The collection's view of the Gilded Age as a time of tremendous progress is no more positively conveyed than in W. Bernard Carlson's essay, "Technology and America as a Consumer Society, 1870–1900." Carlson begins the piece by invoking Edward Bellamy's 1888 novel Looking Backward: [End Page 274] 2000–1887 as an example of the embrace of technology and progress by late-nineteenth-century Americans. Although Bellamy celebrated efficiency, he was convinced that free-market capitalism was undermining American democratic society, and his vision of a technological utopia required a fundamental alteration of the prevailing social and economic arrangements of late-nineteenth-century America. Although Carlson concedes that in the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 and the great rail strikes of 1877 Gilded Age Americans may have become aware that "their world was being radically altered," in the end they remained optimistic, concluding that "technology was not the cause of their troubles but rather the solution to their problems" (p. 48).
Arnesen's account of the human and social costs of capitalist industrialization is not so sanguine, however. He argues that the AFL's exclusionary tendencies favored skilled white workers at the expense of immigrant, black, and women workers and that even though the AFL scored significant advances at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, workers in the dynamic industrial core remained unorganized. Citing the battles fought and lost by Eugene V. Debs and other labor radicals during the 1890s, Arnesen suggests a less rosy future than does Calhoun: "As long as the fundamental sources of workers' grievances persisted, the labor question that claimed so prominent a place on the nation's agenda in the Gilded Age remained unresolved" (p. 70).
Published in 1973, as Twain’s earliest work of extended fiction, The Gilded Age gives a name to the period of opulence and corruption at the end of the 19th century.
This is true for all periods of time but in the Gilded Age those who were better gained more and more crushing the people below them with unprecedented greed, corruption, and power.
This paper will discuss the Gilded Age America and the Progressivism Age America in the context of business and capitalism, influence of immigrants from China and progressivism.
While the Gilded Age was a time of an industrial boom and a growing economy, those working by the sweat of their brow to make the success of this time possible, were not actually ever grasping this wealth, but rather putting right back into the pockets of the wealthy....
However, during the Gilded Age it seemed as though these were attainable only for the select few, while others left the land they knew to spend their lives toiling away in pursuit of the American dream, many never understanding how unattainable it really was.
Through a detailed explanation and history of the law, this paper will examine how ADEA affects the professionals in the workplace, human resources, managers, and employers in the workplace....
If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” When Mark Twain and Charles Dudley coined the phrase ‘gilded age’ to describe what they saw in the late 19th century I’m sure they would agree wholeheartedly with Mr.
The collection's view of the Gilded Age as a time of tremendous progress is no more positively conveyed than in W. Bernard Carlson's essay, "Technology and America as a Consumer Society, 1870–1900." Carlson begins the piece by invoking Edward Bellamy's 1888 novel Looking Backward: [End Page 274] 2000–1887 as an example of the embrace of technology and progress by late-nineteenth-century Americans. Although Bellamy celebrated efficiency, he was convinced that free-market capitalism was undermining American democratic society, and his vision of a technological utopia required a fundamental alteration of the prevailing social and economic arrangements of late-nineteenth-century America. Although Carlson concedes that in the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 and the great rail strikes of 1877 Gilded Age Americans may have become aware that "their world was being radically altered," in the end they remained optimistic, concluding that "technology was not the cause of their troubles but rather the solution to their problems" (p. 48).
Arnesen's account of the human and social costs of capitalist industrialization is not so sanguine, however. He argues that the AFL's exclusionary tendencies favored skilled white workers at the expense of immigrant, black, and women workers and that even though the AFL scored significant advances at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, workers in the dynamic industrial core remained unorganized. Citing the battles fought and lost by Eugene V. Debs and other labor radicals during the 1890s, Arnesen suggests a less rosy future than does Calhoun: "As long as the fundamental sources of workers' grievances persisted, the labor question that claimed so prominent a place on the nation's agenda in the Gilded Age remained unresolved" (p. 70).
It is unlawful for supervisors or managers in the workplace to make employment related decisions based on stereotypical assumptions about individuals of a particular national origin, race and/or color or for any employee to engage in bias motivated conduct that creates a hostile work environment for anyone....
Calhoun's positive spin on the era's achievements is at times at odds with the conclusions offered by the contributors. For example, in his summary of Eric Arnesen's essay "American Workers and the Labor Movement in the Late Nineteenth Century," Calhoun notes the problems that working people in America experienced as a result of the introduction of large-scale, mechanized production, in particular their greater dependence on the wage system of labor. Nevertheless, he concludes that acceptance of the "bread-and-butter" unionism of the Samuel Gompers–led American Federation of Labor (AFL) over the earlier "reformist" response of the Knights of Labor presaged labor's greater success in the twentieth century. For Calhoun, all's well that ends well.