Welcome back everybody, as you know weve been in the golden age for sometime now. We have already seen the Technological Innovations that have made some of this economic expansion possible. We saw about the economic transformations and the effects of those changes in the economy as far as lifestyles both of the very rich, these opulent robert baron lifestyles on the one hand and on the other hand on the very poor but it was the People Living shacks of the new england newtowns or whether it was when we explored the gilded age city, the increasing problems of housing that came with this rapid and in many ways, chaotic birth of the cities in the 19th century in all of it accompanied by problems going along with immigration. And then last time, we saw in particular there was some frustration with this new gilded age regime as we talk about the farmers in this period. That lecture really couldve been called the discontent in the gilded age part one. Today, we turn our attention mostly back towards industry and in some ways back to the city as well. I want to look at different types of frustrations that this new order in america. We started with the song eight hours which was a popular labor anthem in the 18 eighties and you heard the chorus. Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours from what we will and in some ways, that song speaks to what we are going to talking about today. On the one hand, it hours for working eight hours for rest. Were talking about labor relations. Were talking about more broadly speaking, political economy. Were talking about the potential for state regulation arguments over that. That is somewhat straightforward. What about eight hours for what we will . In the song they say we want to feel the sunshine. In other words, we are not machines, we are human beings. We want to have a life outside of work. And even those on the top of this new gilded age are also as we will see toward the end, in many ways, growing anxious over this new world, that seems to be coming about. But first we look economics. And as with so much else, this semester, a lot of our story starts with the railroads. You have seen how much the Transcontinental Railroad changed west. It change the economy. Ive already told that that railed road didnt stop an 1869 when he drove the golden spike instead they continue to build by the end of the century and there were four Transcontinental Railroad by the end of the century. There were all kinds of tributary lines to connect to different parts of the west to those main corridors. It seemed like a really good investment. It would be the lions share of the stocks on the New York Stock Exchange in this period. They were not industrial stocks, they were railroad stocks. And a lot of people scrambled to get in on the ground floor. And one of those projects was the Northern Pacific railroad. And the fellow who won the right to be the chief fundraiser for that project was jay cook. A very well respected financier, hed been a major financier of the union effort during the civil war. The problem was this. Investors were starting to realize in the early 18 seventies, that perhaps in our zeal for Railroad Building we had gone too far. Maybe we are overbuilt. Maybe the Railroad Bubble is about to burst. And all of a sudden, jake cook had trouble raising money. He had trouble getting alone. People found out he was over extended, and on september 18th, 1873, jay koch and company declared bankruptcy. When cook went under a drag down of the businesses and railroads and banks with him. A panic hit wall street. You see a pictured here. The inning september 20th, the New York Stock Exchange which i said was heavily populated by railroad stocks, closed for ten days and on over the next two months, 55 railroads went bankrupt. And it didnt stop there. The 1874, 25 of the nations Railroad Bonds were in default. It wasnt just railroads that were affected. For the following two years, the rover 18,000 businesses that failed. Many people, including this cartoonist, clung to the tradition of you that ultimately, this was a necessary evil. Failure is part of the capitalist system and so we should see the panic has the core tunic does cartoonist does, as a sanitation officer cleaning all of the trash out of wall street. Maybe so, but in the meantime, a lot of people had suffer. In the meantime, Railroad Construction ground to a halt. Unemployment skyrocketed in many sectors and in some cities, unemployment was as high as 25 . Jobless nurse remained rife for the next five years. Were at the same moments, people were also starting to ask questions about whether or not the railroads should have so much power. Within this new national economy. We saw the farmers asking these questions very loudly. Here, we see railroads tycoon William Henry vanderbilt, member of the family weve gotten to know well over the past few weeks, pictured of as the modern colossus of railroads. Along with some of his colleagues cyrus field and the notorious jail gold. As we saw last time, farmers considered their great control over the economy to be extortion. And indeed, other groups were starting to feel this way as well. The political efforts or frustrated farmers and some allied industrialists led to early attempts at state intervention. In the early 18 seventies, some states called what we pass the granger laws. They said maximum freight elevator rates. Forbidding rate discrimination against shortfalls. Many urban consumers father the