What you’ll learn to do: describe the complicated culture of political participation associated with the Gilded Age

Figure 1. A drawing of the Cabinet

In the years following the Civil War, American politics were disjointed, corrupt, and, at the federal level, largely ineffective in terms of addressing the challenges that Americans faced. Bosses of city and state political machines dominated through systematic graft and bribery. Americans around the country recognized that solutions to the mounting problems they faced would not come from Washington, DC, but from more local institutions such as churches, labor unions, and farmers’ organizations. Thus, the cycle of federal ineffectiveness and machine politics continued through the remainder of the century relatively unabated.

In these circumstances, many Americans wished to move on from the lingering challenges of the Civil War’s aftermath. To resolve the contested election of 1876, an electoral commission declared Rutherford B. Hayes the winner in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. As a result, Southern Democrats were able to reestablish control over their home governments, which would have a tremendous impact on the direction of southern politics and society in the decades to come. Here, corruption melded with violence, intimidation, and law to create the Jim Crow system of racial hierarchy in the South. Even as it grew more unequal, the South made strides in urbanizing and modernizing during this period.

All told, from 1872 through 1892, Gilded Age politics could be unresponsive to the needs and desires of many American citizens, particularly those of modest means. Very few measures offered direct assistance to Americans who continued to struggle with the transformation into an industrial society; the inefficiency of a patronage-driven federal government, combined with a growing laissez-faire attitude among the American public, made the passage of effective legislation difficult. Some policies, such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, attempted reform and relief but remained largely ineffective.

Yet the so-called Gilded Age was not entirely the dark period of American politics that earlier historians have suggested. The public eagerly engaged in politics and voted in record numbers, while political machines could offer avenues of influence and power to ambitious men from modest backgrounds.