Between 1865 and 1920, the United States became the world's leading industrial capitalist nation. Two principal obstacles blocked the way, each of them arising from capitalism itself, a growing working class which increasingly insisted on sharing the fruits of industrial production and competition among existing firms.
The United States government was keen on helping emerging industries as these industries help stabilize the economy. These industries slowly turned into monopolies by removing existing competition. Monopolies set prices at a level that would earn profits, but not so high as to antagonize customers. Monopolies amassed large amounts of wealth because they commanded the price of the goods they were selling. Two of the most significant
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On the other hand, Rockefeller was known because of his horizontal integration of monopolies. He was a strong supporter of the theory of social darwinism. He believed that the stronger person should thrive. All of these monopolies exploited humans and made them work under real bad conditions. They were given little to no importance and were considered mere work machines. Child Labor was a dominant issue in this period as human capital was harder to get, industries started to focus its attention on immigrants as well as children who would do the work for less cost and thus increasing the company’s profits. This created a need for awareness on child labour and human exploitation.Women’s suffrage movement was another incident which caused a huge impact on the history of the United States. These issues gave rise to labor unions like the Knights of labor which was formed in 1869. These unions put pressure on the government to pass laws to protect the rights of workers. There were many other evil practices which crept into the industrial sector because of the government's regulation free approach towards large businesses. These evil practices were