Money and Magnificent---The Gilded Age Click here for a dictionary
	HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Paragraph 1	In 1876, as Americans celebrate their nation’s centennial, there was a lingering sadness throughout the country. Only a decade earlier, in 1865, a long and terrible civil war had ended. Four years of fighting between the North and the South had taken the lives of half a million Americans. And although Northern victory had ultimately preserved the American Union, vivid memories of a ghastly war still lingered. Southern states had been devastated by constant invasion. In fact, in 1876, they were still under the burden of postwar material rule. Northern states had escaped complete destruction, but thousands of their soldiers, too, had died. For both sides, therefore, the war between the states had been a shattering experience, an overwhelming sorrow which America had to bear in order to end the injustice of slavery.
	THE RISE OF BIG BUSINESS
Paragraph 2	Thus, at the end of their century, the people looked ahead with mixed emotions. As in many postwar period, there remained bitterness and self-doubt. But as often happens after a major conflict, there was also a new commitment to prosperity. For the war had brought expansion as well as disaster. It had created new social patterns and a vast new technology---advances that made it possible for America to realize its fullest economic potential.
Paragraph 3	The federal government, for example, had greatly developed during the years of military crisis. To provide effective leadership, it had become a complex, centralized, and powerful organization. So after 1865, Americans increasingly looked to the government for assistance and support. Business leaders, consumers, pioneers, and workers al demand attention. They learned to lobby, to apply pressure on the government, to use all the government’s new powers. With more and more help from Washington, therefore, they were able to promote the settlement of land, the development of industry, and the extension of investment opportunities.
Paragraph 4	Like the expanded role of government, the military campaigns of the Civil War also advanced the American economy. For in order to carry on the enormous struggle, there were continuous developments in industry, communication, agriculture, banking, and marketing. Railroad lines were extended and farm machinery improved. Medicine advanced, the telegraph spread, and publicity methods for wartime propaganda developed. Indeed, in almost every area of national production, there were technical and professional improvements to meet the emergency needs of war.
Paragraph 5	Finally, the Civil War turned out to be a testing ground for talent. On the battlefields, during strategy sessions, at supply lines, and in hospitals, only one thing mattered: success. Those who could do their job well were acknowledged and advanced. Those who failed were replace and forgotten. Thus, when the fighting was over, there were tough, experienced managers among the war’s survivors. These directors were the future leaders of America’s peacetime development.
	THE GILDED AGE
Paragraph 6	As its second century dawned, therefore, the United States was just beginning its greatest period of expansion. Government assistance, improved technology, and aggressive leaders were transforming the country’s economy, and a war-weary nation turned in relief to the steady pursuit of wealth. Fortunes were made and millions invested as the people developed their land, their natural resources, and their manufacturing capacity. So by World War I---fifty years after the Civil War---a remarkable transformation had taken place. America had conquered a continent to become the leading nation of an emerging modern age.
Paragraph 7	But the quality of life in that half-century did not quite match the nation’s wealth. Power, too often, led to corruption. And the chance for a fortune brought greed and unrest to the souls of ambitious achievers. For this reason, the decades that followed the Civil war became as America’s Gilded Age. On the surface there appeared rapid growth and great technological achievement. Sometimes, however, beneath the prosperity, there was a deeper reality of dishonesty and fraud.
Paragraph 8	And yet, despite its darker side, the Gilded Age was a memorable period in the American experience. As symbolized by its ragtime music, it was an age of tremendous energy. From the fields of oil in Pennsylvania to the cattle ranches of Texas, from Rocky Mountain silver mines to the avenues of Manhattan, there was fashionable clothes replaced the simplicity of a pioneer past. Above all, of course, there were the millionaires themselves---those brilliant investors and extraordinary business leaders who shaped the miracles of the America’s new economy.
	FOCUS ON ANDREW CARNEGIE
Paragraph 9	Among these figures, the most famous, perhaps, was Andrew Carnegie. Born in Scotland in 1835, Carnegie spent his childhood in the romantic and picturesque countryside around the ancient town of Dunfermline. With its fine old abbey and its palace ruins, the area was rich in Scottish history, and young Andrew---sensitive and proud---soon learned to treasure his national heritage. He thrilled to family stories of legendary heroes. He took delight in the folklore and tradition of Scotland’s past. Indeed, from the land and from its people, Carnegie seemed to get a special strength---a sense of comfort, an identity that linked him to the glory of a vanished epic age.
Paragraph 10	Suddenly, however, this security was rudely shaken. The Industrial Revolution was sweeping across Britain, and Dunfermline, too, began to change. One after another, its artisans were replaced by the new machinery of a growing factory system. He struggled hard to keep his regular customers, but it was no use. Machines could make his cloth much faster and cheaper. There would soon be no more work for him, he realized sadly. But in America, toward the western frontiers, there would at least be a chance for his children.
Paragraph 11	So in 1848, after selling the family possessions to pay for their passage, the Carnegies sailed away from Scotland. For little Andrew---then only thirteen---this departure from Dunfermline was traumatic. Again and again he turned toward the abbey, fading symbol of a world that had crumbled and a peace that was gone forever. Ahead lay America---continent of opportunity. But Carnegie’s roots, and his heart, remained in the Scottish hills.
