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 Volume IV
The Gilded Age
1870 to 1900
 Volume IV
The Gilded Age
1870 to 1900

Rodney P. Carlisle
general editor
Handbook to Life in America: The Gilded Age, 1870 to 1900
Copyright © 2009 by Infobase Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Handbooks to life in America / Rodney P. Carlisle, general editor.
v. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. 1. The colonial and revolutionary era, beginnings to 1783—v. 2. The early
national period and expansion, 1783 to 1859—v. 3. The Civil War and Reconstruction,
1860 to 1876—v. 4. The Gilded Age, 1870 to 1900—v. 5. Age of reform, 1890 to 1920—v.
6. The roaring twenties, 1920 to 1929—v. 7. The Great Depression and World War II,
1929 to 1949—v. 8. Postwar America, 1950 to 1969—v. 9. Contemporary America, 1970
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 Contents

Volume IV
The Gilded Age
1870 to 1900

preface vii
1 Introduction 1
2 Family and Daily Life 19
3 Material Culture 37
4 Social Attitudes 55
5 Cities and Urban Life 71
6 Rural Life 87
7 Religion 101
8 Education 115
9 Science and Technology 129
10 Entertainment and sports 145
11 Crime and Violence 161
12 Labor and Employment 177
13 Military and Wars 193
14 Population Trends and Migration 207
15 Transportation 221
16 Public Health, Medicine,
and Nutrition 237
INDEX 253
 Preface

“The problem of our age is the

proper administration of wealth . . .”
— Andrew Carnegie’s “Wealth” essay, 1889

The flavor of daily life in previous eras is usually only vaguely conveyed by
examining the documents of state and the politics of the era. What people ate,
how they spent their time, what entertainment they enjoyed, and how they
related to one another in family, church, and employment, constituted the
actual life of people, rather than the distant affairs of state. While governance,
diplomacy, war, and to an extent, the intellectual life of every era tends to
be well-documented, the way people lived is sometimes difficult to tease out
from the surviving paper records and literary productions of the past.
For this reason in recent decades, cultural and social historians have turned
to other types of physical documentation, such as illustrations, surviving ar-
tifacts, tools, furnishings, utensils, and structures. Statistical information can
shed light on other aspects of life. Through examination of these and other
kinds of evidence, a wholly different set of questions can be asked and tenta-
tively answered.
This series of handbooks looks at the questions of daily life from the per-
spective of social and cultural history, going well beyond the affairs of gov-
ernment to examine the fabric and texture of what people in the American
past experienced in their homes and their families, in their workplaces and
schools. Their places of worship, the ways they moved from place to place,
the nature of law and order and military service all varied from period to
period. As science and technology advanced, the American contributions to
those fields became greater and contributed to a different feel of life. Some
of this story may be familiar, as historians have for generations commented
vii
viii The Gilded Age

on the disparity between rural and city life, on the impact of technologies
such as the cotton gin, the railroad and the steamboat, and on life on the
advancing frontier. However in recent decades, historians have turned to dif-
ferent sources. In an approach called Nearby History, academic historians
have increasingly worked with the hosts of professionals who operate local
historical societies, keepers of historic homes, and custodians of local records
to pull together a deeper understanding of local life. Housed in thousands of
small and large museums and preserved homes across America, rich collec-
tions of furniture, utensils, farm implements, tools, and other artifacts tell a
very different story than that found in the letters and journals of legislators,
governors, presidents, and statesmen.

fresh discoveries
Another approach to the fabric of daily life first flourished in Europe, through
which historians plowed through local customs and tax records, birth and
death records, marriage records, and other numerical data, learning a great
deal about the actual fabric of daily life through a statistical approach. Aided
by computer methods of storing and studying such data, historians have
developed fresh discoveries about such basic questions as health, diet, life-
expectancy, family patterns, and gender values in past eras. Combined with a
fresh look at the relationship between men and women, and at the values of
masculinity and femininity in past eras, recent social history has provided a
whole new window on the past.
By dividing American history into nine periods, we have sought to pro-
vide views of this newly enriched understanding of the actual daily life of
ordinary people. Some of the patterns developed in early eras persisted into
later eras. And of course, many physical traces of the past remain, in the form
of buildings, seaports, roads and canals, artifacts, divisions of real estate,
and later structures such as railroads, airports, dams, and superhighways.
For these reasons, our own physical environment is made up of overlapping
layers inherited from the past, sometimes deeply buried, and at other times
lightly papered over with the trappings of the present. Knowing more about
the many layers from different periods of American history makes every trip
through an American city or suburb or rural place a much richer experi-
ence, as the visitor sees not only the present, but the accumulated heritage
of the past, silently providing echoes of history.
Thus in our modern era, as we move among the shadowy remnants of a
distant past, we may be unconsciously receiving silent messages that tell us:
this building is what a home should look like; this stone wall constitutes the
definition of a piece of farmland; this street is where a town begins and ends.
The sources of our present lie not only in the actions of politicians, generals,
princes, and potentates, but also in the patterns of life, child-rearing, educa-
tion, religion, work, and play lived out by ordinary people.
 Preface ix

