The Gilded Age PBS American Experience

[elmac]

when the industrial royalists ruled, not much has changed. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

[homegirl]

1. My Mom and Dad

used to sing a little tune that included these lyrics

"the rich get richer and the poor get babies" from the Hoover era!

[monmouth4]

2. "Ain't We Got Fun." n/t

[Ohiogal]

3. And hatred of immigrants!

[J_William_Ryan]

4. Trump,

his supposed ‘movement,’ and those who voted and supported Trump are not ‘populists’ as manifested during the Gilded Age.

[appalachiablue]

5. Very good new, 2018 PBS program on important aspects

Last edited Sun Feb 11, 2018, 05:43 PM - Edit history (1)

of late 19th c. industrial, technological expansion and wealth accumulation accompanied by growing income inequality and working class hardship in America, urban and rural. Narrated by actor Oliver Platt. Noted similarities to current times are obvious.

The film covers well known titans of the age Carnegie, Frick, JP Morgan and Rockefeller; prominent activists like social economist Henry George, Kansas political advocate Mary Elizabeth Lease, NY black journalist/activist Ida B. Wells; the Gold Standard and Silver currency debate; the rise of the US Populist movement; the major 1892 Homestead Strike in Pa.; and the Panic of 1893 and Great Depression which caused mass economic instability, unemployment and Coxey's Army formed of thousands of desperate, out of work people walking from Ohio and other states to the US capital to appeal to the federal govt. for assistance, the nation's first March on Washington.

The term derived from the novel 'The Gilded Age' written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. The work was published in 1873 at the start of the new, post-Civil War industrial, high finance era of vast fortunes powered by railroad expansion, land speculation, steel mills, coal mines, factories and farming. A satirical, humorous look at the period's materialism, excesses and greed, combined with stories of struggle by average and poor families, as well as the rapid growth of political corruption, graft and lobbyists in the governing, social classes in Washington, DC. ~ Like a lovely lily flower painted with a thin surface layer of gold, the Gilded Age is depicted as a glittering façade, a patina display of great prosperity covering over serious underlying issues.

-PBS Film Trailer & More on Important American Figures & Activists of The Gilded Age
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/gilded-age-trailer/

- 1892 Homestead Carnegie Steel Strike & Battle, near Pgh, Pa.
https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-events/1892-homestead-strike

- The Panic of 1893 & Great Depression: Causes and Impact, Ohio, Jacob Coxey
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Panic_of_1893

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gilded_Age:_A_Tale_of_Today

[BigmanPigman]

6. I recorded this but when I started to watch the first few minutes

it I couldn't stop. It ends at 1895 and I was hoping it would be continued but it won't be. I saw a History Channel series about the world's richest men and busting up the monopolies. Eventually the richest men had a change of heart when they started dying off and they began a contest of philanthropy...who could give most of their money away before they died too. The series is called The Men Who Built America.
http://www.history.com/shows/men-who-built-america

[panfluteman]

7. I Disagree With the Claim that Not Much Has Changed...

We went all the way from the Guilded Age of extreme wealth inequality in the late 19th century and the turn of the 20th century all the way to the period of maximum working class wealth and equality during the 1950's to 1970's. But now, unfortunately, the wheel has again come full circle, and we're back at Guilded Age conditions of extreme wealth inequality again. It's the revolving merry-go-round (or maybe not-so-merry-go round) of history, folks!

[pansypoo53219]

8. using tinkle down for ages & it still does not work.