Answer: There was a time in U.S. history when the business magnates and titans of industry boasted more wealth than even today’s top technology innovators and visionaries.
During America’s Gilded Age — which spanned most of the latter half of the 19th century, from around 1870 to 1900 — the inflation-adjusted wealth and impact of America’s most towering figures far overshadowed what we see today.
The wealth of people like John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Ford, and Andrew Carnegie would by today’s standards be measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars — far more than tech giants like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and even Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest individual in the world as of 2019.
Wealth so vast can often highlight the financial inequality of an era. It’s this idea of grandeur in the face of unresolved social concerns that led Mark Twain to coin the phrase “Gilded Age” in his 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The title suggested that the thin veneer of wealth for the elite masked broader issues for many in the lower and middle classes.
But the progress made in the United States during the Gilded Age can’t be denied. As part of the Second Industrial Revolution, the country underwent an impressive economic expansion — led by the day’s larger-than-life figures of wealth and power. Much of this growth was courtesy of railroads — which now spanned from coast to coast — as well as factories, steel, and the coal mining industry.
Big business boomed, with technology such as typewriters, cash registers, and adding machines helping to transform how people worked. And the economic explosion included not only industrial growth, but also a growth in agricultural technology such as mechanical reapers.
In a time of such great expansion and fewer regulations surrounding wealth and business practices, circumstances were perfect for the rise of a class of extremely wealthy individuals who made up a very small percentage of society. They had the power and means to create opportunities and jobs for the many, though with less social prioritization on workers’ rights, issues like discrimination, exploitation, and low wages marked the era.
Still, it’s impossible to overstate the impact these individuals had on America’s development. With technology booming and immigrants flocking to the United States seeking better opportunities for themselves and their families, they left their mark on the United States — and on history.
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