The documentary film Skyscrapers of New York, released in 1906, provides a muted visual narrative to historians about the rise of industrialization and urbanization during the Gilded Age. At the very beginning, the audience is greeted with an intriguing birds-eye view of New York City from the top of a building. As the camera pans across the city of New York, links to the Gilded Age collimate to the big businesses and working conditions that led to a plethora of unionized strikes during this timeframe.

To begin with, at the one minute and twenty second mark we are visually introduced to a “supervisor of steelworkers that stands in the center of the all the action”(Skyscrapers of New York). A prime example that connects this supervisory figure to history is the building of the trans-continental railroad system. Additionally, a broad overview reveals that the government itself could be the well dressed man in the suit because of the political involvement in railroad funding. By the same token, the head figure also coincides with the rise of industrialists and corporate giants during the Gilded Age. For example, several small companies of brick layers could have merged to form one larger construction company which allowed them to have a monopoly in a particular area. Documented scenarios like this did occur as the railroad was built across the country. “Railroads grew at phenomenal rates, linking far-flung markets and drawing ever-greater numbers of people into a unified system of commerce” (Calhoun and Daniels 55).

The second parallel of the Gilded Age in the film Skyscrapers of New York revolves around the working conditions provided by these monopolistic corporations. Around the four minute and twenty two second mark of the film a “fight breaks out between a worker and a man that appears to be in charge”(Skyscrapers of New York). Unions like the Knights of Labor and the AFL had demands for shorter work day hours and better wages for work. The fight scene correlates directly to the Panic of 1873 and the Pullman Strike of 1893. “The United States faced two major economic depressions –from 1873 to 1877 and from 1893 to 1897- and in each crisis, unemployment rose to over 16 percent while substantial numbers of workers faced widespread underemployment and reduced wages” (Calhoun and Daniels 56). One other example of this fight scene is that, it could be correlated to symbolize African-Americans being hindered as active agents in the making of the Reconstruction Era. The Freedman’s Bureau and sharecropping were both relatively unsuccessful systems which did not allow for former slaves to gain equality in terms of work and freedoms.

Generally speaking, the Gilded Age was a time of both social and economic change in America, but as the film demonstrates there were major issues involving big businesses and disgruntled workers. One final connecting thought of how the film Skyscrapers of New York relates to the Gilded Age lies with the skyscraper itself. The building of the skyscraper represents the building of America through the expansion westward, and the growth of American cities themselves.

Works Cited
Calhoun, Charles W and Roger Daniels. The Gilded Age Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America. Lanham,MA: Rowman & Littlefiled Publishers, Inc., 2007.
Skyscrapers of New York. 1906.