Gilded Age

Gilded Age
1870s – late 1890s
The Breakers, a Gilded Age mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, built by the wealthy Vanderbilt family of railroad tycoons
Location	United States
Including	Third Party System
President(s)	Ulysses S. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Arthur Grover Cleveland Benjamin Harrison William McKinley
Key events	Second Industrial Revolution Nadir of American race relations Robber barons Farmers' movement Gospel of Wealth Invention of the telephone Great Railroad Strike of 1877 Chinese Exclusion Act Pendleton Act Haymarket riot Founding of the AFL Sherman Antitrust Act Homestead Strike Pullman strike
Chronology Reconstruction era Progressive Era

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In United States history, the Gilded Age is described as the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction Era and the Progressive Era. It was named by 1920s historians after an 1873 Mark Twain novel. Historians saw late 19th-century economic expansion as a time of materialistic excesses marked by widespread political corruption.

It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Western United States. As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, and industrialization demanded an increasingly skilled labor force, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 40% from 1860 to 1890 and spread across the increasing labor force. The average annual wage per industrial worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in 1880 ($11,998 in 2023 dollars^[1]) to $584 in 1890 ($19,126 in 2023 dollars^[1]), a gain of 59%.^[2] The Gilded Age was also an era of poverty,^[3][4] especially in the South, and growing inequality, as millions of immigrants poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.^[5]

Railroads were the major growth industry, with the factory system, oil, mining, and finance increasing in importance. Immigration from Europe and the Eastern United States led to the rapid growth of the West based on farming, ranching, and mining. Labor unions became increasingly important in the rapidly growing industrial cities. Two major nationwide depressions—the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893—interrupted growth and caused social and political upheavals.

The South remained economically devastated after the American Civil War; the region's economy became increasingly tied to commodities like food and building materials, cotton for thread and fabrics, and tobacco production, all of which suffered from low prices. With the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877 and the rise of Jim Crow laws, African American (more generally termed Black, referring to darker skin color) people in the South were stripped of political power and voting rights, and were left severely economically disadvantaged.

The political landscape was notable in that despite rampant corruption, election turnout was comparatively high among all classes (though the extent of the franchise was generally limited to men), and national elections featured two similarly sized parties. The dominant issues were cultural (especially regarding prohibition, education, and ethnic or racial groups) and economic (tariffs and money supply). Urban politics were tied to rapidly growing industrial cities, which increasingly fell under control of political machines. In business, powerful nationwide trusts formed in some industries. Unions crusaded for the eight-hour working day, and the abolition of child labor; middle-class reformers demanded civil service reform, prohibition of liquor and beer, and women's suffrage.

Local governments across the North and West built public schools chiefly at the elementary level; public high schools started to emerge. The numerous religious denominations were growing in membership and wealth, with Catholicism becoming the largest. They all expanded their missionary activity to the world arena. Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians set up religious schools, and the largest of those schools set up numerous colleges, hospitals, and charities. Many of the problems faced by society, especially the poor, gave rise to attempted reforms in the subsequent Progressive Era.^[6]