Gilded Age Research: Home

Essential Question: Does capitalism promote opportunity for all?

Directions: To answer the essential question, you will first research 2 Fat Cats and 2 labor leaders/workers. You will research each person from the guided age to further understand their ideals and experiences to help you understand if capitalism promoted opportunity for all. You will use your research to present an answer to the essential question.

Library Schedule:

• Day 1 9/29 - 9/30: introduce libguide, model research of first fat cat as a class, research second fat cat on own. 
• Day 2 10/1 - 10/2: research 2 laborers/workers & complete organizing thoughts.

Due Dates:

• Notes Template due end of class 10/1 or 10/2. 

Make a copy of the notes template and complete it with your research notes for your 4 gilded age people.

• Gilded Age Notes Template

You will research each of the following Fat Cats of the Gilded Age to research. Use the following resources provided.

• Andrew Carnegie (steel industry)
  • Secondary Source: Biography: Carnegie, Andrew
  • Primary Source: Excerpt from "Wealth 
• John D. Rockefeller (oil industry)
  • Secondary Source: Biography: John Davison Rockefeller
  • Primary Source: John D. Rockefeller Comments on the Success of the Standard Oil Company 
  • Primary Source: Ida M. Tarbell: “The Oil War of 1872,” 1903

You will also be assigned 2 of the following labor leaders/labor workers, or immigrant workers of the Gilded Age to research. Use the following resources provided. You must read 2 resources for each choice. Use these to answer the questions in your Gilded Age Notes Template.

• Eugene V. Debs (American Railway Union, Pullman Strike)
  • Secondary Source: Biography - Eugene V. Debs
  • Primary Source: Excerpt from The Outlook for Socialism in the United States (1900)
• Samuel Gompers (American Federation of Labor)
  • Secondary Source: Biography - Samuel Gompers
  • Primary Source: Samuel Gompers Speaks on the Future of the Labor Movement, 1890
• General Workers/Laborers (factory workers, railroad workers, child laborers, immigrant workers, etc.)
  • NOTE: For this option, you are not researching a specific person, but the general idea of the average person working in these factories. Answer the questions in your notes templates based on the average worker. 
  • Primary Source: Manifesto of the Industrial Workers of the World
  • Primary Source: Excerpt from "The Boys in the Breakers,"
  • Secondary Source: Workers in the Industrial Age