ipl-logo

The Role Of Women In The Age Of Innocence By Edith Wharton

844 Words4 Pages

Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Price-winning novel The Age of Innocence, published in 1920, is set in 1870s New York. The era, also known as the Gilded Age, was a time of great economic growth, especially in the North and West, while the South still faced repercussions of the Civil War. In this essay, I will mainly focus on the position of women in the society and how the society established its control over them. (Whitin this broad context)?? The American Civil war ended in 1865 with the abolishment of slavery. While the agricultural South lost, the winning side underwent industrialization and urbanization. The progress mainly depended on transcontinental railroad, natural resources such as iron, stream and electricity, and later on technology, …show more content…

Moreover, despite general economic growth, there were periods of crises and the progress was also accompanied with harsh living and working conditions and unemployment. This resulted in the founding of corporations, which could control both the production and the market, as businessmen feared overproduction would lead to deflation (declining prices and falling profits). Over time, larger corporations developed through mergers. The leading corporations were Rockefeller’s The Standard Oil Company in oil and Carnegie’s in steel, whose economic and political power influenced the whole economy. The corporations was influenced by “Social Darwinism”, a system where the growth of large businesses merely signified a survival of the fittest. In the system of aforementioned crises (1837, 1857, 1873) only the rich were secure and the small, less powerful businesses were destroyed, bringing about poverty for working people, “while the fortunes of the Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Morgans, kept growing […]” (Zinn 2005, …show more content…

Much like in Victorian England, women had certain expectations to meet to make them acceptable and respectful citizens. The main goal in a woman’s life was to make her marry a respectable gentleman, whom she would take care of, bear children to in exchange for her protection. Their position in the household was to aspire to be an ideal woman, the so-called ‘Angel in the House”: she was to be devoted and submissive to her husband, passive, powerless, meek, charming, graceful, selfless and self-sacrificing, chaste and pure; this point I will present with the help of Edith Wharton’s novel, which illustrates this point splendidly through the characters of May Welland and Ellen

Show More
Related
170 Words | 1 Pages

Justin Clement APUS DBQ Big businesses controlled the economy and politics throughout 1870-1900. They were in control of the prices for certain items because they destroyed their smaller competitors until there was no competition left. They had much sway over politics and took away the people’s say. As we can see from Document A, between 1870-1899, the price for food, fuel, lighting and living decreased with the emergence of big businesses.

Read More
711 Words | 3 Pages

The late 19th century was full of growth, production, and business. People were craving power and seemed to achieve this through any means necessary. Consequently, a new business elite formed consisting of the richest men alive. The way in which these individuals acquired all their profits is something very contradictory even over one-hundred years later. Some historians characterize these businessmen as “robber barons” who used extreme methods to control and concentrate wealth and power, and being supported by multiple sources, this statement is justified but only to some extent.

Read More
939 Words | 4 Pages

Thesis : After the Civil War, America was in a post-war boom. During the 1870-1890, big business moguls, such as Rockefeller and Carnegie, create huge corporations which not only affected the economy, but also affected the political realm of America. While many may assume that during the rise of these big business helped to change the economy and politics,  the real focus was on the responses formed by society, such as labor unions, increase public outcry, and political opposition groups that helped to change society. A: Economically, big business flourished during the late 1800s.

Read More
705 Words | 3 Pages

During the period of industrialization, between 1865 and the early 1900’s, corporate

Read More
575 Words | 3 Pages

This essay will generally analyze the relationship between the government and businesses, and how “Big Business” essentially took control of the Gilded Age. America’s first true big business mostly arose because of the railroads, which is fairly significant, because it essentially helped lead the development of other business barons such as, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J. Pierpont Morgan who all had particularly extraordinary accomplishments in shaping our economy. Most of these men who created big businesses after the Civil War were driven by a compelling desire to become rich and influential.

Read More
1017 Words | 5 Pages

To say the time period following the Civil War in the United States involved a lot of change would be a understatement. Between the years 1870 and 1900 the people of the United States lived through a period of great change. Not only did they witness technological advances that would change their daily lives, they also saw new laws and organizations formed. All of this was done in hopes of improving the country. Many of these changes came about because of the type of businesses that were formed.

