1. The Gilded Age

2. Warm Up: Set up for Cornell Notes! Title: The Gilded Age: An Age of Inequality 1870 - 1915

3. Life Before 1870* Not much technology No indoor electric lighting People used candles or oil lamps No refrigerators; only iceboxes Mail traveled by horse and carriage

4. New Inventions* Oil is used for fuel (1858) Light bulbs become common (1880s) Telephone (1876) Steel invented (1856) Railroad tracks begin to cross the country (1869)

5. A New Capitalist Class* Capitalism – an economic system in which capital (businesses, factories) is owned by individual people (capitalists) These new inventions led to large corporations controlled by very rich capitalists. Standard Oil Company John D. Rockefeller Carnegie Steel Andrew Carnegie

6. A New Working Class* Thousands of people move to cities to work in the new factories 1. Immigrants from Europe 2. African Americans from the South 3. Farmers from rural areas The working class experiences very harsh living conditions

7. Exploitation* Workers were paid very low wages and worked 12 - 16 hours Children as young as 6 worked in factories Dangerous working conditions and no safety laws  many injuries