Question 1:
Read the following articles:
“The Banality of Gilding: Innocuous Materiality and Transatlantic Consumption in the Gilded Age,” “Thorstein Veblen: Conspicuous Consumption, 1902,” and “America’s Gilded Age” and then answer the discussion question that follows:
During the Victorian Age, the upper class became very wealthy in part by exploiting the lower classes. For America to become a great and wealthy nation, was the exuberance and disparity of the Victorian age justified? Explain why.
Question 2:
Why was the New Deal initiated? What problems did it address? What were some possible unintended consequences of the New Deal? Did the New Deal solve the problems it was designed to solve? Do you believe the legacy of the New Deal is a positive or negative? Explain.
