Prosperity vs. Poverty in the Gilded Age: Photos

Between 1880 and 1900, cities in the United States grew at an explosive rate, fueled by rapid industrial growth, the migration of millions of Americans from rural to urban areas and a massive influx of immigrants seeking greater opportunity. As populations swelled, demand for housing outpaced supply. Landlords divided single-family homes into multiple dwellings, forcing many families to cram into small, poorly ventilated apartments or even share single rooms.

Photo: A family living in an attic with clothes hanging on clotheslines strung across the room, circa 1900.

Conditions in tenement buildings were often cramped and unsanitary, with little ventilation or access to clean water. Children often slept in the same space where meals were cooked and laundry was done. Hallways stank of garbage and sewage, and fire hazards and the spread of disease were constant threats.

Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant who arrived in New York City in 1870, indelibly documented the stark realities of the city’s tenement life in his photographs. His 1890 book How the Other Half Lives helped spark public outcry over the conditions in which so many New Yorkers lived, eventually leading to improved housing codes, health regulations and other reforms.

Photo: A woman sitting by the stove in the squalor of tenement building in New York City, 1905.

The rapidly growing American economy—and the promise of religious and political refuge—drew millions of immigrants to the United States during the Gilded Age. Between 1870 and 1900, the nation welcomed nearly 12 million people from Ireland, Italy, Russia, Scandinavia, China, Japan, Latin America and elsewhere.

Photo: Backyards of tenements at Park Ave. and 107th St., New York City, circa 1900.

During this period of rapid industrial growth, Factory owners prioritized profits by paying workers the lowest possible wages and had little incentive to ensure salaries were enough for a basic standard of living. Factory workers, including children, were expected to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, often facing exposure to harsh chemicals, dangerous machinery or other risks.

Many immigrants were relegated to menial jobs that paid as little as 50 cents a day, even as landlords showed little mercy in raising rents. On New York City’s Lower East Side, where many Jewish and Italian immigrants lived, evictions were commonplace during the “rent wars” between landlords and tenants struggling to stay in their homes. In 1904, The New York Times reported that “nearly 800 evictions are impending on the East Side because of the advance in rent.”

Photo: A family being evicted from apartment in the Lower East Side, New York City, 1910.

Amid the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the Gilded Age, the migration of so many people strained infrastructure and housing in many cities. In the wake of the financial panic of 1873, an increasing number of displaced, often unemployed men—many of them Civil War veterans—turned up in New York City and other urban areas, forced to sleep on park benches, in makeshift shelters or on police station floors.

With no welfare system in place, and charity organizations focused on aiding homeless women and children, these “tramps,” as they came to be known, became ubiquitous in Gilded Age cities. “The ‘tramp’ comes with the locomotive, and almshouses and prisons are as surely the marks of ‘material progress’ as are costly dwellings, rich warehouses and magnificent churches,” wrote Henry George in Progress and Poverty.

Photo: Men sleep on the floor of a New York City homeless shelter. In 1886, the fee to sleep indoors was 5 cents a night.

On the other side of the Gilded Age coin, the wealthiest Americans built massive mansions in New York and Newport modeled after European palaces. Such grand buildings stood in stark contrast to the squalor of urban tenements.

In 1893, The New York Times reported that five brownstone houses had been torn down to make way for an addition to the already expansive home at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in Manhattan belonging to Cornelius Vanderbilt II, grandson of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. Described as “the finest private residence in America,” the Vanderbilt mansion was designed in the style of the Château de Blois in France and boasted a grand entrance hall and a 65-by-50-foot ballroom with 35-foot-high ceilings.

Photo: Cornelius Vanderbilt residence at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in New York City in 1894.

Wealthy urban Americans increasingly chose Newport, Rhode Island, as their summer escape during the Gilded Age. Among the grandest of their seaside mansions was The Breakers, built in 1895 for Cornelius Vanderbilt II. The steel, brick and limestone structure, designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, boasted 70 rooms, including 48 bedrooms for family and staff. It was also fully equipped with electricity—then rare in private homes—as well as gas for lighting.

Hunt also designed the nearby Newport mansion known as Marble House for Cornelius II’s younger brother, William K. Vanderbilt, who commissioned it as a birthday present for his wife, Alva. Inspired by the Petit Trianon at Versailles, the mansion cost a reported $11 million, including $7 million for some 500,000 cubic feet of marble.

Photo: The Great Hall of The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island.

John Jacob Astor, who became the nation’s first multimillionaire thanks to fur trading, real estate, shipping and opium, built the six-story Astor House in 1836. The hotel became the choice of important travelers such as Abraham Lincoln, who stayed there in 1860 when he gave his famous speech at Cooper Union.

Astor’s fortune—about $20 million at the time of his death in 1848—made his heirs the dominant force in New York society before the Gilded Age. The “old money” Astors were slow to accept those with newer fortunes, a slight that the socially ambitious Alva Vanderbilt refused to let stand. She became a leading hostess in both New York and Newport, inviting journalists to cover her lavish gatherings. By the time she threw her most famous ball at her New York mansion in 1883, Alva had ensured that the Vanderbilts had ascended to the top of Gilded Age society.

Photo: The Astor House dining room, 1895.

Jay Gould, who made his millions as a railroad financier, executive and speculator, was regarded as one of the more ruthless and anti-labor Gilded Age “robber barons.” In 1883, the launch of his yacht Atalanta drew a crowd of thousands in Philadelphia, according to The New York Times. The paper described the 228-foot steam yacht as “the most magnificent private craft afloat.”

Photo: Jay Gould’s steam yacht Atalanta, 1890s.

In his famous 1889 essay on the “Gospel of Wealth,” Andrew Carnegie argued that the rich were morally obligated to distribute their money to help the common man. Carnegie—who gave away about $350 million during his lifetime—helped set the standard for other wealthy Gilded Age Americans who redistributed some of their fortunes for the benefit of society at large. This included endowments to public institutions such as libraries and universities, as well as support for social reform causes including temperance, public health and women’s suffrage.

Wealthy women in particular often used their fortunes to become patrons of libraries, schools and cultural organizations. Such philanthropic efforts served two purposes, allowing wealthy individuals to burnish their personal legacies while also helping justify their immense fortunes in an era of glaring economic inequality.

Photo: A benefit for the Red Cross at The Breakers.