railroads were overcharging them. It was not just farmers who were frustrated. They created state railroad commissions to supervise and enforce this new Regulatory Regime. This happened in places like minnesota, iowa, wisconsin and illinois. Illinois particularly important for us because it was there that the law was challenged by the form of meng and scott, who were accused of having overcharged their customers at their green elevator in chicago and they challenged their 100 dollar fine and it went to the Supreme Court in 1877 by seven to majority the court under chief justice weight declared that when private property is devoted to a public use, it is subject to public regulation. And incidentally, the federal government is not acting so there is a door open for the states to step in. Adam but dont consider this a long term win for state level regulation. Because an 1886, a six three majority at the Supreme Court declared in another case, this time the railroad versus illinois, that under the Commerce Clause of the constitution, states were forbidden from imposing direct burdens on interstate commerce. And illinois Regulatory Regime was considered a direct burden on a railroad, which was considered interstate commerce, and therefore state level regulation was severely hampered moving forward after the the wabash case. This, along with a couple of other cases in the late 18 eighties extended the 14th amendment protections to corporations. It acted to undermine the state level regulation. That doesnt mean the public stopped being frustrated with the abuses of the railroads. In fact, public outrage over the wabash case led to the passage of the interstate commerce act by commerce in 1887. It created the interstate commerce commission, it made it forbidden to have special rates and rebates for powerful shippers. You remember rockefellers scheme from a few weeks ago. There would be no rates discrimination against stewart shortfalls. There would be public inspection of rates and if you abused these regulations, you could face up to a 5000 dollar fine. So take that, vanderbilt. Moreover, they work through. In 1890, growing public frustration over the strengths of the trust in particular, the standard oil trust, led congress to pass the sherman act which was named for senator john sherman of ohio, the brother of william sherman. By 1890, 27 states had pass trust laws and how the congress was during the parade. The sherman law, the language is important for us moving forward today, the sherman law outlawed every contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade, again imposing a 5000 dollar fine for offense. And potentially also a year in prison. But i dont want you to be misled. This hardly represents the foundation of a robust regulatory. Regime for one thing, the president s of the gilded age were generally uncomfortable with this sort of state intervention. They held to more traditional laissezfaire view and so Benjamin Harrison was president and signed this law because it was in accord with Public Opinion, it didnt do too much to enforce it and in the same can be said for his successors. Whether they be a democrat like we democrat like Grover Cleveland or a republican like william mckinley. In moments when the federal government did try to enforce it, they were smacked down by the courts. In 1895 the course defanged the sherman act when it came to industrial combinations. The court declared eight to one, that the sherman act did not apply to manufacturing monopolies. The u. S. Sugar Refining Company controlled more than 90 of its sector. Certainly, this is consolidation. But they say production is not interested commerce. That is something different. And so they have narrowly defined the powers they have given to enforcement under the sherman antitrust act. And it wouldnt be until the 20th century that the sherman act was used successfully against industrial monopolies, something we will talk about in a later lecture. It wasnt only the government in Public Opinion but also workers who were growing frustrated with the commands of the gilded age businessmen. And like the public, and the legislatures, labor would be largely frustrated in its protests. The hard times of the 18 seventies meant a lot of things for workers. One thing it meant was that hard times, they got poor wages, less availability of work, less security, less stability. And at times, harsh measures by management to try and keep their companies afloat. Railroads in particular had tried to respond to the crises of the seventies by cutting their own rates to try and get their business out through their competitors and how do they make up for the losses of cutting these rates . They cut the workers wages. That led to a decade of mounting frustrations by the workers. There were a series of localized strikes in 1876 and then early 1877. And then, presenting the wage cuts, and presenting the public opprobrium that was often heaped on the workers as they stood up for themselves because it was believed by many especially in the press in the government, that railroads are a public good and so if you strike against the railroad, you are doing something especially evil. So the workers began to resent all of this. Them and their resentment exploded in the summer of 1877. A new group called the train mens union struck against the baltimore and ohio railroad, beginning july 16th, 1877. Baltimore police broke up the first round of pickets. The next day, they took control of the key