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The Idiot’s Guide to the Gilded Age This is a quick guide made for people to understand the gilded age put in simple terms.

Leisure activities ● People often went out to saloons because of the drinks offered free toilets and water for horses and free newspapers for customers ● Saloons offered free lunch which made customers hungry for more food ● Amusement parks were also a new thing in which working class families or single adults would go to for fun. ● Tennis golf and croquet were growing popular sports ● And of course baseball was around, the most popular sport at the time. ● Basketball was made up in 1891 and became increasingly popular.

Immigration ● Between 1865 and 1914 almost 25 million people immigrated to the U.S ● Almost 24 million of those came of European culture ● Immigration in general was a huge issue in the United states during this time. All of these immigrants were causing overpopulation in cities such as Chicago, New York City, Boston and many others. ● Immigrants were treated badly, sometimes even beaten because of their skin color or heritage. They lived in run down houses with up to 10 others in some houses. ● It was hard to find jobs for many of these immigrants, and even when they did they worked for 1 dollar a day ( around thirty dollars in today’s money)

Italian Immigration ● Italians mainly settled in the New York area having around 182,000 settlers in the late nineteenth century ● Push factors, high rents in Italy pushed many lower class citizens to move to the united states, also a cholera outbreak encouraged people to leave. ● Pull Factors, better way of life. Cheaper rent on houses or apartments. No disease outbreaks. Better jobs and more money. ● They left an imprint on America by bringing over pizza, pasta, spaghetti, and also bringing over Roman-Catholicism.

NATIVISM ● Nativism was hostility of native people towards people immigrating into their country. This included not letting people into the united states, beating up immigrants for no reason. It also included people not giving immigrants jobs just because of their color and race. This forced immigrants to live in tenements and have around 10 or so people in them just to pay rent. This was a bad time for immigrants and a bad time for the nation in general because they had so many people unemployed. That caused pollution and overcrowding in big cities.

Building of Skyscrapers and Public transportationSkyscrapers were being built during this time. The advantage for businesses werethat they could build up instead of out. There were limitations on how far outcompanies could build, so they came up with a solution. Build up, this allowedthem to have all of the capacity in a wide building in a tall one. Publictransportation allowed people in the streets to get to work faster and allowed themto work in areas across the city. It also made the streets less crowded and made iteasier to get across the city and urban areas. It also helped grow the middle classand made the city cleaner in the fact that horses were not pooping everywhere.

TenementsTenements were basically houses that were built for the poor and immigrants.These houses were dark, not in good condition, and barely made the minimumliving requirements in the United States. They sometimes held up to 10 people inthese houses because the unemployment rates were so high that is all they couldafford. People that lived in these houses were sleeping on the floor, sometimessleeping in hammocks strung from the roofs. Also these tenements barely had anyrunning water, electricity, heat or any gas to fuel a oven. These houses cost onlyten dollars a month, that may seem like not much. But back then this was a lot ofmoney to live in a house with such poor conditions.

Problems due to urbanizationProblems caused by urbanization were, overpopulation, unsanitary living conditions, unsafe workplace,low worker wages, and crowded cities. Urbanization caused many things, overpopulation being becauseof the massive amount of jobs created due to electricity and new buildings. Immigration also played a rolein this. But urbanization is what attracted many people to come to the city to work. This in turn causedoverpopulation and poor houses. Because of urbanization big companies were able to pay workers lessmoney and then in turn caused riots and strikes. Also the workplace was unsafe because big companieswere able to employ children in factories. Because they were able to fix machines due to their size.

Political Machines and party bossesIn the gilded age there were many political machines running things in big cities. Afew reasons why they were able to gain so much power were. They paid offworkers to vote for the right candidate. They were successful in this becausemany workers were poor due to lassiez-faire economics. They would also getimmigrants on their side because they offered money which many of them did nothave at the time due to nativism. So in turn political machines would out votepeople due to the massive amounts of immigrants they had on their side.

Tammany HallIt was a political machine headquarters operated by William “Boss” Tweed.Tammany hall was known for its corruption and deceit. The corruption that wenton ran deep within the place. It was not only the boss but all of the memberswithin. William Tweed would often unfairly sell permits to his friends to use publicservice buildings and operate them. Such as railroads, water utilities, and powerstations. This would give him more power within the city and influence to sway thevotes where he wanted them to go.

Social DarwinismSocial Darwinism is the idea that the strongest and wealthiestsurvive. It was very loosely derived from his ideas ofevolution. As a result of Social Darwinism there was a hugesocial class division. Big businesses and industrialists usedthis to show their support of the not so fair Lassiez-Faireeconomics. Many churches got offended by this belief. Theybelieved that it completely contradicted and disowned thebible’s story of creation.

Gospel of WealthThe Gospel of Wealth was a book written by Andrew Carniege. It was all aboutphilanthropy and how it makes the earth better and how it makes the person whodonates better as a human. He wrote about how people should donate to createbetter conditions rather than doing nothing. And how people should build schoolhospitals and schools instead of just giving handouts because that does not helpat all. Carniege himself created numerous libraries and schools because hebelieved that furthering education for the later generations is key.

Realism In ArtRealism in art was used from 1880s to the 1940s. It was usedto depict the poor social conditions, living conditions, politicalcorruption, and many others. They also used Romanticismand Surrealism as other methods of art to suggest that all ofthe listed above had an lasting impact on humans that theycould never escape

PopulistsThe populist party was better known as the people’s party. Itwas a political party formed in 1892 for the farmers. It wasmainly focused on rights for farmers and how their prices forshipping could be lowered. Also focused on getting the UnitedStates on a silver standard. Dissolved in 1908.

ReformsReform needed to happen in society, there were way toomany unemployed and way too much corruption. Many stepswere taken such as starting the YMCA, building schools andchurches. The settlement housing movement was started offof reforms and did so many good things.