The Gilded Age

In United States history, the Gilded Age is a period spanning approximately the 1870s to the turn of the twentieth century. This article focuses on social history. For political history see also History of the United States (1865–1918). The term was coined by writers Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), satirizing what they believed to be an era of serious social problems disguised by a thin gold gilding. The Gilded Age was an era of enormous growth, especially in the North and West. This attracted millions of emigrates from Europe. However, the Gilded Age was also an era of enormous poverty. The average annual income for most families was $380, well below the poverty line.