volume IV: The gilded age

Although the period from the 1870s through the 1890s became known as the
Gilded Age, for the opulence and conspicuous consumption of the wealthy
and some sectors of the middle classes in the United States, it was also a
period of severe economic crisis and social upheaval. By the mid 1890s the
protests of poor farmers, sharecroppers, and industrial workers had mounted
into national political movements, including the emergence of a third politi-
cal party, the Populists. The Populists, or People’s Party, succeeded in winning
some governorships, control of some state legislatures, and sizeable represen-
tation in Congress.
Thus the image of the era as one of growing prosperity and wealth should
be tempered by an understanding of the deep social divisions that would con-
tinue to affect American political life well into the first decades of the 20th
century. Some of those social divisions had been exacerbated by the very
technological end economic changes that brought prosperity to some. With
the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the way was paved for
the development of national price and market systems. Over the last three de-
cades of the 19th century, the efficiencies of rail transportation allowed each
region to specialize—with grain, hog, and cattle production in the midwest,
fruit and vegetable production in Florida and California, iron and steel pro-
duction in Pennsylvania and a few other centers, lumber production in the
upper midwest and far west, and so forth. As businessmen with access to
capital organized these industries on ever larger scales, the prices of basic
commodities continued to fall.
One consequence of the burgeoning national market and brands and the
general fall in commodity prices was the economic difficulty faced by those
with fixed debts and taxes, particularly small-scale farmers. With invest-
ments in land and machinery requiring loans, farm families were faced with
the prospect of constantly declining prices for their products while many of
their annual expenses remained fixed. Out of the economic hardship faced
by farmers came several movements to address their concern, including the
formation of the Grangers. Plans to create monetary inflation, advanced by
the Greenback Party, also attracted support among farmers, who hoped that
rising prices would improve their position. As the Populists organized in the
late 1880s and early 1890s, they also advocated monetary inflation through
increased coinage of silver.
The impact of all of these and other developments on the lifestyle and dai-
ly life of Americans was profound. Technology brought striking changes to
the home itself, with middle-class homes in urban areas by the mid 1890s
equipped with electric lights and telephones. Horse-drawn vehicles brought
ice for iceboxes and daily deliveries of pasteurized bottled milk. Increasingly
in urban areas, outdoor toilets, known as privies, gave way to indoor bath-
rooms with flush toilets, bathtubs, and hot and cold running water. By the end
 The Gilded Age

of the decade, daily life for the middle and upper classes would set patterns
very familiar in the 20th century.
Homelife for the middle classes included visual and musical entertainment.
Three-dimensional slides viewed on hand-held stereopticons, graphophones
with cylindrical recordings, and player pianos that automatically played pop-
ular and traditional music from rolls of punched paper served as forerun-
ners of the radio, stereo players, and television of later eras. Cheap and easily
used cameras spread photography from a form of studio art to a popular pas-
time. Canned food, branded soap products, hand-cranked clothes washing
machines, illustrated daily newspapers, factory-made furniture and kitchen
ware, all began to give a shape and feel to middle-class life that would refine
over the next decades.
The distinction between urban life and rural life grew ever sharper, as did
the gulf between wealth and poverty. As cities expanded, urban transporta-
tion continued to depend on horse-drawn vehicles, with the manure from
thousands of horses presenting a daily threat to sanitation and health. While
the automobile, in its infancy during the 1890s, would soon relieve that con-
dition, it would bring air pollution with exhaust fumes.
The poor in cities lived in increasing squalor, as immigrants from Europe
continued to flock to the major seaport cities of the east. Seeking to escape
the crowded conditions, more affluent families moved out to suburbs, with
the family breadwinners commuting to jobs in the cities by rail and streetcar.
These streetcar suburbs of the 1880s and 1890s foreshadowed the more preva-
lent automobile suburbs of the mid and late 20th century, setting some of the
patterns of style, with separate homes surrounded by lawns, whose neatness
attested to the prosperity of the owners. With improved millwork, character-
istic “gingerbread” trim on Victorian style homes demonstrated prosperity, as
did shingled Mansard roofs and turreted Queen-Anne style dwellings.
Rural life saw fewer of the technical improvements, as telephone and elec-
tric power lines rarely spread to isolated farms and villages. Nevertheless
technical changes affected farm life, with the introduction of stationary gas
engines to power water pumps, and with belt-driven connections, to drive
shop equipment. Tractors, powered by steam, could be found on larger farms,
used to draw reapers, plows, and harrows.
In the field of religion, numerous leaders adopted the social gospel, urging
attention to the growing issues of poverty and public morality. Although still
barred from many professional fields, increasing numbers of women received
higher education and moved into the workforce, not only in industrial jobs,
but also as teachers, clerical workers, nurses, and saleswomen. Mass-pro-
duced typewriters profoundly altered the nature of the workforce, as women
were regarded as more capable of operating the machines than men.
In the field of sports, city-based teams emerged in baseball, forerunners
of the teams of later decades. Entertainment, particularly in the form of
 Preface xi

