Figure 1. Significant events of the Gilded Age.

The challenges Americans faced in the post-Civil War era extended far beyond the issue of Reconstruction and the challenge of an economy without slavery. Political and social repair of the nation was paramount, and the role of freed persons in American democracy was at the center of the dilemma. In addition, farmers faced the task of cultivating arid western soils and selling crops in an increasingly global commodities market, while workers in urban industries suffered long hours and hazardous conditions at stagnant wages.

The Gilded Age

Mark Twain coined the phrase “Gilded Age” in a book he co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner in 1873, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The book satirized the corruption of post-Civil War society and politics. Indeed, popular excitement over national growth and industrialization only thinly glossed over the stark economic inequalities and various degrees of corruption of the era. Politicians of the time largely catered to business interests in exchange for political support and wealth. Many participated in graft and bribery, often justifying their actions with the excuse that corruption was too widespread for a successful politician to resist. The machine politics of the cities, specifically Tammany Hall in New York, illustrate the kind of corrupt, but effective, local and national politics that dominated the era.

Figure 2. Pages from Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age, published in 1873. The illustrations in this chapter reveal the cost of doing business in Washington in this new age of materialism and corruption, with the cost of obtaining a female lobbyist’s support set at $10,000, while that of a male lobbyist or a “high moral” senator can be had for $3,000.

Nationally, between 1872 and 1896, the lack of clear popular mandates made presidents reluctant to venture beyond the interests of their traditional supporters. On the contrary, Gilded Age presidents were more susceptible to the pressure to support various legislators’ and lobbyists’ agendas, as they owed tremendous favors to their political parties, as well as to key financial contributors, who helped them garner just enough votes to squeak into office through the Electoral College. Two presidents—Rutherford Hayes and Benjamin Harrison—were elected through the Electoral College even though their respective opponents had won the popular vote. Moreover, the government was divided during much of this period, with Democrats usually controlling the House while Republicans dominated the Senate. As a result of this state of affairs, the rare pieces of legislation passed were largely responses to the desires of businessmen and industrialists whose support helped build politicians’ careers.

In truth, the two major parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, differed little on the major issues of the day. Both parties were strongly invested in the spoils system, both were reluctant to use the government to enact meaningful reforms, and both had a cozy and collaborative relationship with business interests. Aside from the issue of the tariffs, where Democrats favored low ones to aid farmers and Republicans favored high ones to stimulate industry, few differences of real substance existed. Despite this, partisanship remained fierce, and one’s party allegiance depended more on one’s identity than one’s ideology. Union veterans, Protestants, and African-Americans gravitated toward the Republicans, while Confederate veterans, Catholics, and first and second-generation immigrants in cities rallied to the Democrats.

What was the result of this political stagnation? Not surprisingly, little of much significance was accomplished on the federal level. However, problems associated with the tremendous economic growth during this time continued to mount. More Americans were moving to urban centers, which were unable to accommodate the massive numbers of working poor. Tenement houses with inadequate sanitation led to widespread illness. In rural parts of the country, people fared no better. Farmers were unable to cope with the challenges of low prices for their crops and exorbitant costs for everyday goods. All around the country, Americans looked outside of the two-party system to address the growing economic inequality of this era.

Mark Twain and the Gilded Age

Figure 3. Mark Twain was a noted humorist, recognized by most Americans as the greatest writer of his day. He co-wrote the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today with Charles Dudley Warner in 1873.

Mark Twain wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today with his neighbor, Charles Dudley Warner, as a satire about the corrupt politics and lust for power that he felt characterized American society at the time. The book, the only novel Twain ever co-authored, tells of the characters’ desire to sell their land to the federal government and become rich. It takes aim at both the government in Washington and those Americans, in the South and elsewhere, whose lust for money and status among the newly rich in the nation’s capital leads them to corrupt and foolish choices.

In the following conversation from Chapter Fifty-One of the book, Colonel Sellers instructs young Washington Hawkins on the routine practices of Congress:

“Now let’s figure up a little on, the preliminaries. I think Congress always tries to do as near right as it can, according to its lights. A man can’t ask any fairer than that. The first preliminary it always starts out on, is to clean itself, so to speak. It will arraign two or three dozen of its members, or maybe four or five dozen, for taking bribes to vote for this and that and the other bill last winter.”

