Some of the things I’ve learned

Growing up I always knew I had an inkling of how history worked. Watching documentaries was a regular thing I did, but I never knew exactly what went into gathering history and interpreting the primary sources. Over the past three weeks, I’ve come to have much greater respect for the historians that I grew up watching. Without primary sources, the historians that put those documentaries together couldn't comfortably release the docs. I plan on taking some power into my own hands. I need to find some primary source info about the gilded age. Because I’m curious as to what exactly the dynamic was between the middle and lower class. Did the middle class in any way feel sorry about what the ultrarich was doing to the poor? or were they complacent?

This might be because I have a huge interest in the history of medicine. How was the middle class affected by the common diseases of the time. (tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox) I imagine it affected everyone but because the middle class had a little more access to the “advanced” treatments, were they more likely to survive. Compared to a family below the poverty line. This is something I could use a primary source for, like medical records to compare the type of treatment and subsequent recovery.