes of the Gilded Age with first hand experiences of an immigrant's hardships of life.
Beginning in the late 1700’s and growing rapidly even today, labor unions form the backbone for the American workforce and continue to fight for the common interests of workers around the country. As we look at the history of these unions, we see powerful individuals such as Terrence Powderly, Samuel Gompers, and Eugene Debs rise up as leaders in a newfound movement that protected the rights of the common worker and ensured better wages, more reasonable hours, and safer working conditions for those people (History). The rise of these labor unions also warranted new legislation that would protect against child labor in factories and give health benefits to workers who were either retired or injured, but everyone was not on board with the idea of foundations working to protect the interests of the common worker. Conflict with their industries lead to many strikes across the country in the coal, steel, and railroad industries, and several of these would ultimately end up leading to bloodshed. However, the existence of labor unions in the United States and their influence on their respective industries still resonates today, and many of our modern ideals that we have today carry over from what these labor unions fought for during through the Industrial Revolution.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, labor activists, progressive reformers, and politicians of various stripes focused the public’s attention on the plight of the working class, which included many recent immigrants. During this time America was facing growing inequalities in wealth, where a disproportionately large amount of the wealth was in the hands of the elite class while the much larger working class was left with a much smaller proportion of wealth . In addition to the large disparity in wealth between classes, workers were often facing excruciating conditions in the workplace. It was not uncommon for workers to work 12-hour days, 7 days a week to earn a meager wage, which barely supported their life in the horrendous
Focusing mainly on urban sharecropping in sweatshops in Jew town and cigar making factories, the people there were forced to work for low wages in poor conditions, in their homes where their employer was also their landlord. Riis describes this activity in the form of “slavery as real as any that ever disgraced the south.” In conditions such as these it is hard for the poor to ever make anything of themselves and overcome their disadvantages. Riis even goes further and compares the landlords of tenements to The Czar of all Russia. He points the finger at them metaphorically comparing the situation to a color line where “The landlord does the drawing, does it with an absence of pretense, a frankness of despotism that is nothing if not
Coined the “Age of Synergy,” the Gilded Age bequeathed a great many improvements to the daily lives of American consumers, as the industrial leaders themselves came to redefine most aspects of American society. Everything from the urbanization of the American landscape to the diversification of the job market were somehow related to the wealth and innovativeness of the nation’s industrial leaders. Perhaps the most obvious social impact of the Industrial leaders was the affordability of consumer goods, spurred on by their practice of monopolization and mass-production. A decline in prices meant that the average American citizen could now afford material goods, accessories, etc, having greater accessibility to products. However, by far the most
Poverty to the majority of people of the Gilded Age was a way of life, working long shifts with little pay. When looking in to poverty from the outside there is a few ways to interpret the “why” people have fallen into the pit of scarcity. William Graham Sumner the author of “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other” makes the argument that lower class people basically are choosing to be poor by not trying their best to succeed and blaming their problems on the wealthy. On the other hand Philip S. Foner the author of “We the Other People” argues that the wealthy has taken the freedom of the poor by making them work for long hours for little to nothing. The underline of both sources is that, there is a type of mutualism between the rich and the
The novel focuses on the negative aspects of capitalism and sheds a positive light on communism. Steinbeck proves that there are many problems in capitalism with the way the migrants suffered during the era of the Great Depression. The economic slump, which many people assume affected the urban populations, was even harsher on the migrants. Steinbeck, throughout his novel, reveals the plight of the migrant workers during the Depression and how capitalism has crushed them. He reaches out to his readers and plants the idea that the glorified capitalism in America is not what it seems, and that any path, even communism, is preferable.
America has gone through different economical phases, especially when one of the big issues is the working class and the conditions that the working class faced. The most rigorous and grueling conditions were brought about in the era of 1870-1920. At this time the make up to the working class shifted drastically, the work expectation was not possible, and the working conditions were horrendous. The world of the ‘working class’ thus changed drastically.