“It goes up into the dozens, does it?”

“Well, yes; in a free country likes ours, where any man can run for Congress and anybody can vote for him, you can’t expect immortal purity all the time—it ain’t in nature. Sixty or eighty or a hundred and fifty people are bound to get in who are not angels in disguise, as young Hicks the correspondent says; but still it is a very good average; very good indeed. . . . Well, after they have finished the bribery cases, they will take up cases of members who have bought their seats with money. That will take another four weeks.”

“Very good; go on. You have accounted for two-thirds of the session.”

“Next they will try each other for various smaller irregularities, like the sale of appointments to West Point cadetships, and that sort of thing— . . . ”

“How long does it take to disinfect itself of these minor impurities?”

“Well, about two weeks, generally.”

“So Congress always lies helpless in quarantine ten weeks of a session. That’s encouraging.”

The book was a success, in part because it amused people even as it excoriated the politics of the day. For this humor, as well as its astute analysis, Twain and Warner’s book still offers entertainment and insight today.

Visit the PBS Scrap Book for information on Mark Twain’s life and marriage at the time he wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.

Farming Frustrations

Farmers, who still composed the largest percentage of the U.S. population, faced mounting debts as agricultural prices spiraled downward. These low prices came from the conflation of numerous challenges besetting farmers during this time. In some ways, they were victims of their own success and productivity, as more efficient farming methods and tools produced a surplus of agricultural products as demand remained stagnant. As farmers competed in a tough global market, they found themselves subject to exorbitant railroad freight rates and costly loans. Many grew resentful of vague financial interests on the Eastern seaboard that seemed to be pressing them down. For many, their hard work resulted merely in a continuing decline in prices and even greater debt. These farmers, and others who sought leaders to heal the wounds left from the Civil War, organized in different states, and eventually into a national third-party challenge, only to find that, with the end of Reconstruction, federal political power was stuck in a permanent partisan stalemate, and corruption was widespread at both the state and federal levels.

Political Changes

Further undermining their efficacy was a Congress comprising mostly politicians operating on the principle of political patronage, a system where politicians and political parties rewarded their loyal supporters with political offices. Eventually, frustrated by the lack of leadership in Washington, some Americans began to develop their own solutions, including the establishment of new political parties and organizations to directly address the problems they faced. Out of the frustration wrought by war and presidential political impotence, as well as an overwhelming pace of industrial change, farmers and workers formed a new grassroots reform movement that, at the end of the century, was eclipsed by an even larger, mostly middle-class Progressive movement. These reform efforts did bring about change—but not without a fight.

For all of the shady deals and corruption associated with the Gilded Age, this era of American politics also had some encouraging developments. Even accounting for ballot-stuffing and voter suppression in parts of the country, political participation was never higher. Eighty-two percent of eligible voters took part in the 1876 election, which remains the high water mark to this day. Moreover, political machines and patronage made it possible for those of humble origins to achieve political success. In contrast with the aristocratic bent of antebellum politics, most presidents from the Gilded Age were from modest backgrounds, including Johnson, Grant, Garfield, Arthur, and Cleveland.

Republicans: The Party of Business

The spectacular growth of the U.S. economy and the ensuing inequalities in living conditions and incomes confounded many Americans. But as industrial capitalism overtook the nation, it achieved political protections. Although both major political parties facilitated the rise of big business and used state power to support the interests of capital against labor, big business looked primarily to the Republican Party.

The Republican Party had risen as an antislavery faction committed to “free labor,” but it was also an ardent supporter of American business. Abraham Lincoln had been a corporate lawyer who defended railroads, and during the Civil War the Republican national government took advantage of the wartime absence of southern Democrats to push through a pro-business agenda. The Republican congress gave millions of acres and dollars to railroad companies. Republicans became the party of business, and they dominated American politics throughout the Gilded Age and the first several decades of the twentieth century. Of the sixteen presidential elections between the Civil War and the Great Depression, Republican candidates won all but four. Republicans controlled the Senate in twenty-seven out of thirty-two sessions in the same period.