The Rise of Modern America - Essay Example

 The Rise of Modern America In the 19th and 20th centuries, America underwent a tremendous evolution economically. The growth level in term of traffic operation and industrial labor attracted huge transfer of manpower from the rural to the urban areas. However, there were long-term impacts that came of this time that have influenced the present times. It is during this time that racial discrimination became a point of focus[Har90]. This was especially in the south where the black community had been under the slavery of the white populace in the previous centuries.

Furthermore, democratic consensus became a new form of political and social approach and this caused the American political demeanor to become a point of reference for the rest of the world. In the period in question, there was a lot of division between the wealthy and the poor. This is because the concept of what it meant to be wealthy or poor in a newly defined national setting was unraveling. Harpers New Monthly illustrated wealth is being associated a lot with foreigners such as Germans. They are depicted as shaving being calm, collected, and critical in their survey of potential clientele[Sto71].

They felt that they were deserving of their position because they worked hard to garner their wealth. Grady’s speech however, insinuated that they felt they justified it more so because they contributed more to the economic development and overall prosperity of the nation. This justification is partially logical and in similar light illogical. The wealthy persons in the new America came from privilege. They were literate and had been taught by decades of ancestral generations before them the art of business.

This was not accorded to the less privileged people and in this case those were the racial minorities. The latter were illiterate and did not have prior experience in business as they had no freedom to do so. Owing to these circumstances, the Caucasian populace was in a higher economical placement. However, they put effort, remain critical about their business approaches, and prompt their development. In contrary analysis, the poor are depicted firstly, as simple minded. This is because they derive satisfaction from small wages almost as though they are unaware of the exploitative mechanisms through which they earned said wages.

Notably, the on the majority of the poor were black people because of the fact that they were on the receiving end of slavery. Riis illustrates them as being unaffiliated with religion. He insinuates that with the conditions under which they lived, no bearing within which to place faith in a higher power. He further on asserts that the poor were intelligent but had no opportunities accorded to them to prove their intellectual capacity[Ris90]. The authors’ perspectives are contradictory. The assessment of the poor man as per each author somewhat contradicts the next.

Riss (1890), terms the poor man intelligent but devoid of opportunities whilst Harpers Monthly portrays them as being satisfied with small wages. In the latter, the insinuation is that the poor remain poor because they do not focus on the bigger picture. This is not a depiction of intelligence and hence contradicts Riis’s point. The democracy and new civilization that had come to America still bore no good for the poor man. This is because they were not entirely compensated for the injustice that put them in that position in the first place.

In summation, the New America was still only favorable to the affluent. References Har90: , (Harris, 1890), Sto71: , (Stoddard, 1871), Ris90: , (Riss, 1890),