The urgent demand for steel across the nation in 1900 enabled New Yorker J. P. Morgan to create the first billion-dollar corporation in history: U.S. Steel. It was an era of opportunity for both hard-working capitalists and unscrupulous entrepreneurs, all thriving on New York’s severe caste system.

Men were traditional wage earners, working 12 hours daily with a half-hour for lunch, six days per week, with no yearly vacation, no health insurance, life insurance, unemployment insurance, or pension. Only printers and metalworkers had unions. With the steady influx of laborers, job security wasn’t determined by seniority or longevity, but by the whim of an employer. If a breadwinner fell ill or lost his job, the destitute family relied upon the charity of friends and family for there were no welfare agencies. Conversely, there were also no income taxes levied upon wage earners. Only affluent men like J. P. Morgan paid taxes.

Women with office careers were expected to provide janitorial services for the office in addition to their clerical tasks. A woman hired to type and file usually started her day by dusting and polishing the office furniture and equipment, then cleaned the tobacco juice from putrid brass spittoons, a common office accessory. In 1900, a high-paid woman earned $8 for a 60-hour work week.

Seven percent of New York’s population was illiterate. Twelve-year-olds could earn wages if they attended schools for 80 days a year. In 1897, New York was the last major US city to open public high schools (DeWitt Clinton, Wadleigh, and Peter Cooper); in 1900 only 13,700 of the 500,000 students in elementary schools graduated from the eighth grade. Thousands of homeless children roamed the city, many sleeping on canal boats along the rivers, many working abusively long hours in the city's 40,000 factories.

It was the era of quacks. Medical science was in its infancy, bearing little resemblance to the Park Avenue doctors and world famous hospitals New Yorkers rely upon today. Lacking money, organized effort, or leadership, independent physicians probed and prodded to diagnose patients while highly profitable "laboratories" hyped impossible cure-alls by extolling the virtues of bogus pills, syrups, and ointments. Unfounded claims like: "A Certain Cure for All Contagious Diseases," or outlandish before-and-after illustrations to proclaim "cures" for consumption and even malaria were common. These entrepreneurs turned dubious medicine into a million-dollar industry, employing thousands of New Yorkers, while publishers and retailers reaped profits from it too. With no Better Business Bureau to expose the purveyors of these questionable products, some shysters even expressed open contempt for legitimate medicine with ads like "Avoid the doctor if you value your health." Sadly, many people did.

It was also an age of philanthropy. Those Fifth Avenue millionaires wielded a power possibly as great as President McKinley himself, adopting a civic responsibility toward their metropolis while reinforcing their names and reputations in New York society. John Jacob Astor, James Lenox, and Samuel Tilden pooled their resources to create the New York Public Library, while a gift from Andrew Carnegie made 62 branch libraries possible. John D. Rockefeller founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 1901, which still stands on its original site at York Avenue between 64th to 68th Streets. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in 1902, J. P. Morgan endowed it with his magnificent collection, later serving as its President.

It was an age of contrasts. While opulent Fifth Avenue residences boasted many more rooms than occupants, a short distance away entire families crowded into single rooms that lacked hot water, while lodging houses rented communal floorspace on which to sleep for five cents a night. With over 1000 people per acre, the Lower Eastside was the most densely populated region in the world, generating more rent than any other region as well. Boatloads of immigrants settling in New York created ethnic neighborhoods and gravitated to professions where their native languages might be heard. Ironically, there was a reverse trend to American immigration, as wealthy New Yorkers enhanced their family names by marrying Europeans with titles. All these people combined to create the "melting pot" image that defined New York for over a century, while businesses thrived. In 1900, New Yorkers manufactured over $1.3 billion worth of goods, accounting for 10% of the entire nation's output.