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The Progressive Er The Start Of The Gilded Age

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The Progressive Era was a time of change that started in Americas’ urban settings between 1870 and the early 1890s. There were many laws passed about labor, women's rights, railroads, the food industry, politics, education, and housing. This era differed from the rest due to its attitude toward social class. For example, in the Gilded Age the upper class believed that their wealth was God given, but those who lived in poverty did so because they were immoral. With the start of the progressive era, the number of Americans living in poverty increased. Although some of the upper and more powerful citizens realized that with their stable financial situation, they had an obligation to help those in need. Although the Gilded Age was a tremendous …show more content…

The 1900 census recorded about 18.2 percent of the nation’s ten to fifteen-year-olds working. While most adult workers were underpaid, the children were grossly underpaid. Greedy business owners took advantage of children and their families that were unable to shield their children from the harsh life of labor. Before the passing of the federal legislation, many states enforced their own rules and laws about labor regulation. Most states set a minimum age for child laborers and a maximum number of hours they could work. However, these rules were followed by few, and the majority of families lied about the age of their children to ensure stable household income. Four years later, the National Child Labor Committee, or the NCLC, campaigned for federal child labor law reform. The first child labor law was passed during 1916 and was only effective until 1918. The growth of the industry has consequences for workers and their families. As the size of the working class began to grow, the industrial salaries began to decrease. The development of new transportation systems significantly lowered the cost of movement and decreased the importance of geography and

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The United States went through substantial changes during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Industries grew, and the way people lived and worked changed a lot. During this time, an important thing that happened was that the industry grew extremely fast. This made people like Andrew Carnegie and John D. extraordinarily rich and powerful. In previous years, Rockefeller was a wealthy and influential individual.

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The Gilded Age was a time of trusts, monopolies, abuse to workers, and coverture. These problems continued long enough that the attempts to fix them lead to the Progressive Era to take place. Progressivism came into effect because of the Gilded Age because it was created to fix the economy of the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age lead to the Progressive Era in many different ways, a lot of unfairness and hard times made the Progressive Era come into action.

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The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, although chronologically adjacent, were two of the most wildly different periods in American History. The Gilded Age brought forth the rise of big business thanks to laissez-faire capitalism, allowing for a handful of wealthy elites to climb to the top of the social, political, and economic food chain and steamroll everyone else in their way. Meanwhile, the Progressive Era solved some of the issues the Gilded Age created and made life in America more suitable for all types of people. The Progressive Era was different from the Gilded Age because of the work of muckrakers, the ratification of progressive Amendments, and presidential interference with big business.

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During the “Gilded Age”, America made numerous improvements to the functions and development of society. This was a time of renaissance in the United States, shortly after leaving a state of depression caused by the civil war and the reconstruction of our nation from World War I. We made break thorough advancements and improvements that allowed us to be where we are today. The “Gilded Age” was pivotal to the growth of our nation as a whole and led us to be as developed as we are. The three most important improvements to America through the “Gilded Age” were industrialization, transportation, and the appearance of wealth.

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The Gilded Age also affected many workers. The organized efforts of farmers, workers, and local reformers faced challenges in achieving substantive change. Wealthy elites and industrialists held significant power and influence, often prioritizing their own interests over those of the organized

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As Adams noticed, in order to gain enough income to support their families, children at a young age were often forced to work full day as adults under terrible working conditions, operating unguarded machines. Although former acts banning or restricting child labor had been passed, they were usually not enforced or simply ignored until 7 years later, when Keating-Owen Child Labor Bill was passed. The act banned any products from companies that employed children under the age of 14. Although this first child labor bill was short-living, it did alert the people and drew attention to the national issue of child labor. The demand of women’s suffrage caused yet another major movement during the era.

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For some the Gilded Age was a time of change for good, a better future and life style, but for others it was the opposite, just as it is nowadays. One similarity between today and the

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Children would start work in coal mines and factories as young as 5 years old to 18 years of age. A child would work 18 hour days. Work days typically ran from early morning to late at night, and winter usually made longer hours, from 68 to 72 hours per week. Because of laissez faire businesses were allowed to pay an extremely low amount of money and to allow children to work in horrible working conditions. This is why children were often forced into labor, it also was to help their families bring in more

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The Gilded Age was the period from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the twentieth century. This was an era noted for the widening social and economic gap between the powerful and the powerless. Political life during the Gilded Age was shaped by three main factors: the balance of power between Democrats and Republicans, the high level of public participation in everyday politics, and the often corrupt alliance between business and political leaders at all levels of government. The growing conflicts between city and country, industry and agriculture was the most important political issue. Financially distressed farmers felt ignored by the political process.

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Due to the fact that industry grew so rapidly and work in factories was the main source of income for majority of families, more and more children were working. Many social reformers and educators spoke out about the detrimental mental and physical effects child labor had on most of America’s youth (Doc C). In 1816, during Wilson’s presidency, the Child Labor Act was passed, outlawing companies from utilizing the skill set of children under the age of fourteen. Activists such as Jane Addams and questions regarding the innocence children in the workfield, helped the Child Labor Act pass with relative ease. Also, earlier within the century, in 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed, further ensuring the quality and safeness of American processed foods.

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The Gilded Age took place in the U.S in the late 19th century, from about 1870 to 1900. It was a time of invention, and the development of many modern technologies that are still in use today. But behind the appearance of the courtly mankind wide strides toward the future of technology, and all the new amazing advancements, The Gilded Age was terrible time for all thoses that were not rich, white, men, for this time period was defined by them, for them, and it was a hellhole for everyone else in the country. Horrifyingly enough, very many similarities connect the time of The Gilded Age with today. The Gilded Age was a seemingly highly progressive period, however, underneath its shiny exterior is a much more ugly truth.

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The Progressive Era, in some ways, differ from the Gilded Age. During the Gilded Age, America was skyrocketing in terms of economic success, and the exercising of imperialism. While this all sounds good, the Gilded Age is merely an illusion of a utopia. The Progressive Era, however, slandered the ideals pushed in the Gilded Age. The Progressive Era was a side that lay dormant during the Gilded Age and flourished when the time came.

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Have you ever wondered about the historical events that have led up to the way our society is today? About 150 years ago our country dealt with problems that created the Gilded Age. This era consisted of uneven wealth, unfair racial rights and other money issues. The Gilded Age was first called “gilded” by Mark Twain. He implied that this era seemed to be a time of construction and a new way of life for immigrants and native borns.

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Freedom for the wealth compared to freedom for the poor was huge difference in the Gilded Age. Like I mentioned above there was few people who accumulated a lot wealth but by doing so took jobs away from the poor and middle class. Andrew Carnegie believed that he had the responsibility to advance the society by giving some of his money to the communities to build libraries which also helped some of the poor to have jobs, but working under Carnegie meant that you would work everyday with two twelve-hour shifts. So yes you had a job, but the job didn’t come with good terms. Even having a job that you worked two twelve-hour shifts doesn’t mean that you would become wealthy, wealthy only came to those who were business men and had the access to

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The Progressive Era The Progressive Era was a period of time that ranged from 1890 to 1920. During this time many reforms were made in local areas, state and federal levels. Using evidence, the Progressive area proves to be limited given the overall affects of segregation, racism, child labor and the Electoral College and careless employers. The successful components of the era are commerce laws and women’s rights and Chosen Representation.

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