Ethical Issues In The Gilded Age

Many new occurrences happened during the mid to late 18th century, the time period from 1861–1900, specifically. America went through many changes and the people had many conflicting ideals, one being the Civil War from 1861–1865. As seen in America’s history, ethical issues seem to always arise, including the time known as the Gilded Age, which occurred 5 years after the Civil War. This era was soon seen as a time of exponential prosperity and economic boom bringing advancements in technology, extensive population growth, and jobs. Although this seemed to be a time of enlightenment, discrimination, poor working conditions, and low pay accompanied it. From these aspects came the term, “ the Gilded Age.” This name was first coined by Mark Twain,

Due to there not being a need in skilled workers, manufacturers took advantage of the influx of immigrants. For Carnegie and other industrial leaders, immigrants were paid poorly. As of today, one may debate that,"those who extol the achievements of industrial moguls like Andrew Carnegie ought to spend at least a little time considering the role of workers, immigrant and native-born, who created the wealth that entrepreneurs amassed.”(Change or Continuity) This is due to the fact that the people like Carnegie would not have been in their position if there weren’t any workers. This goes to show that wealth can change a person’s outlook on life. Carnegie was once an immigrant in the search for money; therefore, one would believe that he would treat new immigrants with respect due to the fact that he was once in their shoes, but that wasn’t the case. Additionally, the working conditions of the working force were dreadful and this had partly to due with the discrimination of immigrants. Many Americans believed that immigrants were unsanitary and not pure; therefore, some believed that their living space and working condition should be unsanitary. This, of course, was hazardous to human health and could have proved detrimental. This was also due to the advancement in technology creating bulky unsafe machinery paired with the inexperience and little teaching of how to use the

Although this was disapproved by the American society, children of all races were still working for their families to get by. Contrary to this fact, “Progressive Era reformers blamed the high number of children working in factories on the "peasants" from southern Europe who did not know civilized U.S. culture.”(Working Class and Industrial Communities) Whenever there was a problem in American society, people would often blame the immigrants. Due to the increase in population, especially in well known cities, there was an increase in crime rate. A rational person would blame the people who commited the crimes, but blood born Americans still continued to blame immigrants. Immigrants came to America to better their lives, but ended up being discriminated due to their heritage, resulting into the belief that the Gilded Age was a time of discrimination and