History Main / TheGildedAge

* ''Series/GhostsUS'': The episode "He Sees Dead People" has flashbacks set in this era; the year 1875 to be exact.

* "Literature/RedsARevolutionaryTimeline" begins during the period. It is an AlternateHistory and one of its main [[PointOfDivergence point of divergence]] is the continuation of the Gilded Age because President [=McKinley=] is never assassinated and therefore the Roosevelt Presidency and the UsefulNotes/TheProgressiveEra never happen (Progressives also failing to pass their legislation), allowing a much more united socialist movement to grow in influence instead.

The "native" [[WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant WASPs]] welcomed the 'pure' Nordic and Germanic immigrants but lamented the racial watering-down that came with the influx of Irish, Italians, and various groups from Southern and Eastern Europe. Particularly alarming to WASP America was the large influx of Ashkenazi Jews (many of whom were trying to escape a series of especially violent pogroms in UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia after Tsar Alexander II was assassinated) and Chinese (many of whom were fleeing from extreme poverty and instability caused by [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors the deterioration of the dying Qing dynasty]]). While anti-miscegenation laws making Chinese-White and Black-White marriages illegal were successfully enacted in a number of states, there was no success with preventing intermixing between European emigrant ethnicities - though immigration quotas restricting their numbers were soon implemented. All these immigrants came chasing UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream; the vast majority were treated to slums and sweatshops in America's rapidly-growing cities. It should come as no surprise, then, that the name "Gilded Age" comes from a story co-written by Creator/MarkTwain and Charles Dudley Warner in 1873, and refers to the [[CrapsaccharineWorld extreme opulence of the era contrasted with widespread poverty on the ground]], compared to a "gilded" item: one covered in gold, but actually made of something less valuable.

* ''Literature/FromTheEarthToTheMoon'', and it’s sequel, takes place shortly after The Civil War where the Baltimore gun Club, faltering after their services are no longer needed, plan to win the admiration of the world with a grand plan to shoot a rocket to the moon.

* Ride/DisneyThemeParks: The American "Main Street USA" areas are completely designed around the most nostalgic version of this time; the international ones also use it as a starting point but diverge to greater or lesser degrees. The American Waterfront at Tokyo Disneyland has a New York area set around this time period, with a [[Ride/TheTwilightZoneTowerOfTerror Tower of Terror]] based around a robber baron explorer.

* {{Eagleland}}: Type 2. The first record of the term "Ugly American" is from about this era.

* HighClassGloves: The old money decided the type of gloves to wear at certain events.

* PimpedOutDress: Crinoline and bustle dresses were often loaded with fancy decorations.

* ''Literature/TheGildedAge'', following five "dollar princesses" who, after being deemed too new-money for New York City's social set, marry into English nobility.

As you might imagine, this era is particularly [[{{Pun}} rich]] in tropes. J. P. Morgan, Jay Gould, the Vanderbilts, and other [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Robber Barons]] populate the posh districts of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, while the poor new immigrants [[AnImmigrantsTale find life hard]] in the vast slums. The Republican Party runs everything in [[UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem Washington]] as a [[CorruptPolitician political machine]] despite the protests of the reforming "Mugwumps" within the GOP. The only Democrat to win the White House during these 35 years was UsefulNotes/GroverCleveland, a reformer who only won because he had support from the Mugwumps--indeed the term "Mugwump" arose as a term of abuse for Republicans who supported Cleveland (it's a long story, but in essence people who used the term "mugwump" accused them of being HolierThanThou).

* ''Literature/FromTheEarthToTheMoon'', and it’s sequel, takes place shortly after The Civil War where the Baltimore gun Club, faltering after their services are no longer useful to the war effort, plan to win the admiration of the world with a grand plan to shoot a rocket to the moon.

* ''Literature/FromtheEarthtotheMoon, and it’s sequel, takes place shortly after The Civil War where the Baltimore gun Club, faltering after their services are no longer useful to the war effort, plan to win the admiration of the world with a grand plan to shoot a rocket to the moon.

As for the economy, deflation and banking panics were huge problems, big monopolies crushed local competition, and unions and farmers struggled to find their voice. Eventually, people got so fed up with everything going on that a widespread reform movement began in the country around the 1890s. This is known as the Progressive Era, and it brought us UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson.

