America: Divided by Class
It’s all about the money—who hasn’t heard of the Rockefellers, Carnegie, or the Vanderbilt’s? The Gilded Age was a time when wealthy elite amassed their riches and built their opulent mansions while their workers often lived in squalor. Three distinct social classes emerged as life in America changed from rural to urban and immigrants poured into the nation. The Gilded Age is a term coined by writer Mark Twain in The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), a book satirizing an era of serious social problems when a veneer of refinement covered the brutal realities of industrial capitalism (Doc 2). “The amazing achievements of this period were like a thin gold layer that covered many unresolved social issues” (Keene …show more content…
Official attitudes were basically that government had little role to play in social reform and should take a hands off approach. Social Darwinism was popular amongst the elite during the Gilded Age. Herbert Spencer took Darwin 's ideas about survival of the fittest in biology and applied them to human society. In Social Darwinism, people naturally rise or fall in social position based on their moral, physical and intellectual fitness. Any reform would interfere with this natural process, and allow the weak to survive, retarding society’s ability to progress (DOC 1). Similarly, William Graham Sumner opposed government intervention to cure social problems of the age saying “society, therefore, does not need any care or supervision” and “society first needs to be freed of all these meddlers-that is to be let alone.” (DOC 8). Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest men in America, promoted his own version of Social Darwinism in his Gospel of Wealth. He believed that people with large fortunes like his had them because of their greater skills, intelligence, etc. Wealth concentrated in the hands of the few was good, because the wealthy were more fit individuals who could manage this wealth for the benefit of all He boasted of the generous gifts he made to libraries and foundations to improve society (DOC …show more content…
Elites often saw no need for reform, other Americans turned to labor union to solve their grievances and to the press to publicize and educate the public about the issues while some turned to socialism even anarchism. Only the elite did not want reform. The vast majority of America was ready for the government to get involved and change things although they were not in agreement on just how this should be accomplished and generally mistrusted a government they felt was corrupted by its ties to the
It’s all about the money—who hasn’t heard of the Rockefellers, Carnegie, or the Vanderbilt’s? The Gilded Age was a time when wealthy elite amassed their riches and built their opulent mansions while their workers often lived in squalor. Three distinct social classes emerged as life in America changed from rural to urban and immigrants poured into the nation. The Gilded Age is a term coined by writer Mark Twain in The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), a book satirizing an era of serious social problems when a veneer of refinement covered the brutal realities of industrial capitalism (Doc 2). “The amazing achievements of this period were like a thin gold layer that covered many unresolved social issues” (Keene …show more content…
Official attitudes were basically that government had little role to play in social reform and should take a hands off approach. Social Darwinism was popular amongst the elite during the Gilded Age. Herbert Spencer took Darwin 's ideas about survival of the fittest in biology and applied them to human society. In Social Darwinism, people naturally rise or fall in social position based on their moral, physical and intellectual fitness. Any reform would interfere with this natural process, and allow the weak to survive, retarding society’s ability to progress (DOC 1). Similarly, William Graham Sumner opposed government intervention to cure social problems of the age saying “society, therefore, does not need any care or supervision” and “society first needs to be freed of all these meddlers-that is to be let alone.” (DOC 8). Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest men in America, promoted his own version of Social Darwinism in his Gospel of Wealth. He believed that people with large fortunes like his had them because of their greater skills, intelligence, etc. Wealth concentrated in the hands of the few was good, because the wealthy were more fit individuals who could manage this wealth for the benefit of all He boasted of the generous gifts he made to libraries and foundations to improve society (DOC …show more content…
Elites often saw no need for reform, other Americans turned to labor union to solve their grievances and to the press to publicize and educate the public about the issues while some turned to socialism even anarchism. Only the elite did not want reform. The vast majority of America was ready for the government to get involved and change things although they were not in agreement on just how this should be accomplished and generally mistrusted a government they felt was corrupted by its ties to the