- During Gilded Age, every man was a potential Andrew Carnegie.
o Americans achieved wealth celebrated it as never before.
- HV many also poor
o 1890 11 million of 12 million families in nation less than $1200 year.
§ Of this group, average income $380, much lower than poverty line.
o Immigrants went into urban areas and made many parts of the city very dirty.
- Suffered under Carnegie’s mills and nation’s factories, sweatshops.
o Feeling of brooding revolution as well as revenge among the middle class.
- AR city poor often turned to political machines.
o Early years of Gilded Age, Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall provided more services to poor than any other gov.
§ Though much of money to Tweed’s own pocket.
o Corruption also went to highest levels in government, including Credit Mobilier corruption scandal, the Gold Conspiracy, the Whiskey Ring, and the Salary Grab.
- Europeans thought America may have been economically advanced, but lacked cultural sophistication.
o French Minister Georges Clemenceau visited – and said that America had gone from a stage of barbarism to one of decadence – without achieving any civilization between the two.
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