We are all human, you watching this video, are a human being. The concept of inequality is that one person is better or superior than another. This can be caused by economic, civil, or social differences.
During the Gilded Age, there was a large movement of immigrants entering the United States. Many immigrants moved to large cities during this time. In the 60 years from 1840 to 1900, the population of America grew by 36 million, and one third of this was accounted for by immigration. One out of three workers during the Gilded age was an immigrant.
Social Darwinism is an idea popularized during the Gilded Age which was based on Darwinism, and to understand Social Darwinism, we must first understand Darwinism. In short, Darwinism is
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The rich would have clean water and lived in wonderful homes. The poor would live in slums and unlivable conditions with feces littered everywhere and the rent was too high and the pay was too low. The rich who owned big businesses would create monopolies and became very crooked which gave no equality to the workers. This would cause the poor to try and work as hard as they can because the business owners were able to band together through monopolies. These monopolies were to keep lower wages AND longer, unreasonable hours. Work related accidents were common and would either lead to mutilation or being fired on the spot with no more pay if you were severely injured. These conditions would lead to the creation of the Unions.
As we see in present day we have changed drastically. The horrors that plagued a lot of the lower class are no longer a problem. This is due to a shift in labor support from the gilded age to now. Workers began creating unions to help secure their job and fight for change in the workplace. Through this the government started from laws around how long workers can work for how much and the conditions in which they were allowed to work. Gradually, the condition in workplaces have improved. This all lead to a new way for social mobility or being able to transfer from one social class to another. This was
The upper, middle, and lower class. The upper class streamed from the aristocrats of earlier time periods. The middle and lower classes were the working classes. The middle class however had jobs with better pay, a better standard of living ,and better sanitation then the lower class but still had struggles with day to day necessities. The lower class were very poor and had difficult lives. Many children worked in the lower class. This relates to A Brave New World as the lower classes were not focused on in society very often, and had difficult jobs and less access to resources from their conception, this caused the lower classes to in general have low
Since the beginning of civilization, unfortunately, there has always been some type of ranking when it came to social status. Usually, there was a small group of wealthy elites who ran everything, and then there was the large group of people who were not rich. One would think that the rich would take care of the poor, but often times the rich kept to themselves and let the poor suffer. This can be seen all over history from the time of the Egyptians to the feudal system of the middle ages, to even more current times.This holds true when diving into the 1800 and 1900’s. One would see that like there were very few social elites and a plethora of people who were not wealthy by a stretch. There were times when the rich would participate in activities that would make it seem like they were helping the poor when in actuality they were not doing the slightest. An example of this can be seen in Andrew Carnegie's “The Gospel of Wealth.” In “The Gospel of Wealth” Carnegie explains what one should do to help society and the poor, but what it is is a way for the wealthy to feel better about themselves.
During the Gilded Age, approximately 10 million immigrants came to the United States, many in search of religious freedom and greater
The Gilded Age saw the United States shift from an agricultural to an urban, industrial society, as millions of Americans flocked to cities in the post, Civil War time zone. Nearly 40 percent of Americans lived in urbanized areas by 1900, as opposed to 20 percent in 1800s. Industrialization and the rush to the cities led to the development of consumerism and a middle class. The rich had many advantages to the new age.
At the turn of the 19th century also known as the Gilded Age, many immigrants came to the United States looking for opportunities to live a new life that they were not able to live back home. Many of them may have had hopes of finding a miraculous career that would bring them fame and fortune just like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan did. But in reality it was not as glamorous and prosperous as it may have seemed to be. Instead it was filled with greed and corruption. Although the United States experienced an economic boom, it created an extremely wealthy upper class. Thus only widening the wealth gap between the rich and poor during this era.
As the age of Reconstruction ended, the Gilded Age of big businesses began in the United States and with it came new jobs and goods for Americans. When new corporations became more successful, it made an immense impact on the economy, the political system and the lives of citizens. Economically, the cost of food and living went down significantly as well as a surplus of jobs. Political leaders were corrupted by big business as their decisions and laws were influenced by the wealthy class’ bribes and stealing from the common man. Though mass production allowed goods to be made quicker and in greater quantity, the workers’ horrible working conditions and remarkably long hours caused the creation of unions and strikes. Despite the great effect big business had on the economy in the Gilded Age through the decline in the cost of food and fuel, the daily lives of average working-class citizens were negatively impacted by long hours, horrid working conditions leading to unions and a corrupted political system.
One factor during the Gilded Age that changed American business and labor practices was the abundance of supplies. The United States had all the raw materials it could ever ask for like: coal, oil, iron ore, copper, lead, and timber. Why was this important to the U.S? This kept the U.S. from having to purchase these things from foreign countries. The United States also had an abundance of labor supply between 1865 and 1900. This gave U.S. factories a steady supply of cheap labor, there was always more workers
During the Gilded Age, America opened its doors to many immigrants. They flocked from Europe, Mexico, Asia, China, and Japan. Just like blacks, they were discriminated against by the Americans already here because the immigrants and blacks were willing to work in factories for hardly any money. Because of this, most women in the lower class and children worked in the factories to help to support the family. The immigrants and blacks usually lived in small crowded apartments in the cities because they could not afford to live far away from their job. Each immigrant group tried to recreate their neighborhood from their old country in America which caused the cities to become segregated ghettos with ethnic backgrounds. Poor farmers were also apart of the lower class because they were dependent to one crop, and there was only one harvest per year.
Social Darwinism is a theory that individuals, peoples, and groups are subject to darwinian laws of natural selection. Another way to describe social darwinism is survival of the fittest. The strongest and the smartest will survive. It is now largely discredited, it was advocated in the late 19th and early 20th century by Herbert Spencer and others. It was used to justify political conservation, imperialism, to discourage intervention and reform and racism. This theory was used to support the laissez faire capitalism and political conservatism.
During the first Gilded Age that occurred in the late 1800s, economic growth was at an all-time high. At this time, the wages that were given to American were at an increased rate compared to that of the wages that were given in Europe. Due to this, an abundant amount of European immigrants came over to the United States because of this inflated wage. These economic advances were due to that of several technological advances that had come about in this time. The industrial production skyrocketed, which, in turn, made for increased economic wealth for Americans.
Social Darwinism is based off of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. He uses the concept of survival of the fittest. This was used to justify class distinctions and to explain the reason for poverty. Modern science declared that the failure to advance in society was due to the lack of self reliance and determination. They acted down on people who needed government aid. Even during the depression people still believed the notion that the poor were responsible for their fate. The idea of natural superiority was around since the Civil War. So much so, we thought it was okay to own human beings.
Throughout the Gilded Age, the United States economy prospered and grew. Over 200,000 miles of new railroads were created. The national wealth grew by over seventy million
The Gilded Age is known as the Second Industrial Revolution because of the major increase in factories and production (Foner 593). During this time the United States controlled more than a third of the world’s industrial output. This led to approximately 11 million people moving from the rural areas to the city, and another 25 million immigrants moving into America (Foner, 596). Because of the increase in population, freedom and safety were harder to maintain.
Social Darwinism is a quasi-philosophical, quasi-religious, quasi-sociological view that came from the mind of Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher in the 19th century. It did not achieve wide acceptance in England or Europe, but flourished in this country, as is true of many ideologies, religions, and philosophies. A good summary of Social Darwinism is by Johnson:
Social Darwinism is a theory that competition among all individuals, groups, nations or ideas drives social evolution in human societies. The term draws upon Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, where competition between individual organisms drives biological evolutionary change through the survival of the fittest. The term was popularized in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter, and has generally been used by critics rather than advocates of what the term is supposed to