* RailroadBaron: This was also the golden age of American railroading, inspeparately interweaved. The term "Robber baron" originated in this era, a recent new kind of dishonest industrialist, with many of them being railroad tycoons who purportedly used exploitative practices to amass their wealth. The page image, the cartoon "Modern Colossus of (Rail) Roads", features William Henry Vanderbilt, President of the New York Central Railroad, Cyrus West Field, who controlled the New York Elevated Railroad Company, and Jay Gould, who controlled the Union Pacific Railroad and other western railroads, depicted as puppet masters and highwaymen robbers.

* RailroadBaron: This was also the golden age of American railroading, inspeparately interweaved. The term "Robber baron" originated in this era, a recent new kind of dishonest industrialist, with many of them being railroad tycoons who purportedly used exploitative practices to amass their wealth

* RailroadBaron: The term "Robber baron" originated in this era, a recent new kind of dishonest industrialist; railroad tycoons who purportedly used exploitative practices to amass their wealth

The Gilded Age is one of the most common terms for the period in American history between the end of the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Civil War]] until the presidency of UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt at the turn of the 20th century. During this period, the expansion of industrialization in the United States initiated a period of rapid economic growth. Due to American wage levels increasing at a much higher level compared to that of Europe, extensive European immigration (primarily from Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe) caused significant changes to the demographics of the United States.

The "native" [[WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant WASPs]] welcomed the 'pure' Nordic and Germanic immigrants but lamented the racial watering-down that came with the influx of Irish, Italians, and various groups from Southern and Eastern Europe. Particularly alarming to WASP America was the large influx of Ashkenazi Jews (many of whom were trying to escape a series of especially violent pogroms in UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia after Tsar Alexander II was assassinated) and Chinese (may of whom were fleeing from extreme poverty and instability caused by [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors the deterioration of the dying Qing dynasty]]). While anti-miscegenation laws making Chinese-White and Black-White marriages illegal were successfully enacted in a number of states, there was no success with preventing intermixing between European emigrant ethnicities - though immigration quotas restricting their numbers were soon implemented. All these immigrants came chasing UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream; the vast majority were treated to slums and sweatshops in America's rapidly-growing cities. It should come as no surprise, then, that the name "Gilded Age" comes from a story co-written by Creator/MarkTwain and Charles Dudley Warner in 1873, and refers to the [[CrapsaccharineWorld extreme opulence of the era contrasted with widespread poverty on the ground]], compared to a "gilded" item: one covered in gold, but actually made of something less valuable.

Not be confused the Creator/{{HBO}} series [[Series/TheGildedAge of the same name]], though it does takes place during that period. No relations to the GildedCage trope either.

NOTE: WildWest examples should go in that page.

* BigFancyHouse: The affluent nouveau riche started to build mansions all over the country, whose styles include a mishmash of every trendy European architecture packed together in one house, much like the [=McMansions=] of the 2000s. Due to the changing tastes of a new geneneration of elites for simpler aesthetics, and due to their size and upkeep, by the end of the era, those houses were difficult to maintain and were considered hazardous due to the usage of gaslight, asbestos, and toxic materials containing lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic in paint and fabric dyes, and much of the owners were forced to abandon or demolish those houses. Such houses in this era were given reputations as gaudy, excessive, and {{haunted|House}} by anyone in the 1920s onwards.

* NobilityMarriesMoney: Many British noble families were saved from poverty by marrying into wealth American families. Consuelo Vanderbilt is a RealLife example, marrying the Duke of Marlborough in an arranged marriage. These women were known as "dollar princesses".

* Ride/DisneyThemeParks: The American "Main Street USA" areas are completely designed around the most nostalgic version of this time; the international ones also use it as a starting point, but diverge to greater or lesser degrees. The American Waterfront at Tokyo Disneyland has a New York area set around this time period, with a [[Ride/TheTwilightZoneTowerOfTerror Tower of Terror]] based around a robber baron explorer.

