Large-scale production — accompanied by massive technological change, expanding
international communication networks, and pro-growth government policies — fueled the development
of a "Gilded Age" marked by an emphasis on consumption, marketing, and business consolidation.
A. Following the Civil War, government subsidies for transportation and communication
systems opened new markets in North America, while technological innovations and redesigned
financial and management structures such as monopolies sought to maximize the exploitation of natural
resources and a growing labor force.
B. Businesses and foreign policymakers increasingly looked outside U.S. borders in an
effort to gain greater influence and control over markets and natural resources in the Pacific, Asia, and
Latin America.
C. Business leaders consolidated corporations into trusts and holding companies and
defended their resulting status and privilege through theories such as Social Darwinism.
D. As cities grew substantially in both size and in number, some segments of American
society enjoyed lives of extravagant "conspicuous consumption," while many others lived in relative
poverty.