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Pages from History
The Gilded Age: A History in Documents
When many Americans think of the Gilded Age, they picture the mansions at Newport, Rhode Island, or the tenements of New York City. Indeed, the late 19th century was a period of extreme poverty thinly veiled by fabulous wealth. However, we should not remember the era only for the strides made by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie or social reformer Jane Addams. All Americans had to adjust to the dynamic social and economic changes of the Gilded Age--the booming industries, growing cities, increased ethnic and cultural diversity. African American W. E. B. Du Bois, Native American Sitting Bull, and Chinese American Saum Song Bo spoke out against racial injustice. European immigrants Mary Antin and Robert Ferrari suffered the pitfalls and praised the opportunities found in their new country. Pioneer Phoebe Judson lamented the loneliness of making a life out West. And workers at Homestead Steel lost their lives in an attempt to improve labor conditions. Drawing from the letters, memoirs,
newspaper articles, journals, and speeches of Gilded Age Americans, author Janette Greenwood arranges all of these voices to tell a story more vibrant and textured than the simple tale of robber baron versus starving poor. In addition to these voices, visuals--such as advertisements, maps, political cartoons, and a picture essay on Jacob Riiss urban photographs--create a kaleidoscopic view of the quarter century when diverse Americans struggled for the same a better way of life, with more justice and democracy for each and all.
Textbooks may interpret history, but the books in the Pages from History series are history. Each title, compiled and edited by a prominent historian, is a collection of primary sources relating to a particular topic of historical significance. Documentary evidence including news articles, government documents, memoirs, letters, diaries, fiction, photographs, and facsimiles allows history to speak for itself and turns every reader into a historian. Headnotes, extended captions, sidebars, and introductory essays provide the essential context that frames the documents. All the books are amply illustrated and each includes a documentary picture essay, chronology, further reading, source notes, and index.
newspaper articles, journals, and speeches of Gilded Age Americans, author Janette Greenwood arranges all of these voices to tell a story more vibrant and textured than the simple tale of robber baron versus starving poor. In addition to these voices, visuals--such as advertisements, maps, political cartoons, and a picture essay on Jacob Riiss urban photographs--create a kaleidoscopic view of the quarter century when diverse Americans struggled for the same a better way of life, with more justice and democracy for each and all.
Textbooks may interpret history, but the books in the Pages from History series are history. Each title, compiled and edited by a prominent historian, is a collection of primary sources relating to a particular topic of historical significance. Documentary evidence including news articles, government documents, memoirs, letters, diaries, fiction, photographs, and facsimiles allows history to speak for itself and turns every reader into a historian. Headnotes, extended captions, sidebars, and introductory essays provide the essential context that frames the documents. All the books are amply illustrated and each includes a documentary picture essay, chronology, further reading, source notes, and index.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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December 23, 2015
I entered a printing-office as an apprentice, and worked for some years. Then my eyes gave out and I was obliged to give that up. Not knowing what else to do, I went into the country, and worked on a farm. After a while I was lucky enough to invent a machine, which has brought me in a great deal of money. But there was one thing I got while I was in the printing-office which I value more than money.
[...]
A taste for reading and study. During my leisure hours I improved myself by study and acquired a large part of knowledge which I now possess. [...] my studious habits paid me in money, as well as in another way.
[...]
If you try to learn, you can, and if you ever expect to do anything in the world, you must know something of books.
--"Ragged Dick" by Horatio Alger
Let me state plainly the position I take. In answering the question [...]
It is said that [...]
I reject the conclusion because I cannot accept the promise. This is not [...]
If it is [...]
The real reason why the duty of the hour demands our loyalty is in this.
--Reverend Proctor, Atlanta, 1898
And regardless of this formula of words, made only for enlightened, self-governing peoples, do we owe no duty to the world? [...] Shall we abandon them to their fate?
--Albert Beveridge, Indianapolis, 1898
Far better it is to dare mighty things [...] even though checkered failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat...
If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests [...] Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty [...] to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods [...] true
--The Strenuous Life" by Roosevelt, Chicago, 1899
p 16 At Bethlehem Steel, for example, Taylor and his staff made a detailed study of coal shoveling that epitomized the principles of Taylorism.
p 18 muckraking, the forerunner of today's investigative journalism
p 49 The poor were left to suffer and die. She had worked for some of the city's richest families and had 'ample opportunity to observe the luxury and extravagance of their lives.' Jones 'would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking along the frozen lake front. The contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort...--Mother Jones
p 51 blend concrete short-term goals with long-term vision
p 51 wealth, which, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses, render it imperative, if we desire to enjoy the blessings of life
p 54 The true way to utilize the strength of united labor is to develop the individual power
p 62 to squeeze something out of nothing [girl and her mother made $3/day--enough only to feed themselves--and somehow managed to borrow or something to pay rent, replace shoes, etc.]
