14. The Gilded Age saw the introduction of the Jim Crow era in the American South
The Gilded Age coincided with the end of Reconstruction and the removal of the occupying Union forces in the former Confederate states. With their removal in 1877 came the end of northern influence in southern governments at the local and state levels, and the introduction across the south of segregation. The south was much poorer than the states of the north, still mainly agricultural, and far less cash circulated among the population, among blacks and whites. Southern whites, especially poorer sharecroppers, blamed the widely spread poverty on the black population and the northerners who had set free the former slaves.
The concept of separate but equal access to facilities available to the general public became law across the southern United States. Segregation was legally mandated and the right to vote was denied to over 90% of black Americans through the introduction of poll taxes and other laws which restricted them. The overwhelming majority of blacks in the United States continued to reside in the southern states during the period of the Gilded Age, and the problems being encountered following the end of Reconstruction were not widely known in the north, where the larger cities were more concerned with the issues of immigration and the conditions in the ethnic neighborhoods which immigrants created during the era.