Read More
535 Words | 3 Pages

The economy was consistent in the United States during the 1870’s but as the years went on large businesses were able to lower the cost of food prices, fuel and lighting

Read More
363 Words | 2 Pages

After the Civil War, the United States experienced many events in terms of economy, culture and social, and those events made a big change to the U.S. One of the richest person in the world, “Andrew Carnegie”, who is also known as the civil leader, built the steel mill by 1900. While, most of the firms were working by themselves or family at that time, he was good at vertical integration. Including him, thanks to the genius and rich inventors, the concept of social and economy of U.S. had changed. On the contrary, because these rich people had most of the finance, the number of people who were under the lower-class had been increasing.

Read More
1478 Words | 6 Pages

Big businesses boomed during this era, however, in business owners efforts to produce more money the working class suffered from unfair wages and working conditions. In Nash’s findings, he reported, “In 1890, the top 1 percent of American families possessed over a quarter of the wealth, and the top 10 percent of American families possessed over a quarter of the wealth, … But wages for the unskilled increased by only 31 percent- a substantial differential that widened as the century drew to a close” (407). Through the economic disparities between classes, it caused unworkable working conditions and unsanitary living conditions. Unskilled workers were often responsible for hard labor jobs, many men worked in coal mines, factories, farms and more. Despite these harsh working conditions workers received minimal wages, resorting themselves and their families to live in tenement houses, crowded, unclean, and disease-ridden housing units. This was the price of class inequality, poverty, unclean working conditions, and backbreaking work all for minimal pay so big businesses could make a

Read More
157 Words | 1 Pages

With advancements in technology and social standards evolving quickly, the American economy also became positively impacted by such advancements and changes. Although social stigmas of the time included parsimonious business owners and industry leaders, these empirical industries grew exponentially in the years following the Civil War and, therefore, lended wealth to employees and owners. Large and small business felt the impact of this economic growth: “Farms, canneries, factories, slaughterhouses, mines, mills, refineries, and other businesses turned out more products more cheaply, enabling more people to buy more of them” (Tindal 552). As a result of such favorable production rates, large companies easily overtook the market as a whole and

Read More
1200 Words | 5 Pages

Important Women and their Role in the Civil War The American Civil war lasted for four years from 1861-1865. The war occurred because of a controversy on differences of beliefs, with the primary reason being slavery and state’s rights. The war resulted in the killing of over 600,000 soldiers. The war had a lot of advances in American culture.

Read More
334 Words | 2 Pages

Women’s Role’s Edith Wharton born in 1862 became a world known writer. Focusing mainly on class structure and women’s roles, Wharton portrayed to the world the lives of people during the 20th century. Gender inequality, as well as moral and ethical dilemma was a prominent issue not only in society but, became evident throughout Wharton’s writing. Determined to share her experiences with the world Wharton disguised moral and economic situations in literature that allowed readers to connect mentally. During an era where social class and wealth defined a person’s entity, Wharton seemed to focus mainly on the higher class structure.

Read More
3463 Words | 14 Pages

As a text seemingly disparate from Edith Wharton’s other novels, scholarship surrounding Summer has tended to focus on gender and power constructions between Mr. Royall and Charity Royall. Recent scholarship, however, has focused on the social and cultural aspects of Summer. Elizabeth Ammons has taken a stark stance, problematizing Wharton’s portrayals of race by reifying normative racial constructions of the early twentieth century (68). Anne MacMaster notes the centrality of racial representations, though they appear to be marginal concerns to the plotline, in Wharton’s other work, The Age of Innocence.

Read More
454 Words | 2 Pages

During the Gilded Age america’s industry economy exploded generating opportunities for individuals but also leaving many farmers and workers struggling. Industrial leaders such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller revolutionized business and ushered in the modern corporate economy, but

Read More
1136 Words | 5 Pages

The American Civil War that was started due to the controversy over slavery in 1861, was won by The Union supported by President Lincoln against the Confederate states. President Lincoln’s original goal during the civil war was to reunify the nation as quickly as possible and help both sides come to an understanding. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the newly formed United States’ reconstruction era began. The Reconstruction era was put into effect by the Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. The Union’s victory in the Civil War had given African Americans a new sense of hope, devastated the southern economy, and eased the history of disunity in American political life.

Read More

More about The Role Of Women In The Age Of Innocence By Edith Wharton

Related Topics

Open Document