Railroad Junction in martin berke, west virginia. A battle between local police and a sorely mob required state militia intervention. Eventually, federal troops had to restore order. Within days, these sorts of scenes were erupting in a dozen Railways Centers around the country. And baltimore, a mob tried to trap the militia in an armory. The soldiers fired and killed ten people. In pittsburgh, rioters burned rail yards and destroyed 2000 cars and the depots. All while exchanging fire with troops. Strikers in indianapolis seized control of the depot and halted all cars and trains except for trains carrying mail, for reasons we will see in a moment. By july 25th, all lines outside new england and south were being affected in one way or another. And so you could feel the tension on streets around the country. In chicago, businessmen patrol the streets with guns, fearing a potential revolution. In buffalo, the revolution was underway. Crowds swarmed the yards of the new york central. And claims control of the depots of the Lakeshore Railroad and the theory railroad. Ultimately, however, this Great Railroad strike of 77 collapsed. First of all, the depression was still going on at a point unemployment was still high and so it was easy to find as for people to work as strike breakers. Unemployment was still around 8 , nationally. These are estimates. Some companies were feel for all of continued strikes and continued chaos and were willing to negotiate. But ultimately, you cant call this in any way a win for labor. If anything, the press became increasingly indignant over this outburst of street action and they called on the states to beef up their militias to put down future agitation. Indeed, with an eye to the future, state level militia units were enhanced and armorys were constructed to prepare for the next events. Meanwhile, conflagrations like those in the late 18 seventies cause many workers to ask a fundamental question. Wouldnt this be more easily accomplished if we had some Better Organization . And in this, many of them turned to a fledgling organization, the nights of labor. The nights of labor started as a sort of secret society. It was founded by stevens, a garment worker in philadelphia who is obsessed with all sorts of rituals in secret oaths and so forth. But after 1877, many workers became interested in organization and they looked to the nights. This was often spontaneous. The nights were never particularly effective recruiters but people were looking for an organization and so in 1879, the nights of labor had 9000 members, but you need to they had near 42,000. In the meantime, they were taken over by new leadership under terrence powder lee who moved the group array from ritual and toward reform. So in the 18 seventies and eighties, they began stressing monetary reform like we discussed last time. They began discussing an eight hour day. Organizing for a cooperatives schemes among the workers. Trying to gain state and local political influence. Many within the nights of labor began embracing the ideas of henry george who called for a single tax on land. Was interesting is besides the sort of wideranging agenda is their broad membership. Sort of anomalous for this period in america. Especially in river. This group was highly inclusive. They reached across lines of craft, lines of skill and skilled workers. It is immigrants and native oil workers. Catholics and protestants in this one is an organization there are black members as well as bright members as well as male members and so this is a very large organization. They were building a lot of momentum in the 18 eighties. You see in a moment to have a precipitous decline. And at the very moment we see them start to climb, the totally different idea of labor comes to the for and that is craft unionism. And that is the American Federation of labour, founded in 1886, their leader is samuel coppers. His papers are held in a library. They were inclusion its inclusive, they were focused on elite craftsman. This is strategic. The skill crossed we have a little bit more leverage when it comes to negotiation. Unskilled craftsman are replaceable but skilled craftsman are little harder to replace to maybe activists talk them. And they had much narrower goals. The phrase that he spoke of was pure and simple unionism. Were going after bread and butter issues who are going to get a better wage, a shorter hours. Were not trying to change the world though, this more conservative elite unionism would be the one that would survive the chaos that were going to talk about now moving forward you. In the meantime, the 18 eighties would witness recapitulations of many of the troubling themes of the 18 seventies. Once again, a Major Economic panic, this one in each 84, followed once again by an industrial downturn, followed by labor troubles. Most noteworthy in this time was a period known as the great upheaval. This is sporadic series of events in many ways and in may of 1884, there was a successful strike by an organized Railroad Workers against the Union Pacific railroad. The railroad capitulated in two days in the workers said now that we are on a roll, lets join the nights of labor. Lets make this a permanent fixture. In june of 1884, we saw the beginning of a major mine strike in the river valley of ohio. 4000 workers plus their families in the community we went out on strike and the strike lasted six months. The minors lost the strike but what is noteworthy about this is that once