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The Rich And The Poor In The Gilded Age

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The Gilded Age shines light on how the lives of the poor and rich contrasted each other in the era. During The Gilded Age, to be wealthy was a dream. They had lavish parties, big fancy mansions, and enough money to buy anything. And, if they were one of the most wealthy people in the country, they basically ran the U.S. Being poor was horrible. Oftentimes, they could barely afford food, worked ungodly hours, and were treated terribly. The rich and the poor seemed to live in two very different versions of America. The wealthy in The Gilded Age were very powerful, but were different from the wealthy people of previous eras. They flaunted their money and did not care about being improper as much as the wealthy people before them. Notably, Alva Belmont. She was famous for her insanely luxurious house, lifestyle, clothing, and parties. Her image was very important to her, and she did anything it took to look good in the public eye. To stop other members of high society from shunning her after they found out she divorced her husband, she had her daughter marry the Duke of Marlborough. Having that much power simply because of one's income is nearly unheard of in today's society. An even better example of the power wealthy people held during this time is J.P. Morgan. He was so rich that he and his investors …show more content…

It was incomparable to the lives of the wealthy. Their lives were so terrible, that they did not feel like citizens. They were forced to work twelve hour days, six days a week. Even though they were working constantly, they could not pay their bills, feed their families, and some people did not have homes. Their lives at their workplaces were awful as well. Factories, where most people worked, were dangerous and uncleanly places. Work accidents were common and people were miserable due to how strict the environment was. They did not get compensated if they were sick or had an injury, either. They would just be out of a

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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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