HIST 12B Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Gilded Age, Neoliberalism, Child Labour
Document Summary
Neoliberalism is an effort to restore classic liberalism while rejecting laissez-faire. 1890 the richest 1% received as much income as the bottom half of the population combined; they owned more property than the remaining 99% The wealthy were profiting from the civil war. Industrial mining and wealth of natural resources (coal, copper, were sources of industrial mining) Growth of railroads - key to capitalists expansion and transformation of agriculture. Manufacturing steel was cheaper which helped create railroads. Rising cost of freight dispossession of small farmers, availability of cheap labor, irrigation contribute to large-scale, industrial farms. Large agriculture is what thrives on the global market. The success of railroads and commercial agriculture depended on the government. In ca state sponsor irrigation that made possible the mass production of agriculture and cheap labor. Government gave them land to build tracks and acres on both sides of the track.
