This period is generally called "the Gilded Age" since it was believed that everyone could become rich. Going from rags to riches was rather easy. However the working-class suffered from poverty and frequent unemployment, which then caused violent strikes.

I. Industrial revolution

The Industrial Revolution stands for a widespread replacement of manual labor by machines. Great Britain was the first nation to experience the industrial revolution(1760 - 1850) and started to spread to the United States by 1790 with the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793. The same year Samuel Slater also opened the first successful textile mill in the United States in 1793. But the transformation of the United States into an industrial nation took place largely after the Civil War. By the turn of the century, industrialization had transformed commerce, business organization, the workplace, the home, and everyday life. By 1890, the industry surpassed agriculture and became the first source of wealth.

In 1840 the United States were the fifth power in the world, and in 1894 they had become the leading power in the world from an economic point of view.

There were several factors: * The Civil War stimulated heavy industry;

                                           * The great natural resources: copper, coal, iron, lead, silver;                                                                             * A great development of the transportation system (by 1869 from the east to the west) helped move raw materials to factories and send products to urban markets;

                                           * An important growth of the work force as many immigrants came to work in America;                             * The Republican Party gave banking facilities to industrial expansion.

Technological progress transformed production. The introduction of the power loom in 1814, the first the telegraph, the telephone, the revolution in automobile manufacturing (by Henry Ford) contributed to this development.

Business leaders learned how to coordinate different economic activities across vast areas. The modern corporation became thus an important form of business organization.

II. Immigration

During the Industrial Revolution, immigration became more massive: people came to America to find work. From 1880 to 1930 about 27 million immigrants entered the United States. From 1865 to 1885, immigrants came mainly from northern and western Europe (England, France, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia), but from 1885 onward the majority came from eastern and southern Europe (Russia, Italy, Greece. About 9 million people came to the United States from 1880 to 1900. Most immigrants settled in the US for good, but some only came to save some money and then go back home.

This massive immigration created a reaction among the Americans. The "new" immigration was considered as being very different from the "old" one. Anti-immigrant groups started to appear like the American Protective Association (APA) and the Immigration Restriction League (IML).

III. Urbanization

Industrialization means urbanization and the formation of working classes: attracted by the manufacturing jobs available, the number of Americans living in cities highly increased (almost 50%). It created a housing problem that the ruling classes were unprepared to solve: slums spread very quickly. There was no legislation that protected workers.

Urban population rose from 6 million in 1860 to 42 million in 1910. Big cities got bigger such as Chicago. By 1900 there were three cities that had more than a million people: New York (3.5 million), Chicago (1.7 million), and Philadelphia (1.3 million).