again, it taught them the usefulness of organization and coordination. If you go on strike, you dont get paid, the strike doesnt last very long because you have to eat. But, they were able to organize and raise funds, they had 100,000 Dollar Relief Fund that enabled them to keep this fight off for six months. And once again, it demonstrates to workers the value of organization. Then in march, of 1885, became a major strike against the missouri pacific railroad. They were trying to have a pay cut. That strike spreads to virtually the entire Southwestern Railroad network, most of which was owned by our buccaneering friend jay gould. The governors of nebraska and kansas intervened on behalf of the workers, which i think probably tells us more about gould than it does about the governors. But nevertheless, gould gave back the pay cut. And once again, workers saw value in organization. It all that dramatic growth for the nights of labor. In 1885, they had 100,000 members. By 1886, they had 700,000 members. But this would be their high water mark. And one reason for the decline is the first of several very famous but very telling episodes within American Labor relations. You can call it explosions in the gilded age and that is the hay market affair. There was a strike at the mccormack report works in chicago. On may 3rd, 1886 they were calling for an eight hour day. There was violence between strikers and police and shots were fired in at least two workers were killed. There were anarchists in chicago. They said this violence to us is a wonderful example about our broader pretty kick critique of american capitals and we want to take advantage of this moment to use this tragedy in order to demonstrate to people the validity of our arguments. And so they called for protests. Beginning may 4th. Protests were well attended by the working class is, especially german immigrants. There was a large turnout. It was peaceful by all accounts. At least at the beginning. The rhetoric was relatively tame according to the relatively tame the mayor chicago, carter harrison, a lot of people were deciding the things were going to be fine and went home. In fact, a lot of people were deciding that things were okay and it was time to go home. But it wasnt. Because what happened next at the rally as it was starting to break, up someone threw a pipe bomb. And a policeman was killed. And the police began to fire and a shootout ensued. And an additional six police and four protesters were killed in the cross fire. We never figured out who threw the pipe on. But that doesnt really matter. We knew who to blame. You the anarchists. These germans, these radicals. For ended up being executed, others received long prison sentences one committed suicide by blowing himself up before he could be executed. Later on, in the 1890s, John Peter Altgeld the new governor of illinois and himself german born part into the three surviving artists. Basically saying the whole thing had been travesty of justice. We still know who threw the pipe bomb, we know it wasnt them. Nevertheless, the resulting fear of radicalism led to increasing anti labor sentiment nationwide. Id like to talk about another explosion in 1892. 1892 was a period, we couldve picked any number of many Major Incidents are making nine to talk about. And new orleans, there was a general of strike that went on and on, it involves 25,000 workers. Dozens of different organizations. Black workers and white workers in new orleans. There was a Major Incident in the coal mining fields of Eastern Illinois also known as the cold creek war, youre going to 1892 at and tennessee miners protested against the use of conflict labor, which is used to undermine their wages. By arming themselves burning down the stop eight and conflicts were being held, and releasing a lot of the prisoners, says they ended up being defeated. The one that im going to choose to spent a little time on in the place weve already gotten a little bit with. Homestead, pennsylvania. And Andrew Carney still works. The Steel Workers there were trying to organize, and trying to have a National Group when iron and Steel Workers. Yeah at one point in his career, Andrew Carney guy had favored the principle of collective bargaining, it was getting a little to close to home no. And so chronic change his mind. And your navy did not become key a Great Innovator and millionaire by being a fool you. He decided this battle wasnt for him and he left it to his number two, henry clay on freak. He called the line against the union. On july, he declare that he would not negotiate with this union. They were not legitimate. Instead, he fortified the steel plant. But this is not the end of the story. The workers armed themselves, captured the plant, barricaded themselves inside. Now you have to talk to us what frick had another move to make. He hired a group, when a Tourist Group known as the pink or ten guards and they are politely referred to as a detective agent but the real terms mercenary group. And they came in long growing up the monongahela river on you their barges. 