Gilded Age ‑ Fashion, Period & Definition | HISTORY

Coal companies built towns for workers and their families. Theirs was an isolated and organized life. Miners were poor folks who usually stayed poor no matter how hard they worked. The company store kept the books, placing them in crippling debt even though they were the ones whose labor made others rich and gave light and heat to the country.

1880, when sales soared past the 500,000 mark and Singer suddenly found himself in replacement-parts hell. At his company’s rate of growth, the world couldn’t supply the craftsmen to keep up with his service and repair requirements. Other companies, like McCormick and the Ball Glass Co., faced up to their problems at about the same time as Singer,

Harpers ran an article in 1887 about a “typical” American worker and his family, who had a pleasant house and garden in Brooklyn. The father was a carpenter, averaging $900 per year, close to the top of the scale a carpenter could expect. His two daughters and his son lived at home, and all were employed. The girls worked in a straw hat factory, br