Gilded Age Essay

The Gilded Age was to describe America in the late nineteenth century. The outside of the US seemed glamorous and splendid alongside industrial development and massive economic growth. However, the dark sides were hidden beneath it.

In my perspective, I believe we are living in the 2nd Gilded age. Here are four reasons why.

Initially, wealth concentration and inequality were severe problems and are still now. Back then in 1870-1900, it was a period of wealth concentrated by many “Captains of Industry”. Social Darwinism were used to justify the extremes of wealth, meaning that only the economically fittest could survive and thrive. Similarly, the era we are currently living in is where massive amount of money is concentrated in very few people’s

The Industrial Revolution witnessed the evolution of large urban centers, such as Boston and New York City. It changed society from agrarian to mechanical, which further moved jobs to larger cities. As every coin has two sides, there are negative sides to this. Primarily, it caused severe pollution. The environment condition was bad with smokes surrounding them. The release of harmful gases into the air from factories pollutes the world 's air, doing harm to the environment, further leading to global warming. Then, though it did boost many job opportunities, the living condition of the workers during the industrialization were poor. Company towns owned by business were rented out to employees. The owners forced them to live in isolated communities near workshops and forced them to buy goods with high interests. The cities were poorly constructed and crowded with people and residents. The work was also dangerous with not much supervising by the government.Workers, on the other hand, had little or even no bargaining power to leave the unsafe conditions. Nowadays, When Americans only pay attention when extreme work strike, levels of abuse are the norm hidden in the factories around the globe. Although the condition seems much improved, consumers don’t know the true fact- “Today, American citizens simply cannot know the working conditions of the factories that make the products they buy. We cannot know how the chemicals, tools, and technologies in these workplaces affect workers.”(In the Global Apparel Industry, Abusive and Deadly Working Conditions Are Still the Norm)-many workers have to inhale harmful gases, face dangerous situation everyday. More, reports indicate that women make up the vast majority of the workforce, but men make up the supervisors, which is the same as what happened in the Gilded Age. “The darker side of the growing population in cities was racial tension and