vaudeville, reflected the increasingly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic nature

of the audiences, with Jewish, Irish, and German stereotyped characters vy-
ing for stage time with the earlier Jim Crow acts of white actors made up in
black-face. As religious and moral reformers came to define some forms of
entertainment as sinful, and to pass legislation to enforce their views, blue
laws prevented the sale of alcohol on Sundays or eliminated its sale altogether
in some local jurisdictions. Likewise reformers focused on eliminating and
criminalizing boxing matches, animal-baiting and animal-fighting, gambling,
prostitution, opium consumption, brothels, and other activities that the prior
generation had defined as part of the sporting life.

Organization
Each chapter of this handbook provides a focus on a different aspect of life.
The first chapter provides an overview of politics and the economy. Subse-
quent chapters detail how people lived: centering on family and daily life, the
changes to material culture, the changing social values of the period, and spe-
cifics of city and rural life. Further chapters explore developments in religion,
education, science and technology, entertainment and sports, crime and vio-
lence, and the nature of the workplace and the efforts of the working class to
organize to improve their status. In 1898 the United States went to war with
Spain, and in a brief campaign, liberated Cuba from the Spanish, and took
possession of Puerto Rico and the Philippines, as well as Guam. Legacies of
that brief war persist, with a U.S. base at Guantanamo in Cuba, and continued
American jurisdiction over Puerto Rico and Guam.
At the heart of some of the transitions of the period were the develop-
ments in transportation, detailed in a separate chapter. Medicine and public
health saw some improvements derived from new technologies and height-
ened awareness of the effects of crowded living conditions and poor sanita-
tion. The diverse topics covered in this volume are intended to convey a sense
and feel for the period. While the political and international developments of
the era are the surface history, it is our effort to provide a view and a sense the
underlying life of everyday people.

Rodney Carlisle
General Editor
 Chapter 1

Introduction

“Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust,
of unlimited reliance upon human promises?”
— Mark Twain, co-author of The Gilded Age

THE GILDED AGE is the period of American history stretching from the end
of Reconstruction to the presidency of William McKinley. It was a time of
change and contrast as America rapidly transformed from a provincial and
largely agrarian country to a modern nation with a continental reach and awe-
inspiring potential.
After 1865 Americans moved westward in large numbers, opening new
lands and building permanent settlements west of the Mississippi River, even-
tually adding over 430 million more acres to the United States. This opening
of the grasslands of North America also brought settlers onto the lands of the
Plains Indians. Such encroachment ignited a series of Indian Wars that lasted
throughout the period. These struggles eventually led to the defeat of the na-
tive way of life, and the beginning of the reservation system that endures to-
day, leaving a lasting impression on America’s historic record.
The modern American industrial society was also born within these years.
Early reliance on the heavy industries permitted a vast manufacturing base to
grow. With this came the need for a national infrastructure of roads, railroads,
and communication systems, which could link the immense hinterland with
the distant Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Industrialization brought enormous and unrivalled wealth for some, but
also created social problems and dangerous working conditions for those
1
 The Gilded Age

who toiled in these new industrial environments. Per capita income steadily
rose, as did production to the point that by the 1890s, America had become
an industrial giant pressing to overtake the British Empire as the leading
economic power in the world. This rapid growth demanded workers, who
came by the millions, principally from Europe, to fill the labor demands of
an emerging economy.
Politically America saw the much resented Reconstruction of the south
end in 1877 and an accompanying resurgence of the Democratic Party as a
national force. Yet the overall era was dominated by Republicans, although
shifts in congressional majorities to Democrats did occur from time to
time. The presidency, with rare exception, was a Republican affair during
the Gilded Age.
The rapid industrialization and accumulation of wealth stimulated an
environment in which political influence was sought and often paid for by
special interests seeking government assistance to become even wealthier.
This background set the stage for much scandal and corruption, which at
times threatened the civic life of the nation. It would also lead to laws to
curb the worst excesses. Civil Service reform, the Interstate Commerce Act,
and the Sherman Antitrust Act were primary examples of these legislative
changes. The latter act supposedly restored an element of competition and
fairness to the economy. A level playing field was needed because large
corporations were exerting monopoly control over segments of the market,
harming society. The accumulation of vast fortunes increased the influence
of individual tycoons, who became known as robber barons. Their wealth
elevated their positions in society to the point that they behaved like the
medieval barons of old.

