All About the Gilded Age

All about the Gilded Age Thank you to Thrive Market for sponsoring this video. The Gilded Age was more than an era of glamour, opulence, mansions, and bustles, and more than what is shown on the popular historical drama of the same name. The Gilded was a time of radical social change and staggering wealth inequality. So what launched the Gilded Age? Who were the robber barons at the top of the heap? And who were the millions below in the muck? How did women and black people fit in? How did it all come crashing down? And are we currently living through another Gilded Age? Let's find out. What was the Gilded Age? A period of American history between 1865 and 1902, marked by rapid economic and industrial growth, excessive materialism, labor exploitation, and political corruption. The country transformed from an agrarian economy to one centered around cities and factories. Production and per capita income rose substantially, but a handful of industrialists claimed large pieces of the pie. The era got its name from Mark Twain's 1873 novel The Gilded Age, a tale of today. Gilding is a popular decorative technique of applying a thin coating of gold over much cheaper materials such as metal, wood, porcelain, or stone. Twain elucidated that while other periods in history might have been hailed as golden, his era consisted of only a lean layer of glamour, concealing a depth of poverty and injustice. What started the Gilded Age? In the course of human history, there have been three generalized events which massively shifted the way humans live. The Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Information Revolution. During the Agricultural Revolution, humans who had survived by hunting and gathering for thousands of years began to domesticate plants and animals. This occurred at different times throughout the world, but the first evidence dates to between 10,000 and 8,000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent. Farming made food production more efficient, and since you didn't have to use every calorie from your last meal hunting down your next, people were able to put their surplus energy into developing language, art, and culture. Rather than in nomadic tribes, people began to settle. Cities emerged, then nations. Some people claimed more than their fair share of the surplus, and called themselves chiefs and kings. They led their people to war with other nations, often increasing their own wealth in the process. Aristocrats controlled the surplus via the feudal system, and they enshrined their own advantage into law and culture. This inequality continued to be the norm for thousands of years, though there was occasional pushback from the common people, culminating in the 18th century Enlightenment, which saw revolutions topple a handful of monarchies. In the 11,000 years since the Agricultural Revolution, technology crept forward in fits and starts. Everything from crop rotation to ships to looms to inoculation improved lives incrementally, but the average person still lived much as their ancestors had, working a farm to feed themselves, and making everything with hand-powered tools. The global population increased slowly, from 2 million people in 10,000 BCE to 600 million in 1700. Life expectancy also remained consistently low, hovering in the late 20s from the Bronze Age to the 1700s. A quick aside, when we talk about life expectancy in the past, we don't mean that most people died before the age of 30. Sadly, the average was significantly brought down by the incredibly high infant mortality rate. It is estimated that before 1700, about 30% of babies died before their first birthday. If you were lucky enough to make it past 5, there was a good chance you would live to see 50. But all that changed with the Industrial Revolution. In the 1760s, a steam engine became viable in the UK. Soon, chemical manufacturing, iron production, mechanization, and more caused another massive shift in the way humans lived. People left the farms their families had survived on for generations and moved to cities to work in factories. They were replaced with mechanized farming. Suddenly, one farmer could do the work of hundreds, ensuring a surplus of food. Goods, which once had to be made by hand, like clothes, books, and toys, were now cheap to manufacture and purchase. Common people could own luxury items their grandparents could never have dreamed of. The Industrial Revolution spread like wildfire across Western Europe. But when the Civil War ended in 1865, and industry fully bloomed in the United States, it was supercharged. While Europe was already slightly crowded, America had a lot of free space. Native Americans were being pushed off their homelands to enable westward expansion. In 1862, the Pacific Railway Act authorized the first transcontinental railroad. Advancements in communication followed suit. The phonograph, telegraph, radio, newspapers, and magazines connected the nation like never before. So much available land and opportunity attracted millions of immigrants, escaping famine and unrest in Europe. This meant a steady supply of desperate people willing to take miserable, low-paying jobs in mines and factories. Thus, the United States became the world's leading industrial power. Humanity