Gilded Age

The period in the United States from around 1877 to 1895 was one in which American society underwent enormous change. New social and economic processes such as changing political parties, questioning citizenship, and formations of labor unions disrupted older ways of organizing American society, challenged traditional ways of thinking about what it meant to be an American, and led Americans to look for ways to cope with these changes. The Gilded Age proved to be an era …

…with the federal government. Political parties mocked the myth that America was a classless/democratic society. The labor union disputes dispelled the myths that America was ideal of economic independence and that it was the land of boundless opportunity. Finally, all men were not equal or have basic citizenship rights, despite the fourteenth amendment. All the problems that America had was covered by a golden surface labeled as progression while its citizens suffered and battled.