Factory Workers In The Gilded Age

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The Gilded Age had more benefits for the men working. However, America still needed a way to put food on the table and having mass production in factories. Therefore both of the workers were important but factory workers were better in the sense of economic wealth, this means they both were affected greatly by industrialization. In the Gilded Age farmers reacted upset due to the amount if land being by the main men in power of the industries. This resulted in less farming for the farmers. The factories did start to create better equipment for the farmers thought so that was a plus. This also meant that the farmers, “...no longer controlled the social, economic, or political systems”. Which was a hard shift to make seeing they were always the…show more content…
They were also getting taxed on the things they were sellings. The government was also having the gold standard and other news going on to cover up the true things that were going on at these small or even large farms. They promoted other news besides the real issues that were happening at home. The other thing they found similar to both the small farmers and common classic factory workers wanted a reform in the government for higher pay and a voice to be heard. They came together to start a new political group called the Populist Party which was, “...emerged out of the Farmers’ Alliances and the agricultural distress of the 1880s.”. The Populist Party seemed like a great idea at the time to these people. But the party did not succeed, due to Rockefeller paying for his presidential candidate to win the presidency instead of the Populist Party winning and making reforms and laws for these major monopolies. Another problem for both workers and farmer was urbanization: the rapid growth of cities. This ment less homing in the city for workers because more and more workers moved closed by factories in tenements that created sewer problems in the city. But with more growth ment they needed to expand the dense cities. Which would resulted in the farmers losing more land to create more room for these…show more content…
They did have a problem with owners like Andrew Carnegie who made a fortune in the steel industry in the late 1800’s. This man did not care about the common man who workers for him and did not pay attention to the minimum wages being given, harsh factory conditions for not only adults but children, and the amount of safety precautions in the factory. He focused only on how much profit he was making and he also did not have to worry about any rules or regulations being pressed against him because he was so powerful he could buy himself out of anything anyways. With is in mind, this also resulted for long days of working for men, women, and children. It is said “There is no such thing as a dinner hour; men and women eat while they work, and the ‘day’ is lengthened at both ends far into the night.”--Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives”. This was true torture for the working common men and they could do nothing about it, because someone else would just replace their
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