was once again running at a surplus, and for the first time since the Bronze Age, there was a significant leap in both life expectancy and population. In 1900, for the first time in history, the average world life expectancy rose past 30. This meant a lot more babies lived. Even more dramatically, the population boomed from 600 million in 1700 to 1.6 billion in 1900. And while the rising tide lifted all boats, it lifted some more than others. WHO WAS IN THE GILDING? Once again, a privileged few took advantage of the new mounds of surplus. Sometimes it was the inventors, but more often it was those with the capital to build or invest in factories, steel yards, and railroads. In the U.S., these industrialists became known as robber barons. The term came from the German Raubritter, medieval knights who charged illegal tolls on roads crossing their lands. Robber baron was first used in the August 1870 issue of Atlantic Monthly. It combined both the criminality and the illegitimate aristocracy of the men in question. They climbed to the top of their respective industries, by creating monopolies via exploitative labor practices, price fixing, and political bribes. In 1890, 4,000 millionaires held 20% of the country's wealth, and they used it to buy politicians. The money flooding into Washington led to a laissez-faire economy, during which the government did little to regulate business. In 1886, former President Rutherford B. Hayes lamented, This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government by corporations, of corporations, and for corporations. In one of the most famous cases of political corruption, William Boss Tweed, leader of the New York urban political machine Tammany Hall, gained great power doling out lucrative public offices, fixing elections, committing voter fraud, and accepting lavish bribes. He and his cronies stole $200 million in city funds, a figure in the billions today. Tweed was the third largest landowner in the city, before he was convicted on 204 counts of fraud in 1873, and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Many of the wealthiest and most famous robber barons have names we recognize today, either from their personal deeds or the university's libraries and cultural institutions which still bear their names. New York had John Jacob Astor, who made a fortune in fur and real estate, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Huddleston Rogers, and Henry Morris Flagler, who monopolized Standard Oil, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and E. H. Harriman, who transported it all on their trains, and J.P. Morgan, James Fisk, and Daniel Du, who made money into more money by financing it all. Pittsburgh is known as Steel City because of Andrew Carnegie, Charles M. Schwab, and Henry Clay Frick. And don't forget oil baron Andrew Mellon. Peter Widener made everything sunny in Philadelphia with public transportation, and J. Cook did the same with finance. In North Carolina, James Buchanan Duke smoked out the competition in tobacco. St. Paul, Minnesota had James J. Hill in the twin industries of coal and transportation. Charles Yerkes did the same in Chicago. In Texas, John Warren Gates struck black gold in crude oil and cornered the cattle market with barbed wire. And out west in California, Charles Crocker, Collis Porter Huntington, and Leland Stanford raced to the finish line with railroads. Like the royals of yore, many of these fortune mongers passed their businesses and wealth down their families, thus creating financial dynasties. I have covered and will continue to cover many of these so-called American royal families. Check out my videos on the Astors and the Kennedys. The Vanderbilts are coming soon. The nouveau riche strived to emulate the lifestyles of the rich who came before them. They looked to European style and sophistication. They built lavish mansions on 5th Avenue and constructed over-the-top so-called summer cottages in Newport, Rhode Island. Their wives and daughters dominated society and tried to one-up each other with ever more elaborate parties, like the legendary battle between Caroline Astor and Alva Vanderbilt, aka Bertha Russell. This most glamorous and romantic aspect of the Gilded Age is what Julian Fellow's hit series focuses on. WOMEN OF THE GILDED AGE The late 1800s saw a shift in the roles of women. They were on the cusp between ancient expectations of being obedient wives and mothers, and growing educational and social opportunities. Some Gilded Age ladies had been compared to porcelain dolls, dressed in resplendent finery, and on display to flaunt their father or husband's wealth. There was a trend for American heiresses to wed European aristocrats. Nothing legitimized the nouveau riche faster than having a duchess in the family. Millions of dowry dollars crossed the pond to revitalize the ailing peerage and renovate dilapidated palaces. Check out my video on the dollar princesses, including Jenny Jerome, Consuelo Vanderbilt, and Nancy Longhorn Shaw. Educating upper-class girls in art, music, and languages, skills which would increase their value on the marriage market, had long been in fashion. But in the late 1800s, more colleges opened their doors to young women, including Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, and