Compare And Contrast The Gilded Age And The Progressive Era

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The Gilded Age is the time period when the United States had a rapid increase in population and economy. During this time there was corruption, such as strikes, unfair strategies within businessmen, monopolies, horizontal and vertical integration and the conditions for immigrants. The Progressive Period was the time period of reform, with the antitrust movement, muckrakers, the wisconsin idea, the hull house, and the pendleton civil service act. The Gilded Age and Progressive Period are time periods in the United States and both had many beneficial and unbeneficial factors but are different in many ways.

Throughout the Gilded Age there was many corrupted people and businesses. The labor force had terrible conditions, low wages, and long hours leaving workers wanted more, in result many workers went on strike for changes. The Homestead strike, for example, began when the Homestead Plant kept cutting wages. The strikers poured oil into the river and set fire to prevent pinkertons from coming across. Big business leaders such as, Rockefeller would do anything
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The Sherman Antitrust movement was a response to limit monopolies, Standard Oil, which eliminated business owner gaining control and having total power. Muckraker were reports who exposed the truth about the different corrupted businesses or lifestyles, Upton Sinclair and Jacob Riis are two famous muckrakers. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, which exposed the meat industry and their unsanitary meat. Jacob Riis wrote How the Other Half lives, this novel gave people light into how the immigrants living conditions were. The Hull House was place for immigrants, the purpose was to give them a happier, brighter life. The house became a daycare, kindergarden and a social place for adults, it also gave upper class women a place to help out. For these reasons the goal of the Progressive period was