15. The settlement of the west took place during the Gilded Age
What is considered the Gilded Age was also the time during which the United States settled much of the country between California and the Mississippi River, with homesteaders scratching out farms and cattle ranchers establishing empires in the Great Plains, often in enmity to each other. The final years of the American Indian Wars occurred during the same time that electrified streetcars and elevated railways appeared in the major cities of the East, and in those of California. Gold and silver rushes in Nevada, Montana, Colorado, South Dakota, and other locales lured many others to the west, where they established businesses and communities.
The electrification of America created a demand for copper for wires and cables, as did the expanding telephone systems and telegraph lines. The mines for copper, gold, silver, iron, and coal, drew many of the immigrants in the crowded eastern cities to the west, and with them went the labor organizers and unions. The Gilded Age was a period of significant labor strife, with several disturbances leading to open warfare among mercenaries hired by the mining and railroad companies and the workers attempting to organize into unions. Several of the worst were at the mines owned by men dressed in evening clothes enjoying dinner at Delmonico’s and other establishments of luxury in the East.