Gilded Age Reform Movements and Responses to Industrial Capitalism

hey there and welcome back to heimler's history now we've been going through unit six of the ap us history curriculum and considering the gilded age from all kinds of different angles and in this video we're going to consider the various reform movements that sprang up

during this time so if you're ready to get them brain cows milk and i know you are then let's get to it so in this video we're basically trying to do one thing and that's to explain how different reform movements responded to the rise of industrial capitalism in the gilded

age easy peasy lemon squeezy so when i say industrial capitalism here's what i mean now if you've been with me in these last videos you'll remember that america was undergoing a massive change in the way it produced goods to be sold like back in the old days artisans

and skilled laborers crafted items by hand to be sold on a small scale but during this period factories sprang forth from the ground like athena from zeus's head and within these factories tens of thousands of unskilled laborers worked machines day in and day out mass producing

goods to be sold on a national and international scale one of the economic realities that allowed them to grow so quickly was the prevalence of laissez-faire capitalism and this just means that the american government intervened very rarely in economic operations of businesses

and so without many regulations these businesses flourish when i say these businesses flourish what i really mean is that most of the wealth they generated stayed in the hands of the elite upper class for those working in the factories it was a different story altogether

like their wages in many cases were only barely enough to survive and add to that the exceedingly dangerous working conditions and then add to that the 12 to 14 hour days that meant that you went to work in the dark and returned home in the dark and then all of a sudden

you've got a whole sector of society who are eeking out a miserable existence and so in light of all this artists and critics which included agrarians and utopians and socialists and advocates of the social gospel they all rose up and demanded reform and let me introduce

you to some of their causes now henry george who was a politician and an economist thought it was downright foolish that so much wealth could be generated by a nation while at the same time so many of its citizens lived in abject poverty his solution was called the

single tax on land and according to his estimates those elite folks who owned large tracts of land were gaining disproportionate amounts of wealth based on the increasing value of that land and therefore they simply needed to be taxed more to even the playing field

between them and the working class okay let's switch over to utopians a good example of an artist using utopian art to challenge industrial capitalism was edward bellamy he wrote a novel in 1888 called looking backward in which a man goes to sleep in 1887 only to wake up

in 2000 and find that america had been transformed into a socialist utopia where capitalism had been crushed and everyone's needs were met yeah i'd say you got that one just about wrong anyway speaking of socialism that ancient enemy of capitalism this ideology really gained

some traction during this time and look i'm not trying to advocate for socialism here but it's easy to understand why people gravitated toward this ideology according to the dictates of socialism all the means of production in a society should be owned and regulated by

the community and benefit everyone more or less equally looking around at the state of society in the late 19th century it is understandable why some people might think capitalism had failed anyway socialism picked up some steam during this period but it never really grabbed

hold of american citizens like it did to europeans still our buddy eugene v debs who if you'll remember was the head of a significant union we talked about in another video joined with a few others and started the socialist party of america in 1901 he ran for president on

this party's ticket but they didn't do so well and they basically petered out after this others who opposed industrial capitalism did so under the banner of the social gospel christians in america had always believed that repentance and reform ought to be applied

to one's own soul but here the focus grew wider the advocates of the social gospel believe that christian principles ought to be applied not just to oneself but to cure the ills of society as well and in that vein throughout the last 20 years of the 19th century many

protestant preachers crusaded for social justice for the urban poor they especially set their sights on the middle class and urged them to take up the mantle of solving urban poverty as their christian duty so the point of all of this is that there were a lot of folks

who tried different methods to resist the kind of society that industrial capitalism created now during the same time there was another reform movement brewing but it had less to do with capitalism than everything i just said women especially took up the cause

of reform during this period and they did so for various causes in the last video i introduced you to jane adams who established settlement houses to help immigrants assimilate to american culture but also there was a big push for women's suffrage during this time

which is to say women's right to vote in 1890 elizabeth katie stanton susan b anthony founded the national american woman suffrage association or nasa which worked tirelessly to secure the franchise for women now i'll have to come back to that in the next unit because their

work won't bear constitutional fruit until 1920. but during this period women also took up the cause of temperance which is the fight against the consumption of alcohol now make no mistake drunkenness was a real problem

among urban male factory workers during this period and that was a large cause of the growing impoverishment of the working classes so to combat this women formed the women's christian temperance union in 1874 and they crusaded for total abstinence from alcohol and apparently

it was a popular message because they had something like 500 000 members on their roles by 1898. now this organization along with others like the anti-saloon league worked largely through

peaceful means like protest and trying to lobby congress to pass laws but there was a more radical strand of women who refuse to wait for the painfully slow gears of congress to turn and maybe the best example i can think of as carrie nation she said of herself that

she was a bulldog running along at the feet of jesus barking at what he doesn't like apparently jesus didn't like alcohol because what kerry nation was known for was her hatchet which she carried into saloons and hacked at liquor barrels until they spilled their contents

onto the floor she was probably the only one who could get away with that like all the men are sitting around at the bar going i mean what do we do like can we can we find a woman can we fight a woman while they'Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s

History. We’ve been going through Unit 6 of the AP U.S. History curriculum and considering the Gilded AGe from all kinds of different angles.

And in this video we’re going to consider the various reform movements that sprang up during this time. So if you're ready to get them brain cows milked, and I know you are, then let’s get

to it. So in this video we’re basically trying to do one thing, and that’s to explain how different reform movements responded to the rise of industrial capitalism in the Gilded

Age. If you’ve been with me in these last videos, you’ll remember that America was undergoing a massive change in the way it produced goods to be sold.

Back in the old days, artisans and skilled laborers crafted items by hand to be sold on a small scale. During this period, factories sprang forth from the ground like Athena from Zeus’s

head, and within these factories, tens of thousand of unskilled laborers worked machines day in and day out mass-producing goods to be sold on a national and international scale. And one of the economic realities that allowed them to grow so quickly was the prevalence

of laissez faire capitalism.