Completing of the Pacific Railroad

At Philadelphia's 1876 Centennial celebration the industriousness, inventiveness, and bright hopes of the United States were on display along with Thomas Edison's light bulb. After enduring decades of factional politics and the pains of Civil War and Reconstruction, the nation was now ready to take its place on the world stage. In the 1880s, business titans such as John D. Rockefeller and J. Pierpont Morgan would lead America's economic charge as the country moved from its agrarian roots to becoming an industrial behemoth. Labor was needed to run factories, and immigrants from Europe filled the bill, swelling the size of cities and populating the prairies. Inevitably, the tug between management and labor grew into all-out fighting and America's union movement grew in importance.

Library of Congress

Teddy Roosevelt

Change came also to the home, where magazines, products, and the perks of consumerism were now within the means of many Americans. Between 1876 and 1930 so many things we consider quintessentially American — baseball, movies, cars, and hot dogs — made their first appearances. Yet other things Americans held dear began to disappear. The frontier had been explored and tamed. Native Americans were turned from a threat into a curiosity. A country consumed with manifest destiny now had to reinvent itself.

Politically, presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt led the charge into world politics. The white fleet showed the might of the American military. Doughboys helped tip the balance of WWI in favor of the allies. Those GIs coming home would not be content to stay on the farm. They wanted to drive flivvers, dance with flappers, and drink frappes. Stocks rose along with hemlines. But soon hemlines would turn into breadlines. America was about to endure a very painful hangover.

Enjoy your virtual gild trip.

1. The Gilded Age
   1. Binding the Nation by Rail
   2. The New Tycoons: John D. Rockefeller
   3. The New Tycoons: Andrew Carnegie
   4. The New Tycoons: J. Pierpont Morgan
   5. New Attitudes Toward Wealth
   6. Politics of the Gilded Age
2. Organized Labor
   1. The Great Upheaval
   2. Labor vs. Management
   3. Early National Organizations
   4. American Federation of Labor
   5. Eugene V. Debs and American Socialism
3. From the Countryside to the City
   1. The Glamour of American Cities
   2. The Underside of Urban Life
   3. The Rush of Immigrants
   4. Corruption Runs Wild
   5. Religious Revival: The "Social Gospel"
   6. Artistic and Literary Trends
4. New Dimensions in Everyday Life
   1. Education
   2. Sports and Leisure
   3. Women in the Gilded Age
   4. Victorian Values in a New Age
   5. The Print Revolution
5. Closing the Frontier
   1. The Massacre at Sand Creek
   2. Custer's Last Stand
   3. The End of Resistance
   4. Life on the Reservations
   5. The Wounded Knee Massacre
6. Western Folkways
   1. The Mining Boom
   2. The Ways of the Cowboy
   3. Life on the Farm
   4. The Growth of Populism
   5. The Election of 1896
7. Progressivism Sweeps the Nation
   1. Roots of the Movement
   2. Muckrakers
   3. Women's Suffrage at Last
   4. Booker T. Washington
   5. W. E. B. DuBois
8. Progressives in the White House
   1. Teddy Roosevelt: The Rough Rider in the White House
   2. The Trust Buster
   3. A Helping Hand for Labor
   4. Preserving the Wilderness
   5. Passing the Torch
   6. The Election of 1912
   7. Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom
9. Seeking Empire
   1. Early Stirrings
   2. Hawaiian Annexation
   3. "Remember the Maine!"
   4. The Spanish-American War and Its Consequences
   5. The Roosevelt Corollary and Latin America
   6. Reaching to Asia
   7. The Panama Canal
10. America in the First World War
    1. Farewell to Isolation
    2. Over There
    3. Over Here
    4. The Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations
11. The Decade That Roared
    1. The Age of the Automobile
    2. The Fight Against "Demon Rum"
    3. The Invention of the Teenager
    4. Flappers
    5. The Harlem Renaissance
    6. A Consumer Economy
    7. Radio Fever
    8. Fads and Heroes
12. Old Values vs. New Values
    1. The Red Scare
    2. The Monkey Trial
    3. Intolerance
    4. Books and Movies
    5. Domestic and International Politics