Gilded Age Dbq Essay

It’s hard to truly say whether growth in the late 19th century was good. It gave rise to a new era of industrialization, and ushered in a new, globalised society. It also toppled the old notion of the American Dream, and drew to question what words like freedom and equality truly meant. It put power in the hands of the wealthy and took freedom from the disadvantaged. A new system of power was borne unto the world, one where money is power, and power is freedom. The eternal words of Mark Twain made this era the “Gilded Age” for a reason: Society changed for the worse in those years, and the strife of the many was concealed by the Bentleys of the few. As shown by document 1 of section 2, the land grant to the Union Pacific Railroad Company,

Most homesteaders returned home to large cities shortly after setting up their homesteads. Even with the promise of almost free land, people left their homesteads. Most were not cut out for the constant assault on them and their way of life. They moved back to New York, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, and many other places. The document did influence the culture and population of the Midwest, but did not nullify the growth in the urban population of America. The act only drew people to the Midwest for a temporary period. The population of the west looked like a map of cell coverage, with a lot of people in the East and California, but not much out West, where most of the homesteaders went. The document failed in its objective of populating the west, as shown in document 1 of section 3. The bulk of people who moved to cities held manufacturing jobs, as shown in document 2 of section 3, and almost none of them held agricultural jobs, which they most likely would had they been/stayed in a homestead. It was an utter failure. It is just one desperate example of many failed pieces of legislation made to draw people to the West. The government failed in its goal of bringing people to the west, and could not stop the growth of the population