The Gilded Age marks a significant and decidedly unique transitional period within American history. It was an era that was defined by rapid economic growth as well as an influx of millions of European immigrants. Further, American wages were much higher than those in European countries, especially for skilled laborers. In spite of this, the Gilded Age was also an era of severe income inequality as well as a high degree of poverty. High levels of corruption as well as a lack of regulation in regards to labor, chiefly contributed to this. This period also enjoyed a number of significant technological advancements and implementations. Railroads, mining, and the factory system all contributed to the rapid industrialization of America throughout this time. What’s more, significant contributions were made to the field of photography. The advent of magnesium flash powder allowed photographers to more reliably capture photographs at night than they had ever been able to. Before, subjects had to be well lit in order to be photographed. Jacob Riis, a Danish born, American immigrant, used this flash powder to great effect during the gilded age. In 1870 Riis arrived in New York amid an economic depression. For several years he battled poverty and unemployment before …show more content…
His work was primarily conducted on the city’s Lower East Side slum district. Here thousands of immigrants, of all ethnic backgrounds, lived in squalor in these highly unsanitary conditions. Oftentimes rooms intended to sleep four were found to be housing as many as three times that. Riis would enter these tenements in the dead of night while those staying in them would usually be asleep and he would attempt to photograph them without warning so as to capture the scene as it had truly been. In doing so he sought to reveal how immigrant and urban life had truly been throughout the turn of the twentieth