The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries experienced the growth of a modern industrial economy characterized by factories and mass production, linked transportation networks, and large corporations in the United States. The growth was mostly fueled by the rise of big business which dominated most industries as effective organization and management created efficient businesses that utilized various competitive strategies to cut costs and undercut rivals. Although many industrialists engaged in philanthropy, the rise of big business raised many troubling questions including monopoly and the detrimental effects on competition in a capitalist economy, unfair and corrupt business practices and political influence, government regulation of business and the economy, the poor treatment of workers, and economic inequality. Big business and the questions it raised remained central to the discussion of the American economy and politics throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.

Objectives

• Students will examine the causes of the rise of big business and its characteristics in the Gilded Age.
• Students will understand the effects of big business on the American economy, politics, and civil society, as well as the debates related to those effects.
• Students will analyze the constitutional principles associated with government regulation of business in a system of private enterprise, and compare and contrast the regulatory approaches of different presidential administrations toward big business during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

• Handout A: Background Essay: The Rise of Big Business
• Handout B: Rise of Big Business Radio Interview Role-Play
• Handout C: Big Business Social Media Feed
• Handout D: Business and Advertising in the Gilded Age
• Handout E: Big Business and Philanthropy