a wealthy Bostonian named Julian West

woke up from a very long nap.

He had fallen asleep in the year 1887.

The United States in the year 2000

was very different from the Gilded Age he knew.

It was a utopian society where there was no poverty

no labor strikes, no pollution.

His new friends in the future explained to him

how this society worked.

There was no private property and no money.

Everyone worked at the job they were most suited for

and received their fair share of the national wealth

on a credit card that they could use to buy necessities.

This is the plot of Edward Bellamy's

1888 novel "Looking Backward."

It was a bestseller of its day but today we remember it

not only for its predictions about the future

but as an example of how thinkers of the time period

explored the burning question of the Gilded Age.

Was it possible to have a modern industrial society

without great inequalities of wealth?

In the late 19th century the rapid changes in American life

stemming from the rise of industrial capitalism

caused a great deal of concern.

The United States prided itself on being different

from the countries of Europe

where the inequality between the aristocracy

and the working class caused strife and revolution.

But industrialization had brought

both millionaires and impoverished millions

to the United States, packing them in to cities

where mansions sat side-by-side with filthy tenements.

Suddenly, the New World looked a lot more like the old world

and so people at the time wondered

was inequality an inevitable by-product

of advancing society?

Those who answered yes were called Social Darwinists

who thought that the survival of the fittest

would weed out the weak and improve society overall.

We'll talk more about Social Darwinism elsewhere

but in this video I wanna concentrate

on those who believe that it was possible to have a society

that was both modern and equitable.

During the Gilded Age there were a number of reformers

and reform movements that attempted to solve the problems

posed by urban and industrial life.

So let's talk about some of the ways that reformers

attempted to respond to the inequalities of the Gilded Age.

One was to suggest new economic systems

for the United States.

For example, you might have noticed

that in Edward Bellamy's utopian society

there was no private property

and the national wealth was equally shared.

In fact, what he was suggesting was socialism

a system in which the government, not private individuals

owns economic enterprises.

Bellamy carefully avoided saying the word socialism

which was associated with anarchists

and immigrant radicals

but he portrayed it as the ultimate remedy

to all problems in the country.

Bellamy's work influenced many reformers

including the labor activist and socialist leader

Eugene V. Debs who ran for president

on a socialist platform five times.

Another popular suggestion of the time

was the single tax which was proposed by Henry George

in his book "Progress and Poverty."

George's solution to wealth inequality

was to replace all other taxes with a single high tax

on the value of land.

He believed that the revenue from this tax

would be enough to pay

for all necessary government services.

One of George's many admirers was Jacob Riis.

He was a social reformer who published

a photo expose of tenement life in New York City

called "How the Other Half Lives."

Riis was one of the first muckrakers

whose chosen method of combating social problems

was to shine a light on them.

His images of dangerous living conditions in tenements

led to laws which regulated building safety.

Other muckrakers targeted the corruption in industry

like Ida Tarbell, who wrote a history

of the Standard Oil Company

that exposed its unscrupulous practices.

Some focused on the unjust treatment of racial minorities.

In 1881, Helen Hunt Jackson published a book

called "A Century of Dishonor"

which discussed the mistreatment, violence

and broken treaties that indigenous Americans had faced

at the hands of the U.S. government and white settlers.

Journalist Ida B. Wells campaigned

against the lynching of black men in the South.

In addition to campaigning

against economic and social inequality

many Gilded Age reformers attempted to remedy the problems

befalling cities and their residents.

The most famous of these was the settlement house movement.

Settlement houses were community centers

based in immigrant neighborhoods

where newcomers could learn English, get job skills

attain childcare and find a range of services

that helped them adapt to life in urban America.

Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889

and many other reformers

founded settlement houses in other cities.

Similarly some churches of the time period

began to emphasize that confronting

contemporary social problems and helping the poor

were the embodiment of the teachings of Christianity.

This Social Gospel movement as it was known

led to the establishment of missions in urban areas

and churches opened libraries

gymnasiums and classrooms for public use.

Some reformers focused their energies

on the physical setting of cities

believing that the squalor of dirty streets and tenements

depressed people and encouraged moral decay.

The City Beautiful movement

works to incorporate parks

inspiring architecture and good design

into American cities.

Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park in New York City

to be a respite from the urban jungle

and City Beautiful architects like Daniel Burnham

created monumental spaces and buildings in Washington D.C.

These spaces were supposed to inspire harmony

order and civic virtue in society.

One aspect of Gilded Age reform you may have noticed by now

is that a large number of reformers were women.

Jane Addams, Ida B. Wells and Ida Tarbell

all placed prominent roles in the movement.

After the Civil War a growing number of middle class women

went to college and these active and educated women

began looking for work and meaning outside of the home.

Many white, middle- and upper-class women

joined clubs dedicated to social reforms

and they argued that women's traditional role

of keeping their homes clean

and the people within them upstanding and moral

also extended to their communities

which they called municipal housekeeping.

The Women's Christian Temperance Union, for example

became the Gilded Age's largest female organization

with more than 150,000 members.

Led by Frances Willard, the WCTU grew from its roots

in opposing the sale and consumption of alcohol

to advocate for policy solutions to social problems

ranging from prison reform to domestic violence.

The WCTU also campaigned for women's suffrage.

In 1890 the two major women's suffrage organizations

which had been at odds with each other

since the passage of the 15th Amendment reunited to form

the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Their efforts would lead

to the growth of woman suffrage at the state level

and later, with the help of the National Woman's Party

the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.