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Compare And Contrast The Gilded And Progressive Era

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All throughout history there have been divisions between different races and classes. However, during the Gilded and Progressive eras, this rift heightened. The Gilded Age was a time of industrial growth which brought new technologies, businesses, and more. However, this age also brought inequality and division among races and classes, a result of the economic disparity created by a technologically growing society. The Progressive era was a time of reform to make social changes in hopes of repairing the divided nation. The Gilded Age and Progressive era were filled with division regarding race and class, this strife was prompted both by post Civil War racial attitudes and industrialization, which intensified inequality. This division …show more content…

Big businesses boomed during this era, however, in business owners efforts to produce more money the working class suffered from unfair wages and working conditions. In Nash’s findings, he reported, “In 1890, the top 1 percent of American families possessed over a quarter of the wealth, and the top 10 percent of American families possessed over a quarter of the wealth, … But wages for the unskilled increased by only 31 percent- a substantial differential that widened as the century drew to a close” (407). Through the economic disparities between classes, it caused unworkable working conditions and unsanitary living conditions. Unskilled workers were often responsible for hard labor jobs, many men worked in coal mines, factories, farms and more. Despite these harsh working conditions workers received minimal wages, resorting themselves and their families to live in tenement houses, crowded, unclean, and disease-ridden housing units. This was the price of class inequality, poverty, unclean working conditions, and backbreaking work all for minimal pay so big businesses could make a

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