The pace of industrialization and westward expansion in the latter part of the nineteenth century suggested that the United States had reached a new golden age. However, the nation still faced many problems, including the distance between people’s dreams of wealth and the reality of their sometimes difficult lives. This period during the late nineteenth century is often called the Gilded Age, implying that under the glittery, or gilded, surface of prosperity lurked troubling issues, including poverty, unemployment, and corruption. Segregation and Social Tensions, racial inequality was a persistent problem during the Gilded Age. African Americans, other minorities, and women struggled in a losing battle as they sought to gain equality.Following the Civil War, during the Reconstruction southern states passed laws that separated blacks and whites. These laws were known as Jim Crow laws. In 1896 the Supreme court upheld segregation with its ruling in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. The court ruled that segregation was legal as long as “separate but equal” facilities for both races were provided. However, the facilities for blacks were almost always inferior.During the same time states passed laws such as poll taxes and literacy tests that stripped blacks of the right to vote.
