Gilded Age
1870 – 1900 · Era in United States
Period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s between Reconstruction and the Progressive Era, named for Mark Twain's 1873 novel: rapid industrialization brought 40 percent real-wage gains, mass immigration, and a railroad boom, while robber-baron wealth, urban slums, and political corruption deepened inequality. It gave rise to labor unions, political machines, and Progressive-era reform.