political objectives
Western settlement brought a dramatic expansion of the agricultural sector.
However with increased farming production there were also greater agricul-
tural debts. Declining farm prices during these decades brought suffering
and subsistence existences for many farmers. This situation bred resentment
that increased from the 1870s onward as farmers, once seen as the backbone
of the nation, turned to a variety of farming organizations to achieve their
political objectives.
By the 1890s the situation had become so pressing that a third party was
created to meet the demands of agricultural interests and to challenge the
Democratic and Republican parties. The Populist Party that emerged in the
1890s wanted an inflationary money supply, tariff reductions, government
loans for farmers, and restrictions on eastern banking interests. Populist in-
fluence would in 1896 play a role in changing the direction of the Democratic
Party when many Populist desires were incorporated into the William Jen-
nings Bryan presidential campaign.
 Introduction 

This 1873 print symbolizes some of the anxieties of the Gilded Age: Wealthy people with a
carriage approach a sign reading “cheap farms,” and a mansion and smokestacks loom beyond.

The era gained its distinctive name in 1873 when Mark Twain and his Con-
necticut neighbor, Charles Dudley Warner, co-wrote a novel, The Gilded Age.
The title was specifically taken from Shakespeare’s King John, Act Four, Scene
Two: “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily . . . is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”
Their work satirized Washington politics and the get-rich-quick schemes and
general corruption of the times. The authors argued that underneath the pleas-
ant appearances and economic successes was a cesspool of corruption, scandal,
and intrigue that threatened the democratic spirit of America.
As the rich grew richer they showered themselves with increasing opu-
lence and garish vulgarity, the excess of which shocked many. By 1890, as the
rich exhibited their diamonds and splendid country homes, 11 million of the
country’s 12 million families lived on less than $1,200 per year, or an annual
per capita income of only $380, which meant poverty for many. The poor were
often crowded into crime-ridden urban tenements and faced lives of disease
and despair.
Some saw economic inequality as one of the essentials that oiled the
wheels of progress, producing the amazing contrasts that transformed
America from an agrarian backwater to a leading industrial nation, where
wealth brought power and prestige. Even with its excesses and teeming urban
slums, there were also more and more consumer products and new techni-
cal innovations such as electric lights, phonographs, sewing machines, and
skyscrapers during the Gilded Age.
 The Gilded Age

Crowds gather at Wall Street during a run on banks and subsequent closing of the stock market
in the Panic of 1873, one of a series of financial crises in the Gilded Age.

There are competing interpretations of the end of the Gilded Age and
the beginning of the early 20th century’s Progressive Era. Some would ar-
gue that the economic collapse of 1893–97, which was up to then the most
severe economic crisis in American history, sealed the end of the Gilded
Age. The Agrarian Revolt and the emergence of the Populist Party during
the 1890s also revealed a political realignment as seen in the 1896 Demo-
cratic Party platform that took on many Populist ideas of reform and re-
flected a changing political mood. The plight of agriculture did not stop
the expansion of farming. For as the nation opened its frontiers westward,
the number of people living on farms tripled. Between 1860 and 1905 the
rural population grew to over 30 million nationally (out of a total pop-
ulation of 62.6 million). Many European immigrants were attracted by
the cheap homestead and railroad lands, and the railroads saw the busi-
ness sense in building routes into the hinterlands to take produce to the
eastern markets.
Other historians feel that the 1898 Spanish-American War marked the
fundamental end of Gilded Age America. The war transformed America into
a world power that could exert its authority and newly found imperial might
to the far reaches of the world. In any case the era was packed with change as
 Introduction 

well as much directional confusion, and for these reasons the period remains
an intriguing age to study.