Paragraph 12	After arriving in New York, the Carnegie family moved on to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There, relatives had told them, new industries and spreading railroad connections had created employment opportunities. But as the newcomers discovered, conditions in Pittsburgh soon proved disappointing. Carnegie’s father found few customers for his lovely handmade cloths, and the only employment his mother could find was some part-time work as a shoemaker’s assistant. Before long, “the prospect” of want had become to me a frightful nightmare,” Carnegie confessed. More than anything else, the proud boy who had cherished Scotland’s heroes now longed to become his family’s savior. If only he could restore the days of Dunfermline’s plenty. If only he could ease the pain of poverty in America.
Paragraph 13	Determined, Andrew Carnegie found some word in a nearby cotton factory. Then, for better pay, he quickly changed to another mill. By day, he spent long hours amid the sickening odors of the oil vats. At night, he studied the latest method of accounting. Finally, the chance for advancement appeared. A messenger boy was needed at the local telegraph office, and Carnegie was hired. At last he had an opportunity to meet the business leaders who sent and received the city’s wires.
Paragraph 14	Indeed, it was from the telegraph office that Carnegie’s rise began. He was only fifteen, but he quickly absorbed all the business information that passed over the wires to this office. After a year, he learned to operate the telegraph machine itself. Then, with his speed and skill, he soon impressed all the merchants and bankers who needed the information he received.
Paragraph 15	One of these businessmen was Mr. Thomas Scott, superintendent of the western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On his frequent visits to the telegraph office, he often observed its clever young operator. So when the expanding railroad needed its own operator, Scott insisted on Carnegie. In this way, Andrew Carnegie entered the fast-paced, multimillion-dollar railroad industry.
Paragraph 16	Here again, he quickly mastered the details and techniques of a complex organization. From telegraph operator he became Scott’s assistant. Then, after Scott was promoted to vice president of the line, Carnegie himself became the division superintendent. It was a position of immense responsibility and countless managerial duties, for railroads were quickly becoming the first great corporations in America. They invested vast amount of capital in machinery, maintenance, land, construction, and supplies. They depended on the flawless operation of long-range communication systems. Any they needed a carefully coordinated staff of thousands in order to operate successfully.
Paragraph 17	From 1859 to 1865---years which spanned the Civil War---Carnegie directed his wartime pressures, he became an expert in corporate finance, personnel management, marketing, promotion, and large-scale business operations. He was also able to make shrewd personal investments, since he was in constant touch with the economic and political leaders of the nation.
	A NEW INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY
Paragraph 18	When Carnegie left the railroad, therefore, he was already a wealthy man. Although only twenty-nine, his dream of saving the family from want had long since been fulfilled. But greater achievements still lay ahead. During his years on the railroad, Carnegie had realized that steel, not wood or iron, was destined to become the modern world’s construction material. He had heard about the new Bessemer process for converting iron to steel and was determined to utilize this process in steel plants of his own. So by means of brilliant investments, and drawing upon all his railroad experience, he began the systematic expansion of one of his earliest companies---the Keystone Bridge Company---into a vast corporation: Carnegie Steel. For almost forty years, he devoted himself with customary energy to the management of this corporation. And in the process, he perfected techniques of corporate management that are still central to international business today. He expanded his facilities, updated machinery, and coordinated a huge staff. He also managed to keep his price competitive while aggressively seeking world-wide markets.
Paragraph 19	Unfortunately, this brought Carnegie to a tragic confrontation with labor in 1892. When workers at his Homestead Plant went out on strike against a pay cut, Carnegie’s partner---Henry Frick---responded with a call for hundreds of guards. In the violence that quickly developed, many guard and several strikers were killed or wounded.
Paragraph 20	In 1901 Carnegie finally sold his company to the world-famous banker, J.P. Morgan. The price agreed upon was $480 million---and a new corporation was reorganized as United States Steel.
Paragraph 21	By this time Carnegie was already involved in an organized program of philanthropy, for he had determined to give away much of his fortune to those who needed it. He established libraries, supported churches, built public buildings, and created pensions. While establishing trusts for future projects, he also founded universities and supported education in both Europe and America. Indeed, by mastering the system that had mastered his father, Carnegie triumphed completely over the villain of his youth. He had, of course, paid a high price for success. He had made enemies as well as admirers, for especially after the Homestead Strike, there were critics who had attacked him for having used ruthless business procedures. Yet, like the heroes of his childhood fantasies, he had emerged victorious. Like them, his name was legend. Tycoon of the Gilded Age, his exploits, too, would live on forever in the shadow of Dunfermline’s Abbey.
	SELECTION I
Paragraph 22	The following selection is from Carnegie’s Autobiography. Written after he had become a famous industrialist, it describes the childhood traumas of unexpected poverty, departure from Scotland, and emigration to America. the childhood traumas of unexpected poverty, departure from Scotland, and emigration to America.
	from Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Paragraph 23	With the introduction and improvement of steam machinery, trade grew worse and worse in Dunfermline for the small manufacturers, and at last a letter was written to my mother’s two sisters in Pittsburgh stating that the idea of our going to them was seriously entertained---not, as I remember hearing my parent say, to benefit their own condition, but the sake of their two young sons. Satisfactory letters were received in reply. The decision was taken to sell the looms and furniture by auction. And my father’s sweet voice sang often to mother, brother, and me: “To the West, to the West, to the land of the free, Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea; Where a man is a man even though he must toil And the poorest may gather the fruits of the soil.”
