today we're looking at social darwinism and the gilded age
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resources that go with many of the bell ringer videos today's bellringer video is a little
different and honestly a little more difficult to understand than other bellringer videos
this video deals more with ideas and ideologies rather than historic dates and facts some of the
ideas that became prevalent during the gilded age are difficult to understand and and clearly were
absolutely wrong but it is important to attempt to understand some of the ideas that americans and
those around the world held at that time in order to better understand that time period
during the time period from 1877 to 1900 sometimes referred to as the gilded age the economy of the
united states exploded almost doubling in size industry manufacturing transportation all grew
rapidly and underwent major changes with this explosion in the economy also came extreme wealth
for those in control of these growing companies wealth became much more concentrated and by that
i mean the number of people that owned all of the wealth became smaller and smaller while the number
of people without wealth grew larger there was a divide or disparity of wealth that grew bigger
and bigger between those who had wealth and those who did not this led to social unrest and and many
people argued that those with wealth were taking advantage of those who did not have any many
blame the wealth and equity on the capitalistic economic system of the united states capitalism
is basically an economic system in which private companies or businesses owned by individuals and
not the government control all of the means of production and operate in order to make a profit
in a capitalistic system businesses operate with little interference from the government and the
amount of goods produced and the price of goods is determined by supply and demand to many during
the gilded age they felt this system gave too much wealth to some while ignoring the needs of
the working class and the poor as many americans argued and fought against the system of capitalism
other americans began to form arguments in favor of the system and the concentration of wealth in
the united states charles darwin was the scientist that in 1859 published his book on the origin of
species in it darwin laid out his theory or idea of evolution of all living things within it darwin
argued the idea of survival of the fittest or natural selection that basically said that in the
natural world only the strong survive and those that best adapt to their environment will prosper
while those who are weak and cannot adapt will not survive and will eventually become extinct
many economists and sociologists took these ideas and applied them to the economy and society itself
some people began to argue that by having laws in place that helped the poor or working class
that the government was hindering or slowing down the natural progress or evolution of the society
some argued that competition was the key to the entire economy and society as they
believed only through competition would society be able to eliminate the weak
unfortunately some americans took these ideas too far and began to make arguments in the support of
eugenics eugenics is the idea that certain people have superior traits to others and that people
with undesirable traits should not reproduce or should simply be eliminated supporters of eugenics
believed personality traits such as mental illness criminal tendencies or even simply being poor
could be passed from one generation to the next these ideas of course further spread
racist ideology throughout the united states in the early 1900s eugenics supporters began
to actively push to eliminate people who did not have what they saw as being superior traits
these efforts were led by several notable americans such as margaret sanger who would go on
to found planned parenthood helen keller and even teddy roosevelt years later adolf hitler became a
strong believer in social darwinism and eugenics and used them as the basis for his efforts to
create what he saw as being a superior race and he used it as his justification for killing millions
of innocent people so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching