Eras

The Gilded Age

Citation Formats

General Reference

History Atlas. "The Gilded Age." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://history.interactiveatlas.org/eras/gilded-age.

APA Style

History Atlas. (n.d.). The Gilded Age. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://history.interactiveatlas.org/eras/gilded-age

BibTeX

@misc{historyatlas-the-gilded-age,
  author = {History Atlas},
  title = {The Gilded Age},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://history.interactiveatlas.org/eras/gilded-age},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Gilded Age was the period in United States history from the late 1870s to the late 1890s, marked by rapid industrialization, westward expansion and immense concentrations of wealth alongside stark inequality, political corruption and labor unrest. The name comes from Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's 1873 satirical novel The Gilded Age, A Tale of Today, which likened the era's glittering prosperity to a thin layer of gold over a base metal, a term historians later adopted for the period itself. It saw the rise of industrial magnates in oil, steel and railroads, the growth of American cities, and the beginnings of the reform movements that defined the Progressive Era that followed.

Facts

Disputed

Start Year

1877

Conventionally dated from the late 1870s, often anchored to the end of Reconstruction in 1877; historians vary on the exact starting point.

End Year

1896

Conventionally closed in the late 1890s, sometimes extended to the 1900 election; historians vary on the exact end point.

Geographic Scope

United States 1

Cross-Tradition Connections