Why is it called the Gilded Age

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Why is it called The Gilded Age? That's the question everyone is asking as The Gilded Age launches on HBO and Sky Atlantic.

According to the HBO synopsis, The Gilded Age refers to "a period of immense economic change, of great conflict between the old ways and brand new systems, and of huge fortunes made and lost."

This name is used to describe the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900 and during this time American wages grew much higher than those in Europe, especially among skilled workers.

As a result of this, industrialization needed an ever-increasing unskilled labor force, and millions of European immigrants entered America during this time. 

It also saw plenty of cultural issues like prohibition, education, and discrimination towards racial groups as well as economic issues like tariffs and money supply. 

Factories, railroads, and coal mining were particularly significant during this time with railroad track mileage tripling between 1860 and 1880, and growing even further still in 1920.

In addition to this, The Gilded Age saw significant historical achievements such as Alexander Graham Bell receiving a patent for the first telephone and Thomas Edison demonstrating the first practical incandescent light bulb.

• How to watch 'The Gilded Age' online anywhere in the world

What is immense wealth and power without a rivalry to spice it up? #TheGildedAge pic.twitter.com/LlpwHGX6yFJanuary 24, 2022

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The new TV series begins in 1882 in New York, introducing us to young Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), the orphaned daughter of a Union general who moves into the home of her thoroughly old-money aunts Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranksi) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon). When Marian moves in, she's exposed to a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old-money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, so there's lots going on!

It was created by Downton Abbey's Julian Fellowes, but he has revealed that it's not a prequel to his much loved period series. He said: "The Gilded Age is about a period much earlier than Downton Abbey. It’s 1880s New York and its various types and things that were going on there."

The Gilded Age premieres in the US on HBO on Monday, Jan. 24 at 9pm. It will then launch in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Tuesday, January 25 at 9pm.

On January 24, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes's new show The Gilded Age is set to premiere on HBO. The cast includes The Good Fight's Christine Baranski, who portrays Dutch-American aristocrat Agnes van Rhijn, and Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon, who plays Agnes's less well-off sister, Ada Brook. A number of Broadway stars including Audra McDonald and Kelli O’Hara are slated to make guest appearances.

While the show is set in the 1880s, The Gilded Age lasted for years, reaching all the way into the twentieth century. Here, a primer on the period.

When was The Gilded Age?

The term refers to the economic boom between the Civil War, which ended in 1865, and the turn of the twentieth century. "Historically, the era ended about 1910, but the era of great wealth continued to the late 1920s," says architect and author Gary Lawrance, who started and maintains the Facebook groups Mansions of the Gilded Age and The Gilded Age Society. Together, the groups have about 275,000 members.

Where does the term "The Gilded Age" come from?

Mark Twain. The author coined the term when he published his satirical novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, which was first published in 1873. "Basically, Mark Twain was making fun of the new rich covering wood and other objects with a thin layer of gold to make them seem more expensive and important," Lawrance says. "When The Mrs. Astor died and the contents of her Fifth Avenue mansion were auctioned in the 1920s, many were disappointed to find out that her dinnerware was only gold plated and not solid like most believed."

The term later came to symbolize a period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption. "The great burst of industrial activity and corporate growth that characterized the Gilded Age was presided over by a collection of colorful and energetic entrepreneurs who became known alternatively as 'captains of industry' and 'robber barons,'" reads Britannica.com. "They grew rich through the monopolies they created in the steel, petroleum, and transportation industries. Among the best known of them were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, and J.P. Morgan."

Biltmore Estate, in Asheville, North Carolina, is the largest privately owned house in the United States. George Washington Vanderbilt II built the 178,926-square-foot home between 1889 and 1895.

What were some of the era's achievements?

Completed in 1869, the transcontinental railroad led to expansion and settlement of the western United States. It also made it easier to transport goods across the country, and travel time from New York to San Francisco drastically decreased.

Railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt commissioned architect John B. Snook to design Grand Central Depot in New York, which opened in 1871. It was later replaced by the current Grand Central Terminal.

The American economy rose at the fastest rate in its history, and U.S. factory output rose from $1.9 billion to $13 billion from 1860 to 1900. Wealth disparity also increased. During the same time period, the wealthiest two percent of American households reportedly owned more than a third of the country's wealth, and the top 10 percent owned approximately three-quarters of it. The working class suffered tremendously, but rich Americans lived lavishly.

Along with industry, the architecture of the Gilded Age took off in unprecedented ways. Members of the Vanderbilt family built some of America's largest and grandest houses, including Rosecliff (above top) and The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, and Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina.

The Breakers, built by Cornelius Vanderbilt between 1893 and 1895, is one of America’s largest and most well-known Gilded Age mansions.

"The phrase 'The Streets of America are paved with gold' was a call to all the immigrants that came to America from that period and after," Lawrance says. "Many, if not all the great mansions along Fifth Avenue could point back to either their owners having made a fortune from nothing, coming to America poor or their fathers who came before them having made the great fortunes that enabled the building of those mansions in New York, Newport, and all over the country."

"The mansions on Fifth Avenue represented hope and achievement," Lawrance adds. "Newly arrived immigrants could walk Fifth Avenue and say that one day they too would have a great house like the Vanderbilts and Astors. They also represented social injustice, but others could see that they were the American Dream come true."

New York’s Fifth Avenue included The Triple Palace, also known as the William H. Vanderbilt House, which was completed in 1882 at 640 Fifth Avenue.

Sam DangremondContributing Digital Editor

Sam Dangremond is a Contributing Digital Editor at Town & Country, where he covers men's style, cocktails, travel, and the social scene.