Assignment Detail

Answer the following questions:

1. Compare and contrast the quality of life experienced by industrialists and those who worked in their factories. Include at least two to three specific examples from the reading or video in your answer. Explain which evidence provides the starkest example of the economic inequality that emerged in America during the Gilded Age.

2. Explain to what degree government policies and popular beliefs, such as social Darwinism, contributed to the financial success of industrialists and to the growing economic inequality during the Gilded Age.

3. To what extent do you believe that it is the government’s responsibility to intervene in business and labor policies? Use at least two examples from the video or reading to support your answers.

4. How did the efforts of farmers and factory workers to organize lead to the mobilization of workers and future reform movements?

5. Identify two major labor issues that unions fought to change. Use the reading and video to predict two major challenges that organized laborers encountered in their fight to achieve those goals. Which do you think was their greatest win, and why?