Economic inequality was nothing new in post-Civil War America. Since colonial times the vast majority of property and saved wealth (as opposed to earned income) had belonged to a relatively small elite.  Industrialization in the early 19th century seems to have intensified the concentration of wealth, and after the Civil War concentrations of extreme wealth and dire poverty came to be widely noted, debated, and deplored.

In part this occurred because new forms of wealth (stocks, bonds, and commodity futures, for example, rather than land and human slaves) made wealth visible in new forms. In particular America became more urban, and city poverty was not "picturesque," as observers often found it in the countryside. Rich and poor rubbed shoulders on filthy streets, and while desperate immigrants poured into the growing slums, the most flamboyant members of a new millionaire class built sumptious mansions, threw lavish balls, cruised in their yachts, and traveled to Europe to shop for artistic masterpieces or the latest Worth gowns. Meanwhile, the rise of social science enabled researchers to measure wealth and poverty in new and dramatic ways.  In their 1892 Omaha Platform, the People's Party deplored the tendency of capitalism and government economic policies to "breed the two great classes, tramps and millionaires."

"THE LUCKY RICH."  Charles Dana Gibson.
Gibson, creator of the "Gibson Girl," fondly satirized the American rich, depicting elegant young men and women in courtship and warning of the perils of unhappiness in marriages based on monetary concerns.  All the Gibson images reprinted in "Tramps and Millionaires" appeared in US magazines between 1893 and 1898--in the midst of a severe global economic depression--and are taken from The Gibson Book (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons/R. H. Russell, 1907).

Documents on Wealth and Poverty in the Gilded Age

The documents here capture some of Americans' contradictory and conflicting views about money, wealth, and poverty in the decades after the Civil War.

Questions for Discussion are posted at the bottom of this page

"Economy of Time and Expenses," an excerpt from The American Woman's Home by Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1869), captures Victorian ideas about thrift, household economy, and proper moral values. The dual role of women as household managers--responsible carefully managing every cent of income, yet prime targets of advertisers and merchandisers in their roles as consumers--attracted considerable commentary in the decades after the Civil War.

An introductory passage from Progress and Poverty by Henry George (1879) provides brilliant insights into the ways economic development increased extremes of wealth and poverty. George's provocative book was a bestseller from the time of its publication well into the twentieth century. His proposed solution, a single tax levied on the value of land, was never widely popular, but his analysis of the dilemmas of capitalist development captured the imagination of millions.

"Wealth," by Andrew Carnegie, appeared in North American Review in June 1889. In it the famous (and notorious) Pittsburgh steel magnate justified extremes of wealth and poverty as an inevitable sign of human evolutionary progress.  He instructed the rich, however, that they had a responsibility to use their wealth for the public good. Readers today may be surprised to find that Carnegie advocated a fifty percent inheritance tax on large fortunes that had not, by the time of their owners' deaths, been donated for philanthropic purposes.

In "The Relation of Wealth to Morals," from The World's Work (January 1901), the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts, Right Reverend William Lawrence, offers a conventional and widely expressed defense of wealth and property. Yet more than Carnegie's "Wealth," Lawrence's essay points toward the regulation of trusts and large corporations as a necessary component of reform, in addition to individual benevolence and charity.

An excerpt from "The Concentration of Wealth," by William G. Sumner in The Independent (1902) is a classic statement of "Social Darwinism" by a Yale sociologist, one of the leading American disciples of English thinker Herbert Spencer.  Sumner's harsh vision was widely influential but also controversial, with opponents like Frank Lester Ward, a fellow sociologist, arguing that in order to follow Sumner's advice, Americans would have to abolish all law and government, disaster relief, and any other institutions that might help humans survive.  Critics like Ward argued that humans evolved through cooperation rather than competition.

"The Concentration of Wealth,"  by George K. Holmes in Political Science Quarterly (December 1893), shows how one economist interpreted new data on wealth that had been gathered by US census-takers in 1890.  Holmes, who like many prosperous Americans assumed that economic progress was widely distributed, expressed shock over the extremes of wealth found in the census--though such dramatic inequality was not really new, as Holmes assumed, but newly measured.

An excerpt from A Traveler from Altruria (1894) by William Dean Howells shows how a leading novelist, who began in the 1880s and 1890s to sympathize with radical critiques of the American social and economic order, criticized the complacency of comfortable Americans.  In his story a visitor named Mr. Homos, materializing from a faraway place called Altruria, startles New England summer vacationers by offering glimpses of a society and set of moral values very different from their own.

Aspiring young adventurer and novelist Jack London recounted his experiences travelling with the homeless unemployed by foot and rail during the depression of the 1890s and marching with Coxey's Army in 1894.  While London, full of machismo and literary flair, probably exaggerated some details, he gives us a rare window into the world of the homeless and destitute during the severe economic depression.
Bulls
Confession
Hoboes that Pass in the Night
Two Thousand Stiffs

Prudential trade card, 1887.  Such images--along with Prudential's famous "Rock"--addressed the
widespread anxiety of Americans about economic risk and insecurity in a volatile economy, filled
with both opportunities and potential catastrophes.  Not surprisingly, life insurance proved to be an
immensely popular product for Americans who could afford it; working-class breadwinners and
farmers also created "mutual benefit associations" to help one another in time of need.  Image courtesy
the Victorian Scrapbook at The Trade Card Place. 

Questions for Discussion

Imagine several of these authors (perhaps Sumner, George, and the Beecher/Stowe sisters) seated around a table in discussion.  Which ones think the concentration of wealth is beneficial, and to what extent?  Which lament it, and what remedies do they suggest?  Which would be allies and opponents, and why?

What role does Christian morality play in each author's worldview?  Can you imagine each author's answer to the question, "what is the duty of a good Christian in the world," and how this might connect to their ideas about the roles of rich and poor?

Find a hot-button term used by several of these authors, and consider what each means by it.  In particular, pay attention to language drawn from the natural and social sciences, such as "primitive," "civilization," "evolution."  How does each author use such terms to bolster his (or occasionally her) argument?  To what extent were debates about wealth and poverty based in "science" and "ethics," and how does each author seek to reconcile these systems of thought?

Consider the pieces by William Dean Howells and Jack London in contrast with the other writings.  What are the advantages and disadvantages of making a point about society through fiction or reportage on individuals, rather than explication of universal laws or theories?  Why do you think literary realists were drawn to journalism and fiction--and also science fiction, as shown by Howells' story--as  vehicles for social criticism?

Imagine that one of London's fellow tramps, the Sioux chief visited by Andrew Carnegie, or one of the non-Anglo-Saxon "savages" dismissed by Rev. Lawrence, wrote a letter to one of these authors critiquing their views.  What objections might they raise?  On what points might they have agreed with the authors excerpted here, and how might their experiences have suggested different ways of understanding poverty and wealth?