Gilded Age DBQ Essay

As the industrial revolution progressed into the Gilded Age, life changed a lot for those in the marginalized populations. Working conditions worsened, women in the workforce increased, and wealthy people believed they were above everyone else. Wealth created huge problems for the marginalized populations due to their bad working conditions which included health risks, little pay, and long hours. The number of factories were increasing so fast that the manufacturers started to disregard their workers. During the Gilded Age, many rich people believed that they had superiority over poor people. Andrew Carnegie especially believed this. He believed that people should be wealthier than others and rich people are superior to poorer people and

Carnegie believes that, because they are richer and have more money, they should have the highest of all things possible. For example, they should have the nicest clothing and the biggest house with the most extravagant furnishings. However, this did present problems when it came to the poorer people. Document 7 showed a cartoon. The characters in the cartoon were portraying two different things. The characters holding the structure up were workers and the characters on top of the boat were rich people. The rich people had comfort, they made money off the backs of the workers while the workers had to feel the weight of only getting $6 to $11 a week and still having to provide for their families. The workers were used for the benefit of the richer people who made money off the work the poor people did. Workers were seen less as people and more as worker bees. The author of the cartoon is most likely stating that wealthy people earned money on top of other

During the Gilded Age, people went more for speed rather than quality. The Gilded age was a time all about moving into more factories and less farming. An sph.edu text says, “Working conditions were difficult and exposed employees to many risks and dangers, including cramped work areas with poor ventilation, trauma from machinery, toxic exposures to heavy metals, dust, and solvents.” Workers were constantly exposed to health risk situations due to their working environments. This was mainly because the factory owners cared more about the money they would make from creating factories at a faster rate than the health of their workers. They cared a lot about improving their economy rather than improving the environment that was there long before they ever came to America. Document 9 shows a photo of a factory. The environment around it looks awful. It looks trashy with the wood scraps scattered about and the air looks so polluted, you can’t even see very far into the distance. The area also looks so degraded. It’s clear that no one tried at all to sustain a healthy environment. The sawmill in the background looks like it’s putting out everything you wouldn’t want to breathe in. The sawmill is certainly having a very negative impact on the environment. Based on the outside looks of the sawmill, it can be inferred that the inside working conditions of the factory are just as