Life During the Gilded Age
Alex J, Kihwan L, Sayed J, Jackie M, Rachel D
Food and Drink
Only a smal minority had lavish meals
Most common was tea and bread accompanied sometimes with soup/stew
Ragpickers: search through the trash for food
Secondhand Food Market: where "leftover groceries and cast off trimmings and bones" could be purchased by the public at a cheaper price
Overall there was a "lack of hygienic standards"
Even diseased cows were craned up so they could be milked without having to stand
2 quarts of milk could be mixed with water to create a gallon of milk
Molasses, chalk, or plaster of Paris was added to return "diseased cow milk" back to white
This milk often made babies tipsy and sick
Butter often contained items such as "casein and water or calcium, gypsium, gelatin fat, and mashed potatoes" that were combined to make a butter looking substance
Boys had craving for pickles that was caused by "chronic underfeeding"
Alcohol was popular, and did not have as much bacteria as water because it is a septic
- For "every 100 of its male inhabitants, NY contained 1 saloon"
Crime
Prisoners were brutal with “medieval excesses”
Criminals were treated with beatings, floggings, and other torture methods
The public view of criminals was that they were subhuman and deserved to be punished
Youth offenders who were arrested were tried as adults
Due to corruption, incompetence, and a general lack of prison reform, there were many prisoners who were mentally ill or had psychological issues
Southern prisons were the most notorious
Blacks were singled out for the most inhumane and brutal treatment
Many prisoners were chained and treated like animals
Perhaps most disturbing of all was the lack of hesitation in which someone (including youth) could be incarcerated
In one example, a fourteen year old boy was sentenced to prison for being in a whiskey shop at the same time a where a man was killed.
Work
12 hour shifts
Factories were very dangerous and injuries occurred often, in a year over 1 million died due to factory injuries
Children were put to work at the age of 8 in factories
Children working earned a wage of $1.50-2.50 a week
"By 1900 there were 1,752,187 child laborers."
The NCLC (National Child Labor Committee) was created in 1904 and encouraged and promoted the protection of children in the United States
Women were forced to "had to put in an 84-hour work week at 5 cents an hour”
The way that owners prevented strikes and unions was through blacklisting, a method used to fire workers, and prevent their further employment at any other factory
In the depression of 1893-98 there were 4 million unemployed (1 out of every 5 workers)
Strikes usually formed due to the want for better treatment, or due to an unfair wage cut
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Homestead Steel Strike
Pullman Strike
Miners were forced to work in horrible conditions one stated “he went down to work as [if it were] an open grave, not knowing when it might close on him."
They were paid 25 cents daily
Railroading had the most dangerous conditions for every 306 employed one died
The rich were causing so much devastation and suffering to the other 99% of Americans being forced to do hard labor.
Low wages led to a never ending age of debt for the workers, and the owner’s power always overided the lower class’s
Work went on 7 days a week
Housing
Poor lived in town houses
Air was heavily polluted by: mixture of soot, factory vapors, and animal stenches
Indoor air such as heat was extremely expensive costing $2000-$4000
Homes were small, stuffy, crammed, and trashed
Landlords were hated by the residents
Landlords showed no concern to improve the homes. Ex: cracked walls, sagging floors, and no emergency fire exits
Slums were uninhabitable pens crowded to suffocation
Slums were known for pitiful wreckage, lack of sanitation, drainage, ventilation, light, and safety.
- As many as eight people shared a 10 by 12 living room and a 6 by 8 bedroom.
Health
Yellow fever is common: it infected numerous cities such as Philadelphia and New Orleans. A common scene consisted of “the mother dead with her body sprawled across the bed...black vomit like coffee grounds splattered all over...the children rolling on the floor, groaning.”
Slums were avoided at all costs for those who didn’t live there, and “hygeine” consisted of spilling carbolic acid on the ground
Most immigrants were quarantined upon arrival until they were said to be disease free
Doctors weren’t professionals at all; they were usually semi-trained individuals hoping to get rich who knew very little about the body or the medicines they prescribed
Hospitals were “a last resort for the poor,” and “the rich and middle classes feared them as pest houses”;hospitals were a breeding ground for epidemic instead of a safehouse for the ill
The mentally ill were hidden from society in attics and basements and usually sent to an asylum where they were locked up forever
The asylum attendants were nothing more than prison guards who beat the insane for not doing anyhting wrong, and “No matter what their personalities-whether glum, or silent, or spirited; no matter how they behaved, even if they had recovered and were trying desperately to show it-their captors accepted all signs as manifest proof that they were crazy.”
The cells were usually silent except for the occasional shreak of inmates
Restraint s were used “to prevent rampages,” and strait jackets “kept the insane from harming themselves.”
In 1868 the estimated number of drug addicts reached 100,000
The importation of addictive drugs increased wildly and drugs were claiming victims in all social classes
Harmful drugs were the primary medicine prescribed by doctors if not prescribed directly almost all brand name medicines were filled with harmful and addictive drugs
- Babies were even being killed or given an addiction by “Winslow’s Baby Syrup or Kopp’s Baby Friend”-both of which had alrge amounts of morphine in them