There are many events throughout history that can be compared to Mark Twain’s, “Gilded Age”. Characterized by unprecedented levels of rapid growth involving the railroad, mining, factories, new family grown farms, and the banking industry, it was the time of new found wealth and the coming of age. However, it was also the time of greed, corruption and political venues that were so intertwined making political parties and government difficult to follow. However, the post-civil war events that I can relate his works to is the overwhelming greed and entitlement the government and people showed against the indigenous native Indians. From the beginning of the western migration from England, the indigenous Indians were treated very poorly. They survived hundreds of years living off the land, using all portions of their kill for shelter, clothing, tools and, of course, nourishment nothing went to waste. Nomadic, the small tribes moved from place to place living with the migration of the herds. Enter the white man, and the migration westward. Promises of cheap rich land for farming, jobs and the prospect of mining minerals started the move west News of buried treasures brought forth prospectors from around the world trying their luck at striking it rich with a mineral mine, such as gold or …show more content…
Basically giving the government permission to confiscate the reservation land and divide it up innate 160-acre parcels of land to be given to each Indian as their own private property. The allotments were given to single men, and single women with children, but did not include married women. However, if the Indians took this land, then they would become US citizens, which in turn crippled almost all tribal cultural traditions. Since the reservation land far outnumbered the allotments given out to the Indians, the government reserved the right to sell the surplus to the white
Another 80 acres would go to each unmarried recipients. It was stipulated that the land could not be alienated for 25 years. Any Indian that received land automatically became citizens of the U.S. They were obligated to state, federal and local laws. All of the supporters of this act
It also took away the tribal ownership of most tribes. The act moved Indian families onto their own land, and took away Indian children away from their families and sent them to boarding
During the Gilded Age, very few politicians were responsible for the changes happening across the country. The Presidency had no power on influence over society, and congress was drowning in corruption. Economics:
The Gilded Age was a period after the Civil War, between the late 19th and early 20th century. During this time, the United States went through a period of economical, political and social growth. However, Corruption was common throughout the Gilded Age and greatly affected the United States of America. Railroad Corruption, such as Credit Mobilier, a railroad construction company for the Union Pacific RailRoad that overcharged the public for construction costs, Political Corruption that was based around various scandals as well as Patronage, were all forms of corruption that took place throughout the Gilded Age. Union Pacific Railroad stockholders formed a company known as the Credit Mobilier of America.
The Gilded Age was an age of rapid economic growth. Railroads, factories, and mines were slowly popping up across the country, creating a variety of new opportunities for entrepreneurs and laborers alike. These new inventions and opportunities created “...an unprecedented accumulation of wealth” (GML, 601). But the transition of America from a small farming based nation to a powerful industrial one created a huge rift between social classes. Most people were either filthy rich or dirt poor, with workers being the latter.
The Gilded Age started as the reconstruction era in the United States, which meant the rebuilding of a broken nation. This was a time when a white supremacist view was the only right way to see the economic, political and social standpoints in the country. It later was labeled as the Gilded Age because there were so many issues that had to be covered up and could not be fixed. The term gilded means to cover with thin gold leaf, which is pretty much what they tried to do. During this time there was a rapid expansion of industrial growth, railroads began to become of high interest, and the wages in the north started rising.
By using the term gilded as opposed to golden, Mark Twain suggested that our country was publicizing itself with success stories while hiding the socio-economic problems that had eventually manifested into corruption (Cayton, 1995). From an outsider’s perspective, the Gilded Age was considered to be a time of growth and prosperity. However, America started to recognize this problem when an increased number of unskilled laborers were hired to run factories. Specifically, children were often born into the labor force as the demand and necessity for labor grew. Companies wanted to hire children in sweatshops at low wages and long hours in order to get maximum profit.
The saying that history repeats itself has been proven to be true time and time again. History seems to be doomed to repeat itself as if lessons were never learned from past mistakes. The Gilded Age is a unique period in American history that is undoubtedly repeating itself in the modern day. Corruption, unprecedented immigration, and the massing of wealth by the top 1% of the population are just a few of the things that characterize this period of American history. The same issues that plagued America over 100 years ago are re-emerging in todays’ society leading scholars to say that America has arrived in “The Second Gilded Age”.
expenses for one year would have been $2,631,580 in 2015. For this reason he took long European lecture tours in ‘72 and ‘73, to support himself. ("Mark Twain Biography Writer 1835-1910" Biography.com). Between ‘72 and ‘80 he and Olivia had three children, Susy, Clara, and Jean. In 1874 the Twain family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, their extravagant 19-room house compounded Marks trouble with money.
Grand industrial and economic growth, as well as personal opportunities for monetary success, were never higher than in the Gilded Age. The founding Industrial Fathers such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, to name a few, were the pioneers of the Gilded Age and without them, the United States would not resemble even a fraction of what it does today. Without question, these men were the driving force behind the industrial boom, but the debate rages on as to whether these corporate magnates were sagacious business men seeking to debauch the United States for the procurement of monetary superiority or if they were a benevolent force seeking to bring America to the highest level of economic success ever seen
Was Mark Twain correct in calling the Gilded age? “Even though the era following the Reconstruction was one of the great invention and economic growth, all did not share in that prosperity.” For example according to Introduction to American History in 1860’s and 1900’s the millage of railroads increased from a 30,000 miles to a 193,000 mileage. One million to ten millions and the number of workers from 1.3 million to 5.3 million.
Wealth, poverty, technology, decadence, the Gilded Age was a time of change and uprooting of past systems, schools of thought, and standards. It was a time of both hope and doubt for the majority of the population and brought many to be empty handed or exceedingly wealthy. The dynamic between rich and poor was shifting to a gap of wealth never before seen in the young country. The gilded age’s built up wealth disparity faded away over time. Yet today it seems that a resurgence of these features is rearing its ugly head again.
The greatest political problem in the Gilded Age was the simple fact that so much of the politics and presidents were all corrupt in some way there is no politics at all if it's all corrupt. The government wasn’t certain on what they were doing. Then when the social Darwinism came along and they weren’t helping anybody. The rich were also giving money to people to form law and other things more in their favor that would be making them more rich than they already are. The presidents that were in office were also corrupt, when Grant was president, he had a few scandals while in office Credit Mobilier Scandal, Whiskey Ring Scandal, and the Trading Post Scandal.
During those years Sam completed some of his most famous books‚ often finding a summer refuge for uninterrupted work at his sister-in-law’s farm in Elmira‚ N.Y. Novels such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Life on the Mississippi(1883) captured both his Missouri memories and depictions of the American scene. Yet‚ his social commentary continued. The Prince and the Pauper (1881) explored class relations as does A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) which‚ going a step further‚ criticized oppression in general while examining the period’s explosion of new technologies. And‚ in perhaps his most famous work‚ Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Twain’s (1884)‚ Twain ‚ by the way he attacked the institution of slavery‚ railed against the failures of Reconstruction and the continued poor treatment of African Americans in his own
I believe Regionalism in a way also played a part in his story. Since he had the privilege to write these stories I think he used that advantage to showcase stories relating to people who didn 't have the same privileges as him. He chose to write stories about the