Building the American Dream in the Gilded Age

Middle Class Consumerism Formed a Rags to Riches Mentality

Jan 1, 2010 Michael Streich

Industrialization and urbanization contributed to a growing middle class that pursued prosperity and home ownership in order to achieve the American Dream.

The United States had always been seen as the land of opportunity. From the earliest colonial settlements, America represented a haven of freedom and resources that, if properly cultivated, would lead to success and prosperity. The American Dream, however, took on an entirely new reality during the decades following the Civil War. The Gilded Age was a time of growing prosperity for a newly specialized middle class within the climate of industrialization and urbanization. Rapid progress and ever more modern technology promised the realities of the American Dream in a changing society.

Gilded Age Factors that led to the American Dream

In Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man,” anxious residents of River City, Iowa sing one of the musical’s most popular songs, “Wells Fargo Wagon.” In the past, the wagon had brought a box of maple sugar, grapefruit from Tampa, and salmon from Seattle, among other things. The song illustrates several aspects of middle class Victorianism. Mobility allowed a greater diffusion of food items, many shipped from distances that were not possible until the national raid road system linked the country.

At the same time, factories were churning out goods that were affordable for the middle class and made life simpler. These goods included everything from new electric clothes washers with attached wringers, typewriters, clothing, and even soap. The first Sears Roebuck and Company catalog appeared in 1893 and contained nearly 1,000 pages of goods.

Industrialization and urbanization changed social class structures in America, growing a middle class of skilled workers, managers, and other professionals like teachers, doctors, and lawyers. The message of the popular Horatio Alger books of that time was simple: the American Dream of “rags to riches” was attainable and everyone could aspire to become a Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, or Andrew Carnegie.

The Middle Class and Rising Immigrant Numbers

European Immigrants, notably from Italy, Central Europe, and Mediterranean Europe, flocked to America by the millions, lured by the promise of jobs, albeit unskilled in most cases. To these “wretched refuse,” the streets of America were paved with gold. What they found was quite another story as they established their own inner-city ethnic neighborhoods and frequently fought the scorn of Americans threatened by cheaper laborers.

Unskilled immigrant and American labor became associated with the growing Labor Movement, the formation of worker unions often identified as socialist and anarchist. These movements threatened the consumerism of the American Dream and voters showed their displeasure at the polls, giving majorities to political parties depicting strikes and riots as unbridled lawlessness. The 1894 mid-term election and the 1896 presidential election are examples of this.

The Dream of Home Ownership

As the middle class and professional classes grew, the ability to purchase a home increased. Because homes tended to be cheaper within the greater urban suburbs, middle class workers gravitated to such communities. In most cases, they were close to factories and easily accessible by trams operating throughout the city. Home ownership became a symbol not only of status, but of economic independence. An 1887 advertisement featured “A Beautiful House for $1200,” sponsored by the Building Plan Association of New York.

Industrialization and Middle Class Consumption

It was the people of the emerging middle class in post-Civil War America that helped create the consumer goods they were buying, whether through catalogs like Sears or in the many glittering department stores that dominated the main streets of large and small American cities. Despite periodic recessions such as in 1893, progress won out over the dire prophecies of doom advanced by critics of the system. The idea of “The American Dream” became fixed in the national psyche and would propel future generations to seek a better living than that enjoyed by their parents.

Sources:

• Page Smith, The Rise of Industrial America: A People’s History of the Post-Reconstruction Era (Penguin Books, 1984)
• William Bruce Wheeler and Susan D. Becker, Discovering the American Past, Volume Two, Fifth Edition (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002)
• Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (on-line edition)