Paragraph 24	The proceeds of the sale were most disappointing. The looms brought hardly anything, and the result was that twenty pounds more were needed to enable the family to pay passage to America. Here let me record an act of friendship performed by a liftlong companion of my mother---…She boldly ventured to advance the needful twenty pounds, my Uncles Lauder and Morrison guaranteeing repayment. Uncle Lauder also lent his aid and advice, managing all the details for us, and on the 17th day of May, 1848, we left Dunfermline. My father’s age was then forty-three, my mother’s thirty-three. I was in my thirteen year, my brother Tom in his fifth year---a beautiful white-haired child with lustrous black eyes, who everywhere attracted attention…
Paragraph 25	On the morning of the day we started from beloved Dunfermline, in the omnibus that ran upon the coal railroad to Charleston, I remember that I stood with tearful eyes looking out of the window until Dunfermline vanished from view, the last structure to fade being the grand and sacred old Abbey. During my first fourteen years of absence my thought was almost daily, as it was that morning, “When shall I see you again?”…All my recollections of childhood, all I know of fairyland clustered around the old Abbey and its curfew bell, which tolled at eight o’clock every evening and was the signal for me to run to bed before it stopped…
Paragraph 26	The arrival at New York was bewildering. I had been taken to see the Queen at Edinburgh, but that was the extent of my travels before emigrating. Glasgow we had not time to see before we sailed. New York was the first great hive of human industry among the inhabitants of which I had mingled, and the bustle and excitement of it overwhelmed me…
	SELECTION II
Paragraph 27	Unlike Andrew Carnegie, Edith Newbold Jones grew up in the privileged world of New York society during America’s Gilded Age. She traveled often, even in childhood, visiting elegant resorts with her wealthy parents and friends. She began to develop a keen interest in literature and writing, but her enthusiasm, considered improper for a young lady, was firmly discouraged by her parents. Dutifully, in 1885, she married Edward Wharton, a prominent member of Boston society. Before long, however, she suffered a mental collapse, torn between her duties as a fashionable young hostess and her desire to find a deeper, more meaningful life. After a slow and painful period of recovery, she published a book of short stories in 1899. Three years later came her first novel, The Valley of Decision, followed by one of her best works, The House o Mirth, in 1905. When her marriage, strained to the breaking point, came to an end in 1913, Edith Wharton had already settled in Paris, determined to continue her career as an author. The Custom of the Country, another of her great novels, appeared that same year; six years later, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her masterpiece of fiction, The Age of Innocence. Surrounded by a brilliant circle of artists, she continued to write until her death in 1937, published over fifteen novels, several volumes of short stories, plays, poetry, and travel books.
Paragraph 28	Following is a selection from The House of Mirth. Set in the fashionable New York world Wharton had known as a girl, the novel describes the struggles of the beautiful, ambitious, and intelligent Lily Bart. Once wealthy, Lily’s parents have suffered financial disaster, leaving their daughter to make her own way in society. The only solution, Lily knows, is to marry a rich man, but she repeatedly turns away from the wealthy, foolish bachelors who surround her. She is attracted to Lawrence Selden, a gifted and handsome young lawyer of modest financial means. Torn between her ambition and a desire for independence, she makes a tragic mistake that destroys her only chance for true love. It is a typical theme in Wharton’s novels, where women must sacrifice their own fulfillment and obey society’s rules, or else face certain destruction.
Paragraph 29	In the following selection, Lily and Selden have an honest discussion during afternoon tea.
	from The House of Mirth
Paragraph 30	“Don’t you ever mind,” she asked suddenly, “not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?”
Paragraph 31	He followed her glance about the room, with its worn furniture and shabby walls. “Don’t I just? Do you take me for a saint on a pillar?” “And having to work---do you mind that?” “Oh, the work itself is not so bad---I’m rather fond of the law.” “No; but the being tied down: the routine---don’t you ever want to get away, to see new places and people?” “Horribly---especially when I see all my friends rushing to the steamer.” She drew a sympathetic breath. “But do you mind enough---to marry to get out of it?” Selden broke into a laugh. “God forbid!” he declared.
Paragraph 32	She rose with a sigh, tossing her cigarette into the grate.
Paragraph 33	“Ah, there’s the difference---a girl must, a man may if he chooses.” She surveyed him critically. “Your coat’s a little shabby---but who cares? It doesn’t keep people from asking you to dine. If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. The clothes are the background, the frame, if you like: they don’t make success, but they are a part of it. Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop---and if we can’t keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership.”
Paragraph 34	Selden glanced at her with amusement: it was impossible, even with her lovely eyes imploring him, to take a sentimental view of her case…
	From America: Past and Present, 2nd Edition, by Katherine L. Harrington