Gilded Age Dbq

The Gilded Age started as the reconstruction era in the United States, which meant the rebuilding of a broken nation. This was a time when a white supremacist view was the only right way to see the economic, political and social standpoints in the country. It later was labeled as the Gilded Age because there were so many issues that had to be covered up and could not be fixed. The term gilded means to cover with thin gold leaf, which is pretty much what they tried to do. During this time there was a rapid expansion of industrial growth, railroads began to become of high interest, and the wages in the north started rising. The term “Gilded Age” was criticised in the 19th century from the setbacks the economy faced because tribalism was being

Tribalism is the practice of being a loyal member of a tribe and following the behaviors of the specific group. The Indians began to be attacked for their land because of the Dawes Act. This Act was introduced in 1887 and named after the senator of Massachusetts, Henry L. Dawes. This made it so the government could gain access into the Indian reservations and make them become American citizens. Their land was being taken away from them and being sold to the whites, this making it so the Indians had to drop their old ways and adopt the life of a civilized American citizen. During this time the Indians did not only lose around sixty-two percent of their land they also lost some of their culture and traditions. The government wanted it to look like they were just trying to help make the Indians citizens just like everyone else when they were really just making room for more whites and American ways. Since the Indians lived in this land before anyone moved over to the United States, it shows why people had so much criticism towards the term “Gilded

There were not many unions during this time making it harder for workers to fight to get what they want and to make their labor fair. Although there were many protests and groups organized to fight it, such as, the Pullman Strike, the first May Day, the Knights of Labor, and many haymarket protests. The Pullman Strike was a group of workers who protested against the recent reduction they had in their wages. This strike hurt the national rail service because they would not use the Pullman cars on the trains. The first May Day occurred on May 1st, 1886, this protest started because many workers wanted to work 8 hour days but instead worked unfair amount of hours in one day. The Knights of Labor were a group of around 800,000 diverse workers who wanted anarchism, socialism, 8 hour work days and many other things because of the unreasonable labor. These protests made the 19th century economy look bad to other people making it easier to