Big Business and Growing Cities

A Nation Transformed

After the Civil War the United States industrialised at astonishing speed. Within a generation it had become the leading industrial power in the world. ⭐ Three things grew together. Big business, booming cities and mass migration fed one another: new industries needed workers, migrants poured in to fill them, and the cities swelled around the factories. ⚠️ The surface glittered, but not all shared it. Great new wealth rose beside crowded slums and hard, poorly paid work. The strongest answers hold the progress and its price together.

The glittering surface, and beneath it

This era is called the Gilded Age because a bright, golden surface lay over harder truths. Hold both.

Order the connected growth

Put these into an order that shows how big business, migration and the cities grew together.

• New industries and big business grow rapidly after the Civil War
• These industries need vast numbers of workers
• Millions of migrants come, from Europe and the American countryside
• They fill the factories and pour into the cities
• The cities swell, with skyscrapers above and crowded slums below

Why the cities grew so fast

Why did the American cities grow so fast in this period?

• Because the new industries needed huge numbers of workers, drawing millions of migrants into the cities to fill the factories
• Because farming on the Plains was collapsing everywhere
• Because the government ordered people to live in cities
• Because the climate in the cities was better

Words for the age

Five words that let you explain the growth, rather than just describe it.

Spot what drove the cities to grow

Three of these drove the fast growth of the cities. Choose the three.

• New factories needing workers
• Mass migration from Europe and the countryside
• New building methods like steel-framed skyscrapers
• A sharp fall in the population
• The closing of the factories

One process, two faces

The sharpest answers show that big business, migration and the cities were one connected process, and that the age had two faces at once. The growth was connected. Big business needed workers, mass migration supplied them, and the cities grew around the factories. Pull one thread and the others follow. And it had two faces. The same era that built giant industries, great fortunes and soaring cities also left deep poverty, crowded slums and hard, unprotected work. Weighing the progress against its price, and being ready to compare this experience with other groups of the period, is the grade 9 move.

Match each term of the age to what it means

Find the sentence that sees both

A student writes about the Gilded Age. Select the ONE sentence that shows one connected process with two faces.

• Big business drew in the migrants who filled the swelling cities, producing both great new wealth and the crowded slums and hard, low-paid work beneath it.
• The cities grew for no reason anyone could explain.
• Everyone in the country shared equally in the new wealth.
• Big business had no effect on the growth of the cities.

A worked example: the boomtown

Picture a small town where a huge new works opens almost overnight. Word spreads, and people arrive from far and wide looking for a job and a fresh start. Within a few years there is a grand main street of fine buildings and new fortunes. But just behind it, thrown up too fast, are cramped lodgings, strained water and long shifts for low pay. The same boom that built the fine street built the crowded back lanes. Hold that idea. Rapid growth around new industry tends to create wealth and hardship at the same time, as two sides of one boom.

Complete the account of the age

The giant corporations that dominated industry were _____. When one company controlled a whole industry it held a _____. The movement of millions of people to the cities was _____. Many of them lived in a crowded city building called a _____. The whole era of glittering wealth over deep problems is called the _____.

Judge the Gilded Age

Which is the soundest understanding of this period of growth?

• One connected process in which big business, migration and the cities grew together, producing great wealth and progress but also deep inequality and hardship
• Pure progress that made everyone better off equally
• Nothing but misery, with no real progress at all
• Three separate developments with no link between them

The progress, and the price

The strongest answers weigh both, because in this age the two grew from the very same boom.

Judge the age like an examiner

You are marking three claims about the Gilded Age. For each, choose the soundest judgement.

• An essay says everyone shared equally in the new wealth. Is that safe?
• An essay says big business, cities and migration were unconnected. Is that safe?
• An essay says the era brought only misery. Is that safe?

Write: the growth, and who gained and who paid

How and why did big business, cities and migration grow in this period, and who gained and who paid? Explain the connected growth, weigh the progress against its price, and reach a judgement. This is written in English and is not auto-marked.

• Explain the rise of big business after the Civil War
• Explain how mass migration filled the factories and the cities
• Explain how the three grew together as one process
• Explain the inequality, slums and hard work beneath the wealth
• Reach a supported judgement weighing the progress against its price