> Because the vibe I get is that it was better than today for the people who wanted to work hard...
The "vibe" you get? You were there?
I'd point out that during the Gilded Age, women were largely excluded from the work force, blacks were forced into sharecropping and tenant farming while under threat of racial violence including lynching, Chinese workers were forced into the most dangerous jobs and then punished for the privilege (see the California's Foreign Miners' Tax), and so on.
But I guess if you were a white Murican with ambition and a willingness to do whatever it took to succeed, it was a great time to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
The "vibe" you get? You were there?
I'd point out that during the Gilded Age, women were largely excluded from the work force, blacks were forced into sharecropping and tenant farming while under threat of racial violence including lynching, Chinese workers were forced into the most dangerous jobs and then punished for the privilege (see the California's Foreign Miners' Tax), and so on.
But I guess if you were a white Murican with ambition and a willingness to do whatever it took to succeed, it was a great time to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.