Development of the Middle Class

During the Gilded Age, an expanded middle class and a wealthy upper class found new things to do with their time and money: leisure, consumption, and philanthropy. 

Overview

• During the Gilded Age, male and female office workers expanded the ranks of the middle class.

• Larger incomes and increased leisure time among middle- class workers fostered a culture of consumption and popular amusements in American cities.

• The wealthiest Americans debated whether and how to use their fortunes to improve society. In the “Gospel of Wealth,” Andrew Carnegie promoted the idea that, during their lifetimes, the rich should give away their money to benefit the public.

The middle and upper classes in the Gilded Age

Most residents of American cities during the Gilded Age worked demanding jobs for low wages, toiling in factories or sweatshops and returning at night to crowded and unsanitary housing. But the new era of industry and innovation didn’t only produce misery: as factories and commercial enterprises expanded, they required an army of bookkeepers, managers, and secretaries to keep business running smoothly. These new clerical jobs, which were open to women as well as men, fostered the growth of a middle class of educated office workers who spent their surplus income on a growing variety of consumer goods and leisure activities.

The Gilded Age boom also produced immense wealth for those fortunate few who took advantage of their own smarts and the government’s laissez-faire (lack of interference in the free market or "hands-off" approach) policies to become titans of industry. By 1890, one percent of the population controlled 25 percent of the wealth in the United States.

 As the gap between the rich and poor grew, contemporaries debated what America’s new aristocrats owed to the rest of society. Should they seek to improve cities and create opportunities for the less fortunate to advance, or should they simply enjoy the spoils of victory?

Jobs and education after the Civil War

In 1862, Congress passed the Morrill Land Grant Act, which gave federal lands for the purpose of building public universities. Higher education, once reserved for the children of the elite, was now open to a new class of young people. Women, as well as men, took advantage of new educational opportunities. At the end of the century, about 40 percent of college graduates were women.

Educated men and women entered the working world as managers and clerical workers. Companies generally reserved these choice positions for white, native-born employees.

Women’s smaller hands seemed ideal for operating typewriters and telephone switchboards, and their smaller paychecks (they were paid one third to one half of what men were paid) saved employers money. Nevertheless, women found new levels of freedom and independence as wage-earners.

Leisure and consumption

Members of the middle class were eager to spend the extra cash in their pockets on material comforts and leisure activities. Middle-class women browsed new department stores like Macy’s and Marshall Field’s, which offered ready-made clothes and household goods, buying what an earlier generation of women would have made at home.

As their incomes rose, so too did the amount of leisure time middle and upper- class families could enjoy. For those who had time to play, cities offered many options. Theatre and vaudeville shows, amusement parks, circuses, dances, and sporting events drew excited crowds.

The Gospel of Wealth

The middle class figured out quickly what it wanted to do with its money: purchase consumer goods and have fun. But all of the amusements and frippery in the world would hardly make a dent in the fortunes amassed by the Gilded Age elite. “The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth,” steel magnate Andrew Carnegie wrote in his 1889 essay, “The Gospel of Wealth.”

What should the very wealthy do with their money? Were they morally bound to use it for the public good? Some thinkers of the era believed it would actually harm society for the rich to lift up the poor; Social Darwinists thought that interfering with the “survival of the fittest” would prevent the human race from evolving. In his 1883 essay, “What Social Classes Owe Each Other,” Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner answered the title question with: not a thing.

In “The Gospel of Wealth,” Carnegie took a different stance. He argued that great inequalities of wealth were a natural consequence of industrial society, but that the wealthy ought to engage in philanthropy (generous donation of money to good causes) to make sure that the deserving poor had an opportunity to improve themselves. Instead of living ostentatiously, leaving money to heirs, or willing their fortunes to charity after death, wealthy individuals ought to donate to worthy causes while they were still alive. This way, a wealthy man could “administer [his wealth] in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community--the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.”

Carnegie followed through on his own advice, giving away $350 million during his lifetime for libraries and universities. Many other wealthy industrialists also gave away millions to fund education and the arts.

Critics charged, however, that philanthropists like Carnegie used charitable giving to justify careers of corruption or to build monuments to themselves, with buildings and universities bearing their names. Carnegie ruthlessly cut wages, lengthened shifts, accepted dangerous working conditions, and undermined unions at his steel mills. The 1892 Homestead strike, staged by steelworkers attempting to prevent a pay cut, led to the deaths of several strikers and strikebreakers.

Questions?

1. What led to the growth of the middle class during the Gilded Age?

2. What was the main argument of The Gospel of Wealth? Did Carnegie’s philanthropy make up for his treatment of workers?