To the 12 million immigrants who came to America from 1890-1910 the Gilded Age brought lavish dreams of vast wealth and great luck. What they found was that the crop failures, persecution, shortages of land and rising taxes that they were escaping was little worse than the racism, ill-treatment, and poor conditions they found here. Jobs were scarce for immigrants and those that could be filled by them were dirty, dangerous, and low paying leaving them impoverished as they had been in their country of origin. Whether it be Asian immigrants coming into port on the west or the vast droves…
