Part 5: Reconstruction and the Gilded Age

United States History 1865-1900

Part 5 of picks up the story of American history at the end of the Civil War in 1865. It progresses from the Reconstruction period through the Gilded Age. During these turbulent decades American history begins to take on a different shape. Early American history has a plot: a beginning, middle, and end. The colonists arrived and settled east central North America; they fought a revolution to break away from the mother country, wrote a Constitution and established a republican government; as they expanded, sectional divisions arose and eventually led to the Civil War, which concluded the first half of the story of America. The second half of American history has many plot lines: industrialization, immigration, urbanization, the development of the West, the Indian Wars, and complex international involvements ranging from local issues with our neighbors to global warfare, and much in between. Those different strains begin to appear as America recovers from what was in many ways her most terrible war.

The post-Civil War years were full of turmoil and strife, and the age was characterized by the exploitation of people and resources. As new industries boomed, huge fortunes were made and standards of living rose for much of the population; for those fortunates, it was the best of times, for millions of others, an ongoing nightmare. Historian Page Smith has also described this period as a time of “The War between Capital and Labor,” when working families had to practice “conspicuous underconsumption” in order to survive. Our focus in this section will be mostly on those who got left behind in America’s race to economic power.

• During Reconstruction African Americans celebrated the end of slavery, but were soon disillusioned as they discovered that there is much more to freedom than the absence of slavery. For them, and for whites as well, Reconstruction was a frustrating experience, yet it contained the distant promise of future reform in the area of civil rights.
• In the West the Plains Indians fought fiercely to hold onto what was left of their once vast territories. The pressure to build transcontinental railroads and the crush of immigrants pouring in from Europe doomed them to a life on reservations where they struggled to preserve their culture.
• In the business arena, the industrial revolution, while creating great wealth and raising living standards for many, also ran roughshod over the working poor. In Eastern and Midwestern cities, workers by the thousands toiled in hellish conditions for less than a living wage, and parts of America's cities became some of the worst slums ever known to man.
• As the flood of immigrants arrived in the cities, they met others coming from rural areas to take advantage of the jobs created by industrialization. The urbanization of America added to the nation’s problems as cities proved unable to provide the services needed by rapidly growing populations.
• Much of the population and the political leadership seemed either incapable of grasping what was going on or powerless to do anything about it.

Thus was the “Gilded Age” in America, glistening on the surface, but harsh and unforgiving—base metal—underneath. We begin with Reconstruction.

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