American Democracy In The Late Nineteenth Century Analysis

During the decades following the Civil War, the United States experienced incredible economic growth. It was a time of great technological advances and huge increases in production. It seemed as though a widespread desire for invention and entrepreneurship was sweeping the nation. This time period secured the place of this young nation as a world power. Although, the U.S. as a whole was experiencing a time of great excess, the benefits did not reach everyone. As industries grew, power became unevenly distributed. Class divides increased, and soon the vast majority of money was controlled by a very small minority of wealthy men. This led to a corruption of the country’s democratic system. No longer did everyone have an equal voice. The wealthy began to control the political leaders. In the years since, American people have attempted to maintain their country’s democracy in many ways. Each generation has been confronted with the nearly impossible battle of maintaining true democracy in the face of industrial capitalism. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the spread of large corporations contributed to an overall rise in the standard of living. As the rich continued to get richer, most people saw an increase in their wealth as well. The problem was the rate at which this was occurring. In the late 1800s, …show more content…
Roosevelt. The situation during his presidency was somewhat different, though. This was not a time of economic growth for anyone in the United States. This was a time of unprecedented economic depression. When Roosevelt was elected in 1932, one out of every four Americans was unemployed (Tindall and Shi, p. 1100). He was burdened with the responsibility of getting a struggling nation back on its feet. He set out to accomplish this through a series of legislation known collectively as the New Deal. Roosevelt began by