6inequality

=Period 6=

The Problem(s)
By the 1900’s, 2% of the population owned 50% of the nations wealth. Business Leaders like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were growing richer off of the Standard Oil Company and the U.S. Steel Company. There was a massive gap between the rich and the poor families. The “newly rich” would build mansions that were expensive and nicely decorated, while poor lived in run down tenements. The rich would spend their time on boats, railroad cars, horses and more. Many of the rich gave huge parties that cost hundreds of dollars. The poor though, could barely afford to put food on the table for dinner, buy clothing, or afford an kind of shelter other then tenements that many families lived in. The biggest problem with the massive gap, was that poor families would usually remain poor. The rich had the money to send their children to school and then off to collage. The poor couldn’t afford to continue their kids in school after elementary school. In many areas though, especially in the large cities, free public school was now being offered up to 12th grade. But mostly in the south, small towns would not provide free schooling after elementary school and the school still only ran for 3 to 4 months of the year. This automatically gave the rich an advantage on staying rich because they had no problem paying for schooling. But the poor would have an automatic disadvantage on ever becoming rich. All of this put together became known as “**The Gilded Age**".

The Solution(s)

 * An effort to reduce the growing income of the rich and to try to raise the poors level of income.
 * The first thing they did was the more you make the more you pay. So the rich had more income tax.
 * Second higher and more effective tax on corporations.
 * Finally there must be higher inheritance taxes in each state. The state has to urge the rich to donate money to charity and educational programs.
 * Another thing that is needed is to bring up the level of the lower class.
 * All areas must have free public high schools. It also is required that children attend school at least until the age of 16.
 * High schools offered subjects like shop, bookkeeping, typing, business math, home economics and more.
 * State collages and university's offer more on science and industry.
 * Passed the 16th ammendment that approved income tax.

The Images
^^**Two officials of the New York City Tenement House Department inspect a cluttered basement living room, ca. 1900.**


 * A crowded New York tenement. >>**


 * ^^Rockefeller's house.**

The Primary Sources
“//I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity an obligation; every possession a duty. I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it. Giving is the secret of a healthy life. Not necessarily money, but whatever a person has of encouragement, sympathy and understanding.”// -Rockefeller

//"As the law stands, all children between the ages of eight and twelve are required to attend school all of the time the public schools are in session from October to June. From twelve to fourteen, children may go to work provided they attend school eighty days during the school year. This latter provision is in conflict with the factory and other laws regulating child labor, which forbid the employment of children under fourteen years of age. In my judgment, the Board of Education of The City of New York should take the lead in this matter and secure legislation to make the compulsory school age extend from six to fourteen."// -New York Board of Education

//"If we want the whole world to be rich, we need to start loving wealth. In the difference between poverty and plenty, the problem is the poverty and not the difference. Wealth is good. ... wealth is not a world-wide round-robin of purse snatching, and ... the thing that makes you rich doesn't make me poor.// //... Without Productivity, there wouldn't be any economics, or any economic thinking, good or bad, or any pizza, or anything else. We would sit around and stare at rocks, and maybe later have some for dinner. ... Wealth is based on productivity, and productivity is expandable. In fact, productivity is fabulously expandable."// -(name withheld)

The Citations
ABC Clio on the Wealth of the Nation, and how it affects the people of the economy. [|www.abcclio.com] The gap between the rich and the poor, and how it affects the nation. [|www.google.com] (rich vs. poor) Pictures on tenements in New York city. [|www.google.com] (tenements) Pictures on wealthy living in the 1900’s. [|www.google.com] (wealthy living)