Looking at Economic Aspects of the Gilded Age...source of cheap labor in the fields of mining, railroad construction, and agricultur e. Groups like the Silver Bow Trade and Labor Assembly

Looking at Economic Aspects of the Gilded Age 

Title: Pullman: A Street in Pullman; Date: 1885 Source: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, v. 70, no. 417

Title The Coal Miner at Work Date 1867 Source Harper's Weekly

Looking at Economic Aspects of the Gilded Age 

Title The Levee at St. Louis, Missouri Date 1871 Source Harper's Weekly

Lower East Side, New York 1901 from the National Archives

Looking at Economic Aspects of the Gilded Age 

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, BOSS WAIVING HIS FIST AT FEMALE EMPLOYEE IN A SWEATSHOP (1888) Library of Congress

Source | Isaac Aaronovitch Hourwich, Immigration and Labor: The Economic Aspects of European Immigration to the United States (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912), 87. Creator | Isaac Aaronovitch Hourwich Item Type | Quantitative Data Cite This document | Isaac Aaronovitch Hourwich, "Graph of Immigration and Business Conditions, 1880-1910," in HERB by ASHP, Item #1861, http://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1861 (accessed August 17, 2011).

Looking at Economic Aspects of the Gilded Age 

In the 19th century, Asian Americans faced widespread hostility. In this 1898 flyer, the labor movement claimed that Asian-American workers "[lowered] standards of living and of morals." Particularly in the West, union organizers agitated for the exclusion of Chinese and Japanese workers, who provided a source of cheap labor in the fields of mining, railroad construction, and agriculture. Groups like the Silver Bow Trade and Labor Assembly and Butte (Montana) Miners' Union organized boycotts against Asian-American businesses, and frequently resorted to racist rhetoric.

Source | "Flyers distributed by the Silver Bow Trades and Labor Assembly and Butte Miners' Union in support of Chinese and Japanese boycott, ca. 08/1898," National Archives, Teaching With Documents: Affidavit and Flyers from the Chinese Boycott Case, http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/chinese-boycott/ Creator | Silver Bow Trades and Labor Assembly and Butte Miners' Union Item Type | Pamphlet Cite This document | Silver Bow Trades and Labor Assembly and Butte Miners' Union, "A Montana Miner's Union Boycotts Asian-Owned Businesses," in HERB by ASHP, Item #1153, http://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1153 (accessed August 17, 2011).

Looking at Economic Aspects of the Gilded Age 

The millionaire industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie represented the conflicting roles played by the late nineteenth-century's "captains of industry." One of the era's most generous philanthropists, Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth held that the rich had a duty to contribute to the welfare of society; he accordingly set up a trust fund that led to the creation of over 3,000 libraries and other institutions. On the other hand, his Carnegie Steel Company also lowered wages to increase profit, as it did in 1892, resulting in a strike and subsequent violence after the company employed strikebreakers.

Source | "Forty-Millionaire Carnegie in his Great Double Role," The Saturday Globe, 9 July 1892; from David P. Demarest, ed. "The River Ran Red": Homestead 1892 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), 189. Creator | Unknown Item Type | Cartoon Cite This document | Unknown, "Andrew Carnegie Plays a Double Role," in HERB by ASHP, Item #636, http://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/636 (accessed August 17, 2011).