INDUSTRIALIZATION
One of the key areas in America’s Gilded Age transformation was the growth
in its industrial capacity. Some historians have described the era as a sec-
ond industrial revolution, which was dominated by the expansion and devel-
opment of heavy industries such as mining, railroads, steel production, and
capital machine construction. America’s manufacturing production grew so
rapidly that it soon far exceeded the combined totals of European states such
as Great Britain that had pioneered the first industrial revolution.
Northern interests, whose positions were strengthened after the Civil War,
were at the heart of this expansion, which was best reflected in the amazing
growth of railroad mileage from 35,000 miles of track in 1860 to over 200,000
miles in 1900. This mileage would triple by 1920. The railroads drove growth
and tied the nation together. The railroads also carried raw materials and
mass produced goods to many national markets. Travel became easier and
all quarters of the country could be reached. Trains also provided the means
for people to move to the newly created city jobs. In addition the railroads
transported increasing numbers of immigrants to the interior cities where
industrial growth demanded more and more workers. By 1900 almost 40 per-
cent of Americans lived in cities.
Technological change supported increased mechanization of the economy
with new processes making for greater efficiencies and better products. This
was most clearly seen in steel production where the Bessemer and Siemens
refinements increased both
the quality and profitability. It
was steel that created tycoon
Andrew Carnegie’s fortune,
and he, in conjunction with
financier J.P. Morgan, brought
about the creation of the first
billion-dollar corporation, U.S.
Steel, in 1901.
With mechanization came
increased demands in heavy
industry for unskilled work-
ers who were required to la-
bor in new ways and face new
demands, performing repeti-
tive and often mindless tasks.
Along with steel production A class H3 steam locomotive built in 1888 for the
came a wide scale application Pennsylvania Railroad.
6 The Gilded Age

A wooden wall telephone

from around 1900. The
engraving shows Alexander
Graham Bell in 1892
opening the New York–
Chicago telephone line.

of other technologies, particularly in the use of emerging power sources

such as electricity. The period became a boom time for applied engineer-
ing and invention, with hundreds of thousands of patents filed. It was also
a time of cutthroat competition. Industries consolidated and wealth in the
form of capital was concentrated in monolithic corporations or trusts.
These applications transformed the country, creating the basis for new in-
dustries and new wealth. George Westinghouse’s air brakes improved train
travel. Thomas Edison applied his considerable talents to numerous products
that brought innovation to American life, and his power plants later became
the basis for the General Electric Corporation. Oil production significantly
increased and formed the fuel for running the industries and homes of Amer-
ica, making John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Company a dominant
economic force. Alexander Bell’s telephone furthered the communications
revolution and became the backbone of new corporations such as Theodore
Vail’s American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
As corporate wealth increased, both skilled and unskilled workers looked
for better conditions and higher rates of pay. Pay rates did increase during this
period, but not as fast as was required for a more comfortable standard of liv-
ing. Workers began to organize to gain advantages against the concentrated
power of the large corporations. This gave birth to America’s union movement,
which was seen as a threat by the industrial capitalists. Conditions created
confrontation, and disruptions came through strikes and violence. Permanent
social discord seemed a real possibility that frightened some in America, as
 Introduction 

did the tides of immigration, particularly as the new immigrants competed

for jobs with older workers. This discord also applied to African-American
workers migrating from the south, and women who were in growing numbers
seeking jobs away from the farms and small towns.
The industrial expansion benefited a small number of capitalists and em-
ployed millions of the unskilled laboring masses. It also created an array of
skilled jobs that required education and in particular, management and en-
gineering skills. The effect produced an enormous growth in the urban mid-
dle class who filled slots in the new corporate bureaucracies. They earned
better wages and became salary men. Women also were better educated, but
were still excluded from certain career paths. With increased responsibili-
ties and wages, there was increased social standing for the middle class, as
well as a growing sense of professionalism in American life.

THE UNION MOVEMENT

The rapid industrialization of the Gilded Age and the concentration of capital
and power with corporations caused the workers in these new and expand-
ing industries to look for the protection that could come in numbers. The
National Labor Union, founded after the Civil War by Philadelphia garment
workers, met little success. The Depression of 1873 brought about its col-
lapse. The Knights of Labor followed and expanded rapidly in the late 1870s
under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly. The Knights was a union for
both skilled and unskilled work-
ers. It maintained an inclusive
policy welcoming all regardless
of race or gender. The Knights
argued that a large broad-based
union would be able to extend
workers rights and attain better
conditions. However its size did
not help it win strikes.
Eventually autocratic leader-
ship and divides between skilled
and unskilled members, as well
as unsuccessful strike action,
lost it support. Its association in
the popular imagination with the
1886 Haymarket Square bomb-
ing in Chicago, and competition
from the emerging American
Federation of Labor, caused the
The engraving shows Frank J. Farrell, an African-
union’s demise as a serious orga- American delegate, introducing Terence Powderly to
nization by the end of the 1880s. an 1886 Knights of Labor convention.
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