Gilded Age

By Deane Barker • • tags: history •

This a period of American history at the end of the 19th century. Opinions differ on when it started – certainly post-Civil War, but various accounts have it starting in the 1860s or 1870s and running through the end of the century.

The period was characterized by enormous post-bellum economic growth accompanied by incredible urban poverty.

The name is a pejorative joke. “Gilding” is a technique of putting a thin layer of gold over a cheaper substance. So, rather than a “Golden Age” where the entire of society benefited, we had a “Gilded Age” where a small part of society benefited and that was a decorative layer over larger societal problems.

The age is associated with the rise of barons like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan, and with the construction of large homes which have since become historic sites.

Why I Looked It Up

I kept hearing the term, and I knew roughly the era it referred to, but I was curious about the name. I was completely ignorant of the actual meaning behind the name.

I’ve read Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, and The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, which all discussed that period extensively. In fact, the Vanderbilt book spends a quite a bit of time talking about The Breakers, which is a classic Gilded Age mansion built by the family in Rhode Island in the 1890s.

Links to this – The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America
As the subtitle suggests, this is the history of some of the wealthy Jewish people of American finance. It concentrates on a few of the big names – Joseph, Seligman, Walter Sachs, Jacob Schiff – and some of the big firms – Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Kuhn-Loeb. Jews left Europe because they...
Links to this – Biltmore Estate December 18, 2024
This is a large, Gilded Age home in Ashville, North Carolina. It was built by the Vanderbilts in the early 1890s. It would technically be the largest private residence in the United States at 135,000 sq. ft., but it’s been a museum since the 1950s. It’s owned by a private company, open to the...
Links to this – Gold Leaf June 28, 2024
Yes, it’s actual gold. This is gold that’s been hammered down to be a flat, tissue-thin layer, which can be applied to surfaces for artistic reasons. Applying gold leaf to surfaces is known as “gilding,” and it’s where we got the term Gilded Age to refer to an American period in the late 1800s....
Links from this – Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. December 31, 2017
Wonderfully written biography. Makes me want to read more Chernow. JDR was a flawed man, certainly. While an upstanding citizen in his personal life, he was a ruthless business, who destroyed his competitors with glee. Provoked some wonder at the line between the personal and professional. Can...
Links from this – Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty April 24, 2022
Enormously entertaining history of the Vanderbilt family by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was a Vanderbilt on his mother’s side. Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt was a self-made man. He started ferrying people on a small boat around New York Harbor and ended up becoming the richest man the world had...
Links from this – The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power August 30, 2021
This is the definitive history of oil, from the first discovery in the 1850s through the first Gulf War of of the 1990s. It’s a lot – 900-some-odd pages. Not for the faint of heart. I actually brought back in college in the mid-90s, and never finished it. I promised myself I’d get back to it, and...