300 of them, to fight these strikers. But it didnt quite work out. When they arrived, a brawl ensued. Nine workers and one guard were killed. As the worker started firing on them, the people of homestead were on the side of the workers. This is our families, these are our customers, our neighbors. And so they chased them out of town. They couldnt sleep by their barges because they burned their barges. So at the hay market affair, where local Law Enforcement had ultimately been effective in stopping the radicals. This could be the case this time because the mayor the sheriff, there on the side of the workers in fact, Public Opinion, by and large is on the side of the workers. Thats not the end of the story. I in the meantime, an anarchist named Alexander Berkman broke into fricks office and shot him twice and repeatedly stabbed him. He was one of the great failures in assassination history. Not only did he fail to kill frick, he also undermined the strikers for whom he was professing sympathy. In many ways, Public Opinion saw this outburst of radical violence as a discredit to the union movement. And while some Public Opinion remained with the workers, there was enough shift that there was political cover for us to move up one level of government. What local, state. The governor of pennsylvania had the state militia going, the workers were extricate it from the plant. Strike breakers were brought in and there would not be successful long term unionization of the american Steel Workers until the late 1930s. Episode three, two years later, pullman, illinois. The context for this is the depression that we talked about in the context of the farmers last time, the started in 1893. With that meant for one thing is that an 1894, there was a lot of labor frustration, almost 1400 strikes, a record breaking 505,000 workers out on strike that year. And the other part of the context is the place. Pullman, illinois, is one of those Company Towns and weve talked about Company Towns. And his Company Towns go, compared to the unheated shacks with a little water supply that we have seen in mind country are in the textile towns in new england, pullman was a relatively nice company town by all reports. The housing was a decent standard there were libraries and parks and playgrounds and schools. And mr. Pullman saw himself as a sort of patriarchal figure. He referred to his workers as his children. This ended up being a problem. In the town of pullman, which they make . They make pullman cars, sleeper cars, for trains. And so you work in this factory, you live in his town where he owns everything, you shop in his stores, you pay rent to mr. Pullman. And all, right well it all seems fine, this is a relatively distant standard of living is Living Standards for the working costco. But then came the depression. And mr. Pullman decided he needed to help the companys bottom line and he called for a major wage cut, frizz workers up to 30 . In some cases. But the rent was going to remain the same. Hes your boss, but hes also your landlord. And so how are you going to argue . One thing is the rent was already exorbitant because compared to similar rental properties in that region, he was charging about 15 to 20 more. Not only is he not lowering the cost, hes also cutting their wages. He said this was for the good of the company. But consider this. They paid 2. 8 Million Dollars worth of dividends in 1894. They were supposed to be losing money. And in fact dividends they paid that year were higher than the dividends they paid in previous years. And so while there was a real problem and production was indeed down, its not as though the company was on the verge of collapse. The workers tried to negotiate. They sent grievance to mr. Pullman, he listen to what they had to say. He said oh, that is very interesting, you guys are fired. This offended the workers as you can imagine, and it led to a strike. A walkout beginning may 11th. Now this wouldve been one of the thousand plus strikes that year. Except it got bigger because the workers that pullman were aligned with a National Group, the American Railway union. They had the support and sympathy if its president deb s and they called for a secondary strike. Our switch men, our Railroad Workers around the country, we refused to switch any pullman car into a train. When you have 40,000 plus real workers around the country saying this, it starts to get serious. And by late june, Train Networks were being shut down around the country. They tried not to obstruct the mail, because they did not want to run afoul of the federal government. But management was quite quite smart in how they handle this. They said quite simply if the train is not complete, you can put in the pullman car than were not running it. And then they went to the federal government and explain that it was the unionists who are being obstructionists. And so the federal government started to take notice that the action going on. In chicago, hey market was out with this with the local authority. This is obviously says they should be handed by local authorities. At home, that was in the state, he is sympathetic to labor. And so this time it was going to be federal intervention. On the Justice Department went to court, they got an injunction against the strikers. The strikes continued. And so debs who was arrested on july 10th for contempt of court. Meanwhile, the president had to act because the strikes continued. The president is still Grover Cleveland. Weve got to know him last time. The mail is being disrupted. Management tells this is the fall of the workers. George pullman is a friend of mine, by the way, and dont forget that cleveland is like the other gilded age president s, pro business. Pro management. And so they get the injunction based on two the matters. Number one, their interrupting federal delivery of the male and number two, this is viewed by the courts