
The Gilded Age was one of those strange moments in history where a civilization appears to be sprinting forward while simultaneously tearing itself apart underneath the surface.
The term itself came from Mark Twain, who understood something important: gold plating is not solid gold. “Gilded” means there’s a thin layer of shine covering something rough, cheap, or rotten underneath.
And that was America between roughly the 1870s and early 1900s.
On the surface, it looked like a miracle.
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