What the importance of the gilded age?
It was a time of progress in terms of the economic growth of the US, but there was also increasing political corruption and serious problems in society, such as the upper level of society growing much richer than the lower majority. Especially true because of the large number of immigrants coming to settle in the US. Some reforms were discussed but the main attitude was that life should take its natural course without interference (meaning the government should not try to control business in any way, including no protection of workers seeking minimum wages, no laws against working 60 (or more) hours per week, no having the right to form unions, etc.) This was thought to be the new “scientific” outlook So big business could exploit the common worker, because that was the so-called natural way of business—“survival of the fittest” (such as Darwin had recently theorized in the evolution of animals rising up from the jungle to becoming civilized beings). Many big businesses did not take
