an were completely against these big companies and businesses. They wanted to stop them what meant an end for all monopolies. Republican McKinley was on the side of the businesses. At the very beginning everybody thought that Bryan would win for sure. But the republican’s campaign changed everything. Since most of the employees were working for the big companies of Rockefeller and his fellow colleagues, they said that if Bryan wins the election and becomes president, all the employees do not have to come to work anymore the next day. The reason was easy: If Bryan closes all the companies there will be no jobs anymore. So as an employee and voter they got to think about their families and would rather vote for Republican McKinley to keep their jobs and incomes. This actually worked out and McKinley became the 25th President of the United States.

Consequently, after the successful election of William McKinley, monopolies were still around, because the captains of industry had four more years to develop their businesses. William McKinley followed the “Laissez-Faire” Theory, which is an economic system where the transactions between private parties are not interrupted by the government in any things like regulations, privileges, and tariffs. “People believed that government interference with business could have no beneficial effects.” (The Men who built America). The only reason why Rockefeller, Carnegie etc., wanted McKinley as the president of the United States was because he will prevent the intervention of the government into the businesses. Without the intervention the business leaders can continue take control all over the economics and their employee’s lives, because there were no regulations.

Monopolies have different kinds of influences that is also why monopolies have two major names: “The Captains of Industry” and “The Robber Barons”. On the one hand the monopolies in the Gilded Age had a really positive effect on the economics of the United States of America, because they made America to a very economically strong nation. In the Documentary Drama “The Men who built America” by Patrick Reams and Ruán Magan it says, how the “five self-made men: Carnegie, Ford, J.P Morgan, Rockefeller and VanderBilt transformed the United States into a global superpower” (The Men Who Built America). The time after the Civil War and the Reconstruction, between 1860s and 1896 is called the Gilded Age. This time area is known for its impressive economic growth and extremely expansions of major cities. For example, Chicago’s population increased ten times between 1870 and 1900. Also, the technological innovations in this time included things like the telephone, the car, the electric lightbulb etc., as well as the advances in steel production and many other industries. The industrial productivity increased a lot. During this time area, the economics of