Gilded Age

English

Etymology

Coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner as the title of a novel published in 1873.

Proper noun

Gilded Age

1. The period of United States history from the end of the Civil War to the end of the 19th century, a time marked by rapid economic expansion, a lack of government regulation, and rampant corruption.
   • 2007, John Ogasapian, N. Lee Orr, Music of the Gilded Age, page 149:

     Here the Gilded Age had found its music published and here the dawning jazz age would break into general consciousness.

   • 2009, Leonard Schlup, Stephen H. Paschen, Librarianship in Gilded Age America, page 4:

     Under Spofford's vigorous stewardship and astute guidance over a thirty-two year period from 1865 to 1897 that encompassed most of the Gilded Age, the Library of Congress greatly expanded its services to Congress and to the country.

   • 2010, Joanne Reitano, Tariff Question in the Gilded Age: The Great Debate Of 1888, page ix:

     Professor Reitano reexamines an issue that roiled the political and intellectual waters of the Gilded Age in ways difficult to conceive today.

   • 2014 April 25, Paul Krugman, “The Piketty Panic”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     It’s true that Mr. Piketty and his colleagues have added a great deal of historical depth to our knowledge, demonstrating that we really are living in a new Gilded Age. But we’ve known that for a while.

   • 2017 [2013], Thomas Piketty, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Belknap Press, →ISBN, page 506:

     During the Gilded Age, many observers in the United States worried that the country was becoming increasingly inegalitarian and moving farther and farther away from its original pioneering ideal.

   • 2017 December 23, Candace Jackson, “Who Wants to Buy the Most Expensive House in America?”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     This New Gilded Age has found an epicenter in Los Angeles, particularly where Bel-Air, Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills converge. Real estate agents call it the Platinum Triangle.

   • 2021 July 12, Hamilton Nolan, “What happens at Sun Valley, the secret gathering of unelected billionaire Kings?”, in The Guardian‎^[3]:

     Here, America’s wealthiest megabillionaires gather with the CEOs of America’s most powerful companies […] to develop the social and business connections that allow the top 0.00001% of earners to continue to accumulate a share of our nation’s wealth that already exceeds the famously cartoonish inequality of the Gilded Age of Rockefeller and Carnegie.

Related terms

• golden age

See also

• Progressive Era

Further reading

• Gilded Age on Wikipedia.Wikipedia