What occured in the gilded age?
- great increases in wealth
- growth of cities
- development of the middle class
What was beneath the surface of the Gilded age?
- inequality
- impoverished masses
- injustice for “out groups”
What was the chain reaction from 1860-1890?
Technological change -> economic change -> social change -> political change
What is the key point about the chain reaction?
that it is all interrelated because it’s all about people (just different aspects of our lives)
Why is change disruptive?
- new jobs replace old ones
- new elites replace old elites
- power centers form in a culture that doesn’t like concentrated power
What did Alexander Graham Bell patent?
telephone
What did Thomas Edison create?
- 2 way signals on telegraph wires
- light bulb
- phonograph
- Menlo Park research lab
What did Henry Ford create?
the assembly line
What did Ford base it on?
Eli Whitney’s interchangeable parts
What contributions did the assembly line have to the auto industry?
- it was the basis of growth
- changes nature of work and workers
- changes need for skilled workers
- lowered price
What effect did industries have on existing economics?
- factories replaced family businesses
- needed to produce larger number of units
- nationwide operation
- borrowing lots of money at a time
What made the middle class?
- managers
- candy stores, parties, travel, and home decor
How did technology change lifestyle?
- created nightlife
- electric trolleys
- department stores
- taller buildings
- clean water supply
What was a middle class woman’s life like?
- remained in the women’s sphere
- embrace role as consumers
What were the results of mass production?
- mass consumption
- advertising
- less resistance on religion and democratic values
What was the role of advertising?
- creates a need rather than a want
- alleviates concerns about over-spending
- created idea of middle class respectability
What did immigration do for economics?
it filled the need for cheap labor
What ethnicities came in the first wave of immigrants?
Britain, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia
What ethnicities came in the second wave of immigrants?
Italy, Greece, Russia, Austria, Romania, Turkey, Asia, and Mexico
What was the push factor?
they were driven from their home land
What was the pull factor?
opportunities in America
What was the melting pot?
the idea that immigrants give up their ethnic identities and America is just a mix of ethnicities
What is cultural pluralism?
keeping ethnic identities but adopt new identity (salad bowl)
What was Ellis Island?
- where immigrants could come into the US
- welcomed by the Statue of Liberty
