The Gilded Age (1870-1900)

Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner published the novel "The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today," satirizing the greed, corruption, and speculative frenzy of post-Civil War America. The book gave the era its enduring name and captured the tension between the period's glittering wealth and its underlying social problems.

The first major national labor strike in American history began when railroad workers struck against a 10 percent wage cut by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The strike spread across the country, shutting down two-thirds of the nation's rail system. After days of violent clashes between strikers and state militias, President Rutherford B. Hayes deployed federal troops to suppress the strike, resulting in approximately 100 deaths.

Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first major federal law restricting immigration based explicitly on ethnicity. It banned the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years and barred Chinese residents from naturalization. Civil liberties groups and Chinese community organizations protested the law as discriminatory. The act was renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902, remaining in force until 1943.

During a labor demonstration for an eight-hour workday at Haymarket Square, an unknown person threw a bomb into a line of police officers, killing one instantly. Police opened fire, resulting in dozens of casualties on both sides. Eight anarchist labor activists were convicted; four were executed. The event triggered a nationwide crackdown on labor movements but also made May Day an international day of labor solidarity.

Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL), uniting skilled craft unions into a single national federation. The AFL rejected socialist revolution in favor of "pure and simple unionism" — collective bargaining for better wages, hours, and working conditions. It became the dominant labor organization in the United States for the next half-century.

Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first federal law prohibiting monopolistic business practices and restraints of trade. The act was initially weakly enforced and, ironically, was used more often against labor unions striking against monopolies than against the trusts themselves. It was strengthened during the Progressive Era under President Theodore Roosevelt.

One of the most violent labor conflicts in American history erupted at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead Steel Works after plant manager Henry Clay Frick announced a wage cut and locked out the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union. Frick hired 300 Pinkerton detectives to break the strike, leading to a gun battle in which nine strikers and seven Pinkertons were killed. The Pennsylvania state militia then occupied the plant, breaking the union.

The collapse of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad triggered a severe nationwide economic depression. Over 500 banks and 15,000 businesses failed. Unemployment peaked at approximately 18 to 20 percent. The depression lasted four years, sparking widespread labor unrest including the Coxey's Army protest march on Washington and the Pullman Strike of 1894.

Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company struck after the company cut wages by 25 percent while maintaining high rents in the company town. The American Railway Union under Eugene V. Debs called a boycott of Pullman cars, paralyzing rail traffic nationwide. The federal government obtained a sweeping injunction and sent 12,000 troops to break the strike. Debs was imprisoned for contempt, and the strike collapsed.