After Reconstruction, America went back to doing what it does best: making money. It was the era of big business. While corruption plagued the government, money-hungry
entrepreneurs took advantage of the government's lax economic policies and formed huge
corporations. These powerful men, most notably John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie
and J. P. Morgan, used their businesses to squash competition and control the market. For
two decades, they truly ruled America.
The era of big business is also known as the Gilded Age. The word gilded means gold-plated.
This era is called the Gilded Age because a handful of tycoons were getting insanely rich,
but the booming economy hid corruption, dirty-deals and the working poor that lay below
the surface of society. The tycoons themselves were called robber barons.
During the Gilded Age, the power of the vote wasn't in the hands of individuals. It was in the
hands of political machines: local organizations that distributed jobs, city contracts and
other benefits in exchange for votes. These machine politics were dominated by party
bosses who acted a lot like mob bosses, thriving off power and corruption.
Which of these statements was true during the Gilded Age?