Radcliffe. It became incrementally more common for women to delay marriage and start careers as typists, telephone switchboard operators, nurses, or teachers, though they were still expected to quit their professions once they got married. By the turn of the 20th century, some women were even working as accountants, lawyers, and doctors. Even at home, the accessibility of newspapers, magazines, and books helped women become increasingly knowledgeable. Many wealthy ladies felt compelled to help the less fortunate. Louise Carnegie created Carnegie Hall. Abby Rockefeller created hotels for women in need and helped to found the Museum of Modern Art. Margaret Sage gave $45 million to aid women and children. And Jane Addams won a Nobel Peace Prize for establishing Hull House in Chicago. Many women pointed to alcohol as the root of society's ills, pointing out men who drank up their paychecks, then came home to abuse their hungry wives and children. The temperance movement was led by women like Carrie Nation who became notorious for smashing up saloons with a hatchet. Increasingly, women ventured into the male-dominated space of politics and demanded the right to vote. Women around the world joined suffragette movements and engaged in civil disobedience to draw attention to the cause. Both the temperance and suffrage movements came to a head in the aftermath of the Gilded Age. In the Gilded Age, eating was made more convenient with packaged foods produced in factories, but they weren't always very healthy and included questionable ingredients. Mass-market processed foods haven't changed much today, which is why I love Thrive Market. It's an online grocery store that brings the highest quality products right to your doorstep, with savings on every order. They specialize in healthy groceries and carry your favorite brands and private label items at unbeatable prices. Whatever your dietary needs, vegan, gluten-free, or allergen-free, they have tons of tasty options. And there are many organic, low-sugar, and high-protein foods to try. They even filter out the bad stuff, with a list of over 1,000 questionable ingredients you'll never find in their products. Thrive Market offers the lowest price guaranteed, so you know you're getting a better deal than at the grocery store, and they accept SNAP EBT. I've found so many foods I love on Thrive Market. These Quantum Caffeinated Energy Squares are great to grab on my way out the door in the morning. When I have time for a more leisurely breakfast, I enjoy a cup of NuMe Aged Earl Grey Tea with Real Bergamot. When I'm in Europe, I love to add dried mulberries to my cereal. They're hard to find in the States, but I found them on Thrive Market. And when I'm feeling peckish, I grab Nora's Seaweed Snacks and Thrive Market's own Paleo Snack Mix for a healthy low-sugar treat. Click the link in my description box or go to thrivemarket.com slash Lindsay Holiday to receive 30% off your first order, and a free gift when you join Thrive Market today. And now, back to history. Black people of the Gilded Age. Many who were freed from slavery in 1865 immigrated north and west for opportunities. Most found better lives, with work in factories and on railroads. About 25% of the cowboys in the western US were black men who went up the trail. Some black Americans even became incredibly wealthy. Madam C.J. Walker built a hair care empire, and Mary Ellen Pleasant invested in real estate, both becoming self-made millionaires. In the show, the character Peggy Scott and her family represent this growing black elite. They were highly educated and formed their own communities, schools, and social clubs. They often felt pressured to conform to white standards of virtue, manners, and beauty. By being model minorities, they hoped to shield themselves from racial discrimination. Peggy is inspired by several real black female writers at the time, including journalist Ida B. Wells, novelist Julia C. Collins, and activist and teacher Frances E. W. Harper. Peggy is hired by T. Thomas Fortune, who was a real person and editor of the leading black newspaper the New York Age. Who was in the muck? Below the thin gold veneer of the 5% were the masses suffering in poor living conditions and working long, back-breaking hours to keep body and soul together. Through most of history, men, women, and children worked hard on farms to keep food on the table. Prior to the advent of birth control, families were large and more children were seen as helping hands, if they and their mothers managed to survive childbirth. Education was a luxury and the modern concept of childhood non-existent. But the growing season and church-mandated holidays facilitated a surprising amount of leisure time. When the industrial revolution hit and families moved from the countryside to the city, every member took a job. A single wage could barely support a single person. In 1890, 11 million of the 12 million U.S. families earned less than $1,200 per year, equivalent to just $37,000 in 2025. With their heads barely above water and still no birth control, mothers couldn't stay home unpaid to care for babies. So older children minded younger, and everyone who could work did. Children as young as four had to pull their weight, literally. In mines they could crawl into small tunnels, and in factories their tiny hands could reach into gnashing machinery to retrieve broken bobbins. Standard shifts were 12 hours, and factory owners turned more profit if goods were produced 24 hours a day. So many lower-ranking employees, particularly children, were put on night shifts. Children were frequently maimed or killed in accidents, or when falling asleep at machinery. The work was not only dangerous, it was soul-crushingly boring, with factory workers repeating the same task over and again. When your 12-hour shift was done, you stumbled home exhausted into equally bleak off hours. In New York City, the poor lived in cramped tenement buildings, with dozens of people sharing a single apartment. Running water, sewage, and windows were rare. It wasn't until the New York State Tenement House Act of 1867 that toilets were required, at least one for every 20 occupants. In rural areas, mines and factories found ways to exploit workers in their off hours as well. They put them up in company-owned housing with inflated rents, and often paid them in credits rather than cash, which could only be redeemed at the overpriced company store. Thus workers were trapped into debt bondage. This situation is colorfully illustrated in the classic song 16 Tons, in which Tennessee Ernie Ford opines, I owe my soul to the company store. Workers felt increasingly frustrated in the midst of these horrors, and while watching their employers throwing carefree parties in their lavish mansions, workers formed labor unions, which gave them collective bargaining power for higher wages and better conditions. 8-8-8 became a mantra, it described the ideal work day, 8 hours of labor, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 hours of leisure time. But owners were not keen to allow unions to cut into their profits, so they suppressed them, violently. Workers responded by going on strike, or refusing to work until their demands were met. One particularly infamous incident was the Homestead Strike, which took place in Pittsburgh in 1892. Workers picketed the Carnegie Steel Company building, and prevented strikebreakers aka scabs from entering. So Chairman Henry Clay Frick hired 300 Pinkerton detectives armed with rifles to infiltrate the factory. A battle ensued, 10 men were killed and 70 injured. The state militia had to march in to break it up. Still the strike continued, and Frick refused to negotiate, and threatened to evict strikers from their homes. He was dragged in the papers for his cruelty. Just then, an anarchist from New York City infiltrated his home and shot and stabbed him. Frick survived, but the attempted assassination shifted public support in his favor. The strikers had little choice but to back down, and return to work at lower wages. What ended the Gilded Age? The beginning of the end came with the Panic of 1893. Two of the nation's largest employers, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and the National Cordage Company failed. The stock market plummeted and unemployment rose to 19%. In 1897, William McKinley was elected, in the hopes that could put the Gilded Age back on track. He continued the previous laissez-faire economic policies, and implemented heavy tariffs on imported goods. His imperialism led the US into the Spanish-American War, and saw the annexation of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and American Samoa. On September 6, 1901, McKinley attended a public reception at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. A young anarchist, Leon Chogos, came up to shake his hand, and instead shot him twice in the gut. The president languished for eight days, and seemed to be recovering, but he succumbed to gangrene. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was quickly sworn in. He was more progressive than his predecessor. Roosevelt championed his Square Deal domestic policies, which called for fairness for all citizens. During a 1902 coal strike, he brought bosses and workers together to make a deal. He broke trusts, regulated railroads, and passed legislation to protect both workers and consumers. Tax and election reforms reduced government corruption considerably, and put limitations on corporate power. Roosevelt also established the National Park System. As the progressive era dawned, the sun began to set on the opulence and inequality of the Gilded Age. But change wasn't instantaneous. The rising profession of journalism played a big role in shedding light on the still miserable conditions of the working poor. These new investigative professionals, affectionately called muckrakers, exposed corrupt politicians and businessmen. Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle, detailed horrific conditions in the meatpacking industry, leading to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, both in 1906. Ida Tarbell exposed the unethical business practices of John D. Rockefeller, leading to the breakup of Standard Oil in the same year. Also in 1906, activist Lizzie Maggie published a board game called The Landlord's Game. She hoped it would educate the public on the dangers of concentrating property into the hands of single investors. The game is still popular under its new name, Monopoly. Many business owners still took advantage of workers to increase profits. As late as 1911, managers at New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were locking the doors to stairwells and exits to prevent employees from taking unauthorized breaks. Most were recent Italian or Jewish immigrant women, aged 14 to 23. On the evening of March 25, a fire sparked in a bin filled with fabric scraps on the ninth floor. Flames quickly engulfed the textile factory. There were no sprinklers, and the women were trapped to either die in the flames or jump to their deaths. 