and Justice Department as an illegal conspiracy and restraint of trait. These fellows are in violation of the sherman antitrust act and so the injunction is granted, the union does not back down and so we have to send in the army. Thousands of u. S. Soldiers. The fighting took place, dozens were killed. The Supreme Court, the strike up broken up, obviously but in january, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of debs the death was wrong, because the government was right. They were violating the law and so this gives great power to those seeking injunctions from courts against labor in the future. In all of these cases, a lot of americans knew who was to blame. It was the workers, it was the radicals, but also it was groups that we talked about in great depth a week ago. It was the outsiders, these newcomers, these immigrants. And so its not just that we can blame the immigrants in the city for undermining american democracy. Its not just that we can blame the immigrants for challenging american religious traditions with their breath all a system in their judaism. Or challenging the american cultural standards with their solutions and their beer halls. But also, when we ask who is to blame for crime and for anarchists and socialists, the answer, if you read this cartoon, its quite clear. It is the russian anarchist, the german socialist, italian brigand, the polish vagabond, the eilish popper and so forth and so on. And so class and ethnicity now for the first time in American History, but certainly in an increasingly powerful extent, were being conflated, were being intertwined, and this was going to be very potent weaponry. Against both the foreigners and you labor activists for decades to come as we will see. In the meantime, i started out saying this wasnt all about the workplace, it wasnt all about the economy. Some of the discontent in the gilded age was social in nature. You can understand, when you work in a factory, you have no control. No control over what your work schedule looks like. In the middle towns, they literally bring bells to drag out of bed in the morning so you know its time to go to work. And they ring bells again to clear the streets so you go home so you can wake up when the bell rings again in the morning. They control your life you do not set your schedule the way you did back when you are a peasant back in europe than we did before you emigrated. He did not make your own schedule. You do not have any sense of craftsmanship you will get a lot of access to nature. You dont make your own schedule when you combine this in many cases with living in a very large city, we are entire life, probably very fascinating, could be confined in a world of a few dozen blocks, and remember that world as weve read, and as weve observed, could be a very dark, dirty, diseased world, frustrating, stifling world. You start to understand why people would grow discontent with this arrangement to. And so there were certainly solutions that were proposed one response to this was a push for recreation reformers in the gilded age cities that were going to get to know them very well in the future. They believe that urban dwellers with benefit immensely from access to playgrounds and parks and beaches. Like this beach we see here, being enjoyed by some of the immigrant textile workers that we met in previous lectures. And so one response to the discontent or at least the potential discontent of the cooped up urban dweller was the rise of recreation and urban parks. It had been going on for many decades. They didnt invent parks in the gilded age. The most famous probably in central park in new york, began construction in its modern form. Says frederick law homestead beginning in 1858 completed in 1868, but more parks would follow as the gilded age broached in the 20th century. This push for outdoor breathing spaces, for the urban masses would become even more vehement. And while weve got green spaces, weve also got to make sure were keeping everybody fit and active. If they are physically active, that will keep them out of trouble and if they are physically fit, that will help keep them morally fit, we will help them be wholesome. Help them avoid the saloon potentially. And so the reformers in the city saw all sorts of means of keeping the masses from getting bored and lethargic and of encouraging them to stay healthy. Both physically and morally. You see some exercise classes. And this intern led to the the increasing popularity of athletics. Sports were a way to bring order to people, to organize people not only in Community Organizations but to keep the fifth at the same time. And to develop a sense of prime pride in your group, in your churches team, in your unions team, in your towns team. Earlier schools team, which is very important then and now. This is a transnational phenomenon. I dont want to make you think that this is only american, historians can tell you the same story about soccer clubs in britain, and europe or cricket clubs. And so forth. Arising in the same period. But in our case, its very important as well. This is the time when baseball in its modern form starts to get organized and formalized, in the years after the civil war. And basketball is invented by doctor james knee smith in 1891 at a ymca in Springfield Massachusetts massachusetts. And we start to have College Football. The First CollegeFootball Games were in 1869 and our new arch rival in the records. Rodgers one for those who play trivial 