Economy in the Gilded Age

1. Review the ingredients for the Gilded Age economy—do the same key ingredients shape our current economy? What’s different, and what’s the same?
   • How does our infrastructure compare?
   • How have the sources of capital changed?
   • How supportive is modern American culture of business? Is this more or less than during the Gilded Age?
   • What modern "giants" might you compare to Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan? How accurate is the comparison?
   • How does the underside of the American underclass compare? Still as poor?  Poorer? Better off? 
   • How about urban and factory conditions? Improved? Worse? The same? 
2. Is it possible to sequence these critical ingredients in terms of importance? Why or why not?
3. Could economic growth have been so dramatic without all of these?
4. Could one be removed without changing the bottom line?
5. How do immigration rates affect the economy?
   • Put another way, without record immigration rates would the economy have grown so dramatically? Why or why not?
6. How does government regulation of business effect the economy?
   • If the Gilded Age government had imposed more regulations on business activities, what might the effect have been?