146 people lost their lives in one of the deadliest industrial disasters in history. The factory owners were acquitted of manslaughter. They were found liable of wrongful death and ordered to pay $75 to the family of each victim, but their insurance payout was $400 per casualty, so they actually made a profit on the tragedy. The horrific event struck a chord with the public. 400,000 people flooded the streets during a funeral march for the victims. Public outcry aided campaigns for workplace reform. In the aftermath, dozens of laws were passed regulating minimum wage and worker conditions. The New York City Commissioner began inspecting factories and found hundreds of dangerous conditions, preventing further tragedies. In 1893, New Zealand became the first nation to grant women the right to vote. Over the next three decades, suffragettes in other nations continued to work for the cause. In the U.S., the 19th Amendment enfranchised women in 1920. With the power of the vote, women pushed for social justice, an end to child labor, and publicly funded schools. All of these changes meant income inequality dropped, and literacy, life expectancy, and the population rose considerably during the 20th century. After the slight hiccup of the Great Depression and then World War II, average U.S. workers enjoyed an economic boom. Unions were strong, housing and goods were cheap, and many families could thrive on a single salary. Income inequality was at an all-time low. There were still plenty of rich people, but their federal tax rate from 1940 to 1965 was over 90%. This era is often looked back on fondly as the height of the American Dream, and it was for many, but not for all. So what happened in the years since, and why do many economists and historians say we are living in another Gilded Age? The Gilded Age Compared to Today Remember I mentioned there were three generalized events which massively shifted the way humans live? First came the Agricultural Revolution, which gave birth to civilization, and its afterbirth, monarchy. Next was the Industrial Revolution, and its side effect, the inequality of the Gilded Age. Now we are living in yet another huge shift in human development, the Information Revolution. Its origins are usually traced to the 1947 invention of the but the accelerating development of computers, the internet, smartphones, social media, and artificial intelligence have forever changed the way humans live. The world is now more connected than ever, but with yet another explosion in capital surplus, some have once again rushed to grab the lion's share of resources. Meanwhile, the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans has been dropping since the Reagan administration. On paper its around 34%, but numerous loopholes have been gouged so some pay little or no tax at all. Wealth inequality has returned to the level of the Gilded Age, with the top 1% of Americans holding 30% of the wealth, and the top 10% holding 60%. Meanwhile, many workers have been left behind, as wages remain stagnant, manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, and many are laid off in favor of automation and AI. The bottom 50% of American families have only 6% of the wealth, and they struggle to meet the rising cost of housing, food, healthcare, and other basic needs. Resentment brews as tech billionaires flaunt multiple mansions, fly on private jets, and rocket into outer space, in an echo of the robber barons of the Gilded Age, and they don't even have the decency to erect libraries and music halls with their names plastered on them. On the bright side, things are not as bleak as they were in the Gilded Age. Life expectancy is at an all-time high, 72 years worldwide, compared to just 31 years in 1880. This is thanks in large part to the dramatic decrease in childhood mortality. The flip side is that the world population has ballooned to over 8 billion, which comes with its own set of problems. Literacy has continued to rise, with 87% of the world's adults able to read, versus only 19% in 1880. And gender, racial, and LGBTQ equality have been slow going, but have risen considerably since the Gilded Age. There are reasons to be optimistic, and appreciate that today is probably the best time in human history to be alive. As always, it is incredibly valuable to study history, the Gilded Age being particularly relevant today, and to learn from the past, for if we do not, we are doomed to repeat it. A special thank you goes to my Patron, Abigail. If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, comment your thoughts, and check out my other history videos. You can also join my Patreon to support my work and get early access to all of my multi-part series.