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THE GILDED AGE

Explore the Gilded Age, a time of technological progress and economic disparity. Discover inventions and technologies, the lives of the rich and poor, and the challenges faced by women. Delve into the mental health system of the era through the powerful words of Nellie Bly.

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THE GILDED AGE

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  1. THE GILDED AGE 1877 - 1900

  2. THE GILDED AGE • Why was it called the “Gilded Age”? • “Gilded” = fake gold over a cheap metal (think costume jewelry) • Symbolism: • Golden appearance  Progress in technology, industrialization, mass production • Cheap metal underneath  Gap between rich and the poor, corruption in politics, overpopulation in cities from immigration (era of Ellis Island)

  3. INVENTIONS and TECHNOLOGY • Coal mining • Factories: mass production • Electric lighting and electric devices • Transportation: • Railroads and canals • Beginnings of automobiles • Communication: • Phones and Telegraph networks

  4. INVENTIONS and TECHNOLOGY What? No texting or internet access?? I can’t take the phone with me???

  5. THE RICH • Extremely wealthy families • Astor, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt • Many felt rich were taking advantage of poor workers / did not deserve to be rich while so many people struggled • “Rags to riches” stories • Philanthropy = giving money to good causes • Colleges, museums, hospitals, public libraries

  6. THE RICH

  7. THE POOR • Mass migration to cities: work in factories • Poor working and living conditions, bad wages, etc. • New immigrants from Europe • Many go through Ellis Island

  8. THE POOR

  9. ELLIS ISLAND

  10. THOUGHTS OF THE TIME • Beginnings of the Women’s Rights Movement • Susan B. Anthony • Mental health • Basically a guessing game: not much known about the brain • “Nervous breakdowns” = popular diagnosis, especially for women • Solution: bed rest or asylums • Asylums: NOT a good place  basically like jails

  11. “[The doctors] refuse to listen or give me a chance to prove my sanity.” “People in the world can never imagine the length of days to those in asylums. They seemed never ending, and we welcomed any event that might give us something to think about as well as talk of. There is nothing to read, and the only bit of talk that never wears out is conjuring up delicate food that they will get as soon as they get out. Anxiously the hour was watched for when the boat arrived to see if there were any new unfortunates to be added to our ranks.” “The windows were open and the draught went whizzing through the hall. The patients looked blue with cold…” “The insane asylum on Blackwell's Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.” - Nellie Bly, undercover journalist http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/world/sfeature/memoir.html

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