What role mining played in the West’s expansion? How was land acquire in the West? How did individuals and politicians speculate with land and the railroad? Provide examples to support your argument. Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, among a few others, built economic empires during the Gilded Age. How did they get the money and what mechanisms did they utilize to achieve these monopolies? What is social Darwinism and Laissez-Faire? What is a tariff? How and why did workers improve their lives during the Gilded Age?
