Echoes of Rage
Our new age of violence looks a lot like the Gilded Age
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m trying to post occasional midweek pieces on historical topics to supplement the usual Sunday newsletter. Here’s the latest. As always, if you want to support my work, you can subscribe to the newsletter as a free or paid subscriber. Paid subscribers get access to the archives and the satisfaction that comes from supporting all of the work that goes into this project.
If you looked at it from a certain angle, it appeared to be a golden age.
The American economy was growing at a rapid clip, averaging 2.5% growth per person per year. New technology seemed to emerge every day, revolutionizing transportation, communications, and manufacturing; people’s everyday lives would have been unrecognizable to those who lived just a few decades before. The new technology created jobs, too, as startup firms transformed into behemoths that employed tens of thousands. Cities exploded in population and the c…
