In the gilded age, how did monopolies affect many small businesses?

The Gilded Age was the period after the Civil War and Reconstruction, from the 1870s to the 1890s, when the country experienced an unprecedented economic, industrial and demographic expansion, especially in the north and west but also a great social conflict and great economic and social inequalities, as many small businesses were harmed by government policies tending to favor the big monopolies, thus harming its owners, who were middle-class entrepreneurs.

The Gilded Age overlaps with the Reconstruction (which ended in 1877) and includes the panic of 1873. The era was characterized by an extraordinarily rapid growth of the railroad, small factories, banks, warehouses, mines and other family businesses, along with a dramatic expansion in the highly fertile arable lands of the west. There was also a great increase in the ethnic diversity of the immigrants, attracted by the promotions of the navigation and railroad companies, which highlighted the possibility of finding work and arable land.

American wages, especially for skilled workers, were much higher than in Europe, which attracted millions of immigrants. The increase in industrialization produced an increase in business profits and also in real wages, that grew by 48% from 1880 to 1890, which did not prevent it from being a time of poverty for those who could not find work and for European immigrants.

The southern United States remained economically devastated; its economy became increasingly linked to the production of cotton and tobacco, whose prices fell. African-Americans in the south were stripped of political power and voting rights.

The reforming politicians raised the prohibition of child labor, education for ethnic and racial groups. Campaigns were made for the reduction of working hours, the demand for the 8-hour day and the demand for women's suffrage. State and local governments built schools, colleges and hospitals, and private institutions were founded with the support of local philanthropists.

the images of war are haunting

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