Political Corruption In The Gilded Age

Corruption in the political sphere has been a dominant issue throughout American history, with countless politicians and groups of high-ranking authorities participating in nefarious activities to achieve more economic, political, or social prosperity. This idea of corruption, while it can be argued that it was present in some form before the late 1800s, first started to take hold during a period known as the Gilded Age, which spanned from 1876-1896. This period was known as the Gilded Age because of the massive amounts of development occurring in America at the time, however, similar to an object that appears gilded that appears positive on the outside, this facade of growth and development was under shadowed by massive amounts of corruption

Political corruption has been an issue in America that has persisted for over 200 years, and instead of fixing the issue, the problem has become a modern-day crisis, with political corruption in the 21st century being harder to find and easier to cover up, more exploitative than found in the Gilded Age, and while not as common as in the late 19th century, much more deep-seated and arguably, a bigger problem than it was in the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age is known by historians as the most politically unstable and corrupted period throughout all of United States history, rampant with numerous scandals and monopolies that caused outrage in the public sphere. To express this outrage, people created stories in newspapers exposing problems found in society to raise awareness and advocate for change toward a better society, these people were known as muckrakers. Muckrakers played an integral role in society during this period, as not only did they provide insight into the nature of issues such as political corruption and monopolies, but they also showed the extent

Even while there might not be as much public eye on corruption as during a time when muckrakers ran rampant attempting to find issues in society, corruption has become a deep rooted problem of the American Identity that is more than likely not going to disappear in the future unless the government focuses on removing the corruption that already exists rather than trying to mitigate losses for the