Gilded Age And Progressive Era Essay

The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era began in the 1800s and lasted till the 1920s. In this period, it was marked by major movements for reform against the backdrop of socioeconomic conflicts; in addition, America emerged as a world power. It was the perfect period for business moguls and corrupt politician to manipulate the government and the economy for their benefits; consequently, it involved people at home and internally. During the late 19th and early 20th century, racism, social and progressive movements, expanding the economy, and the search for regeneration eventually pulled and caused the country into militaristic interventions and policies with foreign countries forever changing America’s past republican policy for neutrality and …show more content…
In the midst of the period, social movements were spurred in order to counteract businesses. Big corporations such as Standard Oil and the Carnegie Steel Company devoured smaller competitions and built themselves into a monopoly through trusts, horizontal and vertical integration. The working and laboring class often suffered under these monopolies as they faced wage cuts, detrimental environment conditions and job displacements. Situations only became worse as managerial tactics invented by Henry Ford’s Fordism, and Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Taylorism which both claimed to maximize productivity. These “scientific management”, monopolies and trusts brought a lot of distressed to laborers. As for the rural areas, farmers also were hurt in this age, paralleled to the industrial workers; they formed their movement against businesses as well. Farmers were mainly troubled from crop-lien system and were cheated by merchants, and so together they formed the Farmers’ Alliance, later known as the Populists. Although the People’s Party ended, the Socialist Party and Democratic Party came to replace