Examine some of the cultural, economic, and political changes, and the reasons for these changes, in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The period spanning the turn of the century witnessed extraordinary change in the United States. Much of this change can be attributed to the advent of industrial capitalism. This development, which focused at first on the manufacture of capital goods, led to the rise of massive corporations and trusts, such as Carnegie Steel and Standard Oil, that used innovative techniques to seize almost total control of their respective markets. Other firms producing consumer goods, including tobacco, sugar, beef, and other industries, followed suit, and by the turn of the century, the American economy was controlled by an increasingly small, but extraordinarily powerful, group of businessmen and corporations. Economically, this development accompanied the growth of a large working class that became increasingly restive as they perceived a growing gap between their earnings and those of business leaders. Another major political, cultural, and social change was the influx of millions of immigrants during the period. These "new" immigrants came from eastern and southern Europe, as well as Asia, and they came mostly seeking economic opportunity. They settled largely in urban neighborhoods, and this, combined with internal migrations, caused cities to grow rapidly in size. The urbanization of America during this period was one of its major social trends, and one that ushered in a host of new concerns that social reformers began to target. Politics was dominated by business interests, but farmers (through the Populist movement) and workers (through labor unions) increasingly sought to assert themselves politically. African-Americans were stripped of the limited political gains made during Reconstruction, and by the end of the nineteenth century, almost none could vote in the South, which established Jim Crow segregation laws to maintain white supremacy.
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