The "native" [[WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant WASPs]] welcomed the 'pure' Nordic and Germanic immigrants but lamented the racial watering-down that came with the influx of Irish, Italians, and various groups from Southern and Eastern Europe. Particularly alarming to WASP America was the large influx of Ashkenazi Jews (many of whom were trying to escape a series of especially violent pogroms in UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia after Tsar Alexander II was assassinated) and Chinese (may of whom were fleeing from extreme poverty and instability caused by the deterioration of the dying Qing dynasty). While anti-miscegenation laws making Chinese-White and Black-White marriages illegal were successfully enacted in a number of states, there was no success with preventing intermixing between European emigrant ethnicities - though immigration quotas restricting their numbers were soon implemented. All these immigrants came chasing UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream; the vast majority were treated to slums and sweatshops in America's rapidly-growing cities. It should come as no surprise, then, that the name "Gilded Age" comes from a story co-written by Creator/MarkTwain and Charles Dudley Warner in 1873, and refers to the [[CrapsaccharineWorld extreme opulence of the era contrasted with widespread poverty on the ground]], compared to a "gilded" item: one covered in gold, but actually made of something less valuable.

* The very beginning of the Vito Corleone sections of ''Film/TheGodfather Part II'' is set at the tip end of the Gilded Age, in 1901, when Vito arrives at Ellis Island.

The "native" [[WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant WASPs]] welcomed the 'pure' Nordic and Germanic immigrants but lamented the racial watering-down that came with the influx of Irish, Italians, and various groups from Southern and Eastern Europe. Particularly alarming to WASP America was the large influx of Ashkenazi Jews (many of whom were trying to escape a series of especially violent pogroms in UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia after Tsar Alexander II was assassinated) and Chinese (may of whom were feeling from extreme poverty and instability caused by the deterioration of the dying Qing dynasty). While anti-miscegenation laws making Chinese-White and Black-White marriages illegal were successfully enacted in a number of states, there was no success with preventing intermixing between European emigrant ethnicities - though immigration quotas restricting their numbers were soon implemented. All these immigrants came chasing UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream; the vast majority were treated to slums and sweatshops in America's rapidly-growing cities. It should come as no surprise, then, that the name "Gilded Age" comes from a story co-written by Creator/MarkTwain and Charles Dudley Warner in 1873, and refers to the [[CrapsaccharineWorld extreme opulence of the era contrasted with widespread poverty on the ground]], compared to a "gilded" item: one covered in gold, but actually made of something less valuable.

As you might imagine, this era is particularly [[{{Pun}} rich]] in tropes. J. P. Morgan, Jay Gould, the Vanderbilts, and other [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Robber Barons]] populate the posh districts of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, while the poor new immigrants [[AnImmigrantsTale find life hard]] in the vast slums. The Republican Party runs everything in [[UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem Washington]] as a [[CorruptPolitician political machine]] despite the protests of the reforming "Mugwumps" within the GOP. The only Democrat to win the White House during these 35 years was UsefulNotes/GroverCleveland, a reformer who only won because he had support from the Mugwumps--indeed the term "Mugwump" arose as a term of abuse (convoluted story, but in essence it accused them of being HolierThanThou) for Republicans who supported Cleveland.

* AnImmigrantsTale: They didn't first show up during this era, but the immigration boom brought millions to the United States. Although it doesn't really appear in fiction of the era quite so strongly--since said immigrants were mostly too illiterate to write--the better-off children and grandchildren of the immigrants who came during this period of massive immigration often set immigration stories in this time.

* AnImmigrantsTale: They didn't first show up during this era, but the immigration boom brought millions to the United States. Although it doesn't really appear in fiction of the era quite so strongly--since said immigrants were too busy surviving to write--the better-off children and grandchildren of the immigrants who came during this period of massive immigration often set immigration stories in this time.

* Ride/DisneyThemeParks: The American "Main Street USA" areas are completely designed around the most nostalgic version of this time; the international ones also use it as a starting point, but diverge to greater or lesser degrees. The American Waterfront at Tokyo Disneyland has a New York area set around this time period, with a [[Ride/TwilightZoneTowerOfTerror Tower of Terror]] based around a robber baron explorer.

* Ride/DisneyThemeParks: The American "Main Street USA" areas are completely designed around the most nostalgic version of this time; the international ones also use it as a starting point, but diverge to greater or lesser degrees.

* Most of ''Literature/TheAgeofInnocence'', except the last chapter.