p 67 Then a trip to Europe opened her eyes to the possibility of a new career. [...] Addams witnessed what she called the 'hideous human need and suffering' [...] Addams could not shake this troubling image. ~ "Twenty Years at Hull House" ~ autobiography
p 74 Riis argued positive environment shaped healthy, moral individuals, whereas an unhealthy environment encourages destructive behavior
p 83 An immigrant himself, Riis knew what it was like to struggle. He, too, had known hunger and poverty.
p 84 the first step - make the rest of society aware of the depth. Riis began to publish vivid stories about life in slums, a side rarely glimpsed. An amateur [photographer], he sometimes set fires with his flashpan and once nearly blinded himself with flash powder. Riis's photos provided an 'apparently irrefutable medium of proof.'
p 85 As a social reformer seeking to shock people into action, Riis chose his subjects carefully, often posing them and arranging their surroundings for maximum impact. [The photos had people and objects as symbols; pose suggests [?], not having something suggests [?].
p 76 'worthy poor' and those simply lazy or unwilling to help themselves; 'natural laws' of selection: the weak were meant to perish--William Graham Sumner ~ leading social Darwinist 1883
p 101 Plessy v. Ferguson 'separate but equal'; Brown v. Board of Edu of Topeka KA (1954)
p 143 It is a question of personal equation...
p 173 escape from the routine of modern life
'Survival of the fittest' - Herbert Spencer, friend of Carnegie's
diminutive – extremely or unusually small p 87
incongruous – not matching up p 87
remunerative – financially rewarding; lucrative p 174
[...]
A taste for reading and study. During my leisure hours I improved myself by study and acquired a large part of knowledge which I now possess. [...] my studious habits paid me in money, as well as in another way.
[...]
If you try to learn, you can, and if you ever expect to do anything in the world, you must know something of books.
--"Ragged Dick" by Horatio Alger
Let me state plainly the position I take. In answering the question [...]
It is said that [...]
I reject the conclusion because I cannot accept the promise. This is not [...]
If it is [...]
The real reason why the duty of the hour demands our loyalty is in this.
--Reverend Proctor, Atlanta, 1898
And regardless of this formula of words, made only for enlightened, self-governing peoples, do we owe no duty to the world? [...] Shall we abandon them to their fate?
--Albert Beveridge, Indianapolis, 1898
Far better it is to dare mighty things [...] even though checkered failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat...
If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests [...] Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty [...] to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods [...] true
--The Strenuous Life" by Roosevelt, Chicago, 1899
p 16 At Bethlehem Steel, for example, Taylor and his staff made a detailed study of coal shoveling that epitomized the principles of Taylorism.
p 18 muckraking, the forerunner of today's investigative journalism
p 49 The poor were left to suffer and die. She had worked for some of the city's richest families and had 'ample opportunity to observe the luxury and extravagance of their lives.' Jones 'would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking along the frozen lake front. The contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort...--Mother Jones
p 51 blend concrete short-term goals with long-term vision
p 51 wealth, which, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses, render it imperative, if we desire to enjoy the blessings of life
p 54 The true way to utilize the strength of united labor is to develop the individual power
p 62 to squeeze something out of nothing [girl and her mother made $3/day--enough only to feed themselves--and somehow managed to borrow or something to pay rent, replace shoes, etc.]
p 67 Then a trip to Europe opened her eyes to the possibility of a new career. [...] Addams witnessed what she called the 'hideous human need and suffering' [...] Addams could not shake this troubling image. ~ "Twenty Years at Hull House" ~ autobiography
p 74 Riis argued positive environment shaped healthy, moral individuals, whereas an unhealthy environment encourages destructive behavior
p 83 An immigrant himself, Riis knew what it was like to struggle. He, too, had known hunger and poverty.
p 84 the first step - make the rest of society aware of the depth. Riis began to publish vivid stories about life in slums, a side rarely glimpsed. An amateur [photographer], he sometimes set fires with his flashpan and once nearly blinded himself with flash powder. Riis's photos provided an 'apparently irrefutable medium of proof.'
p 85 As a social reformer seeking to shock people into action, Riis chose his subjects carefully, often posing them and arranging their surroundings for maximum impact. [The photos had people and objects as symbols; pose suggests [?], not having something suggests [?].
p 76 'worthy poor' and those simply lazy or unwilling to help themselves; 'natural laws' of selection: the weak were meant to perish--William Graham Sumner ~ leading social Darwinist 1883
p 101 Plessy v. Ferguson 'separate but equal'; Brown v. Board of Edu of Topeka KA (1954)
p 143 It is a question of personal equation...
p 173 escape from the routine of modern life
'Survival of the fittest' - Herbert Spencer, friend of Carnegie's
diminutive – extremely or unusually small p 87
incongruous – not matching up p 87
remunerative – financially rewarding; lucrative p 174
October 27, 2017
This is a great collection of primary documents. The commentary is easy to read and offers an understanding of the time with very little imposing bias from the author. I appreciated the opportunity to form my own opinions about this time period through the selected documents.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews