Big Business In The Gilded Age

918 Words4 Pages
As business during 1870 - 1899 stride to grow their company, big businesses oath to take them down and make them bankrupt. Society in this Gilded Age tried to find a way in which they could make it big and be wealthy like the other wealthiest. The big businesses during the Gilded Age strongly influenced the society it lives apon by value of supply like food, how the worker were treated at work, and how they made some fortunate people wealthy. During this era, many people including young kids went to work and stride to earn some money to support their family. At this time, most work condition were extremely harsh and the death rate at most work were high. Most people worked at big businesses like the Oil company or installing railroads.…show more content…
George Rice (POV) quotes in his letter, “I am but one of many victims of Rockefeller’s colossal combination,” (Doc 6). At this time, Rockefeller use a skill in which he lower the cost of oil so more people would go and buy his oil in order to gain more customers (HC). The outcome of this was many other oil companies lost their customers and went into bankruptcy. George and other people effect are talking about them being corrupted by other initiating big businesses and leaving them in debt. Statistics shows that during the era of big businesses and corruption, prices and cost of things decrease in a somewhat constant rate (Doc 1). Food prices, fuel and lighting prices, and cost of living index all decrease which could correlate with the corruption and people like Rockefeller decreasing their oil to gain customers. The Gilded Age led to corruption and having big businesses like the oil or the railroad companies affecting others in order to get wealth and become one of the top people in…show more content…
In Doc 3, we can see the small people down working hard to earn money. On the other hand we see big belly people with dollar signs around their chest. This show wealth and money they have consumed and aren’t doing anything beside standing, watching the small fit people work. This also cause unfair wages and conflict with low class workers. Strikes and form of union has form in order to make progress a social change with their business. In Doc 4, Andrew Camegie speaks about “Wealth” and what is like having it. He states that the first rule of being wealthy is to become a role model for others to follower. This was huge at this time because most people stride to make a business that is successful. Going back to Rockefeller, he started out selling candies and later tried to make a big business but at one time was unsuccessful. (HC). He made many risk like buying a company that could supply others with goods like oil or railroad for a thousand and more and soon became the richest man in that era. That why many people looked for a role model that were successful in making it big. Businesses mainly change society by influencing many to start finding a way to create a business that would be

More about Big Business In The Gilded Age

Open Document