Imagine that you are a Italian or Irish immigrant who has lived through 1880–1914 in America. Identify your age, gender, ethnicity, family role, economic class, and the conditions of life where you live. With these in mind, explain your feelings about changes in your life created by the Gilded Age versus Progressive Era values using specific examples from the period. In your response, provide one example of the impact the industrial expansion is having on your family and your living conditions. Be careful to recreate a person who would have lived in this period rather than inserting yourself and your own opinions into the past (see page one of the unit study guide on avoiding anachronism).
