As Reconstruction came to a close, the United States entered a new age of industry and expansion, propelled by government and large businesses. While men like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller made their fortunes, many people lived in squalor, working long hours for low pay. Muckrakers exposed the horror of the working conditions, while women and African Americans struggled for equal rights. The Government, while corrupt at times, attempted to regulate business and help protect the rights of the common working class consumer. The question facing both the voters of that time and the voters of today is how powerful and involved should the government be.

 At the start of Urbanization, a majority of Americans lived in rural areas and few lived in big cities, but by the end of Urbanization, the ratio had reversed and the majority lived in the city. There were a wide array of reasons that people moved to the city, but one reason drew in the most people: jobs. With the rise of corporations and big business, large numbers of jobs became available in the cites. As the number of available jobs grew, so did the number of immigrants. Immigrant families from Asia and Europe came in great numbers, spurred on by Push/Pull factors, which were reasons for immigration. Some push factors would be war or famine, while pull factors included available jobs and land. The horde of immigrants was so great that the United States government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, preventing the immigration of Chinese laborers. Even with that restriction, large numbers of people flooded into the cities, leading to the construction of Tenements, which were like apartment buildings, but had little to no windows and overall poor quality of living.

 As people flooded into the cities during Urbanization, not everything was as nice as it seemed. During the Gilded Age, companies like Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel Company bought up almost all their competitors in a process known as Horizontal Integration, while other companies bought up all parts of the manufacturing and distribution process in Vertical Integration. These monopolies made their owners (such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller) some of the richest men in American History. In order to keep prices down, workers worked long hours in dangerous conditions for little pay. These bad working conditions led to the formation of labor unions and the start of labor strikes. Unfortunately events like the Haymarket Riot, where a peaceful strike ended with at least eight people dead, caused employers to distrust unions.

 On the political side of things, people like “Boss” Tweed ran political machines, groups of people that got favors like political jobs in exchange for voting to keep the leader in power. These political machines were only one facet of government corruption, as government scandals like Credit Mobilier and the Whiskey Ring proved. Credit Mobilier was a railroad construction company that overcharged Union Pacific for building a rail line and gave bribes and shares in their company to congressmen that passed laws helping Credit Mobilier profit. The Whiskey Ring was a group who evaded the high tax on whiskey by bribing people to undercount the number of barrels of whiskey they were selling. Both these scandals made people less confident in government’s ability to help regulate business and protect workers and consumers. The government did pass the Sherman Antitrust Act, prohibiting “anti-competitive activities” such as trust forming monopolies, but was unable to do much enforcing of it. Farmers felt that the government was not helping them so they formed the Granger movement, an organization that pushed for helping farmers politically and economically. This movement evolved into it’s own political party, the Populists. Populists were critical of capitalism and pushed for unions. They were supported by miners, industrial workers, and farmers. Their most famous candidate was William Jennings Bryan, who was also the Democratic candidate and won five states, but not the Presidency.

 The Gilded Age was succeeded by the Progressive Era, a time period where many of the problems of the Gilded Age were corrected. The problems of bad working conditions were exposed by Muckrakers, journalists who used pictures and descriptions to expose the horrors of the base parts of society. Two famous Muckrakers were Lewis Hine and Upton Sinclair. Lewis Hine used photography to expose child labor and Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, a book exposing the horrid lives of immigrants and the unsanitary conditions of meatpacking plants. At one point, he writes:

“This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat will be shoveled into carts and the man who did the shoveling will not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one.”

 The effect of these revelations were long reaching and many still endure today. The most notable effect of The Jungle was the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, an act that regulated the quality and safety of food and drugs.

 During the Progressive Era, many things changed for the better of the general citizen. One of these was the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World, which was an international labor union started by Eugene Debs, a socialist candidate for president. On the political scene, many things had changed. With the introduction of initiatives and referendums, the basic citizen was able to introduce laws and vote on major issues. They also voted in a series of “Progressive Presidents”, which included Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft, who both engaged in “trust busting”, the breaking up of trusts and monopolies like Standard Oil. Roosevelt also passed his “Square Deal”, a collection of laws and acts that controlled corporations, conserved natural resources (such as national parks), and enforced consumer protection. After Taft was president, he wished to run for president again, but Roosevelt also wanted to. Roosevelt established the Bull Moose Party to run for president. During the campaign, Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” and competitor Woodrow Wilson’s “New Freedom” both laid out ideas for the future of government involvement. New Nationalism pushed for heavy taxes on the rich, government regulated industry, and better working conditions , while New Freedom pushed for less big business, restoration of a competitive market, and encouragement of small business. Woodrow Wilson won the election, in part due to Taft and Roosevelt splitting the Republican vote, and implemented a graduated income tax, upheld rights of unions, outlawed child labor, and much more.

 Under Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, women also were granted the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment. Two major figures in this struggle were Alice Paul and Jane Addams. Jane Addams founded the Hull House, a settlement house, which was a place where poor people could come for help from middle class people who lived there.

 Overall, despite the occasional corruption, the government regulated the economy and prevented trusts from becoming too powerful. This worked and I think that it was a good amount of governmental control in the economy. I believe that the role of government should be to provide fair and open market competition, while still allowing businesses to enact competitive practices allowing them to make money. Some people would say that the government should enact laissez-faire policies, a policy where the government does not interfere in the economy, but I think that that would be a mistake. If the government doesn’t help the common consumer, large businesses will form monopolies and gouge the consumer with inflated prices.

 Even today, we must face some of the same decisions as the people of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era did. The people need to decide if the government should help consumers, and if so, how much. Should the government prevent unfair trade practices or should it step back and allow the people to fend for themselves? I feel like it should help people, because ordinary people don’t have the means or money to prevent unfair practices by themselves.