64th ever comes up. That game like our game was very violent but theres was far worse. No helmets, plenty of unnecessary roughness. No notion of unnecessary roughness. The game came close to getting bad couple times with there was a president ial commission to discuss all of the carnage taking place on the College Football fields and indeed carnage is the right word for it. It has been estimated by one historian that in the year the president in question held this commission in 1905, there were as many as 45 deaths on College Football fields. One historian estimates that that was in the five years leading up to the commission. In the year 1905 itself, its been estimated that College Football games the produce 18 deaths and hundred nine catastrophic injuries. And so we need to do something to organize this and make it less bloody and so theyve worked on that. It wasnt only there working classes who found modern society but now you and sought outlets for their constraining energies. The upper classes, the intellectuals in the guilty angel became increasingly disenchanted with the weightlessness of their society. Many of them suffered from an incredibly vague but increasingly popular disorder called neurasthenia. Which consisted of anxiety, fatigue, depression, stress, impotence, headaches. The diagnosis depended very heavily on who you were if you were of the working class is and you are wanting about these things, you are either lazy or insane in the solution was to either starve institutionalized. And if you were a woman, it was quite likely that you were simply hysterical and you needed to be locked up in as planned win is possible until they made you more hysterical, and you read about this for example in the yellow wallpaper for making 82. But, for a lot of people, male and female, these symptoms might mean you are suffering from nerve weakness. There was a neurologist named George Miller beard, and he identified this disorder as a symptom of modern life. It was caused by this faster pace. Theres a natural fast pace, many things, but especially, above all, it was caused by modern technology. Technology was not natural, its degrading us in our biology. His solution was a regimen of electrical shocks. Happily, other physicians called simply for bed rest derisively shun. To a lot of this intellectuals, they said well if this burnout is a symptom of maternity, then our solution is to embrace anti modernism. So they wanted something more than the superficial consumerism, the secularized drive for material gain. That seems to mark their times. And so many of them rejected modern society in favor of any number of more basic alternatives. A vague return to the simple life, a return to craftsmanship, working with your hands, a return in some cases, to medieval style religious devotion, were new term, to ancient religious practices of the far east. The romanticization of all things as they wouldve said at the time, oriental. And so they turn four alternatives to their modern society. Oftentimes, in a bizarre way, but it gives you nevertheless, insight into their frustration with this society. For many of them, including the president bush, whom i didnt name what was referring to the full discussion, for many of them, self exertion was the tonic of choice. Its roosevelt, was a young, sickly, money boy and his solution to all of this was the vigorous, life particularly time spent in the great outdoors. And so in his very famous attempts to invigorate himself, and his class, Theodore Roosevelt would hike mountains, hunt big game, engage in cattle ranching in the badlands, lead military units and encourage his fellow men to procreate as much as possible. These were some of his solutions, this vigorous life. These concerns from the neurotic elites or confused, overwhelmed intellectuals, they may seem trivial we are in compared to the labor strife and the economic turmoil of the late 19th century, indeed to a large extent, they are. But the point here is that elites were just as interested in using central parts in other parks for themselves as they were in creating the park as an outlet to prevent discontent among the lower sorts. We see them enjoying central park here. The points, in other words, is that during the gilded age there was disenchantment coming from all directions. From those who needed a break, from the monotony of industrial life, from those who feared the moral or social implications of an increasingly restless working class, from businesses who found themselves abused by monopolies, from states who found themselves powerless to stop monopolies, from workers who were constantly finding themselves being crushed by monotonys and other companies as well, and also from those near the top of the gilded age social hierarchy who found their society increasingly vacuous and unsatisfied. Were not done with agility jet. We have been away from the south for sometime now. And so next time, we will when we return, we will turn our gays back to dixie and observe their peculiar version of agility age. Have a wonderful weekend. Turn your papers. In i if your dusty dies student, put your paper over there, and have a wonderful. Weekend youre watching American History tv. Its every weekend on cspan three explore our nations past. Cspan 3, created by Americas NationalCable Television services and brought to you today by your television provider. In these every saturday sees three up next on lectures in history, across on the progressive era and how