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The Gilded Age as an Important Political Turning Point in American History Term Paper

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What was the Gilded Age?

The Gilded Age was a period of flashy materialism and overt political corruption in the United States during the 1870s.

Who were some of the key figures of the Gilded Age?

Among the best known of the entrepreneurs who became known, pejoratively, as robber barons during the Gilded Age were John D. Rockefeller , Andrew Carnegie , Cornelius Vanderbilt , Leland Stanford , and J.P. Morgan .

Who coined the term Gilded Age?

The Gilded Age took its name from the novel The Gilded Age , written by Mark Twain in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner and published in 1873

Gilded Age , period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption in U.S. history during the 1870s that gave rise to important novels of social and political criticism . The period takes its name from the earliest of these, The Gilded Age (1873), written by Mark Twain in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. The novel gives a vivid and accurate description of Washington, D.C. , and is peopled with caricatures of many leading figures of the day, including greedy industrialists and corrupt politicians.

The great burst of industrial activity and corporate growth that characterized the Gilded Age was presided over by a collection of colourful and energetic entrepreneurs who became known alternatively as “captains of industry” and “ robber barons .” 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 .

Twain’s satire was followed in 1880 by Democracy , a political novel published anonymously by the historian Henry Adams . Adams’s book deals with a dishonest Midwestern senator and suggests that the real source of corruption lies in the unprincipled attitudes of the wild and lawless West . An American Politician, by Francis Marion Crawford (1884), focuses upon the disputed election of Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, but its significance as a political novel is diluted by an overdose of popular romance.

The political novels of the Gilded Age represent the beginnings of a new strain in American literature , the novel as a vehicle of social protest, a trend that grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the works of the muckrakers and culminated in the proletarian novelists.

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The gilded age : essays on the origins of modern America

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The Gilded Age and Progressive Era: Student Research Projects

Women's suffrage.

In the Progressive era, 1870-1920, Womens suffrage became a huge priority for women during this time; especially for the right to vote . Women of middle and upper classes created three groups that were most important to the women’s suffrage movement: the NAWSA, NWSA, AWSA and NWP . 

The letter shown on the left was written by Emma Smith DeVoe, president of the Washington Equals Suffrage Association, to Homer H. Hill regarding the suffrage movement in 1909. This letter is an example of how the movement evolved from housewives to women demanding to have a voice when it comes to voting.

The main women in charge of the suffrage movement were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Carrie Chapman Catt. Anthony and Stanton created the women's suffrage group NWSA (National Women's Suffrage Association).  This particular group urged for the women’s right to vote and they even urged for non-discrimination against women regarding pay and employment and even towards easier divorces. This group is based in New York and relied on a statewide network and drew in recruits.

The AWSA ( American Womens Suffrage Association) was a group founded by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe in the Boston area. The group wanted to focus on changing laws state by state instead of changing the Constitiution. However, this group wasn't as popular as the NWSA. by the 1880s the group didn't get much support from women and male politicians. The leaders of the two groups thought that if they both combined, they would be able to make a better impact.

So, they created the group NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association). This became the largest womens suffrage group in the Nation. Wyoming, Utah and Colorado were the first three states that adopted womens suffrage in 1893 and 1896. These states also recognized womens vote including Idaho. After these recognitions, the women started to look at different ways to catch attention.

The group decided that they were going to start doing public rallies. Some of the women even started taking their cause through the streets to spread the word and demand to vote. In 1908, the president of the group, Ann Howard Shaw, even led a parade down the street at Boone, Iowa with the Iowa Equal American Suffrage Association group . The NAWSA continued to rally and lobby for rights when things started to look up for the suffrage movement

The women continued to spread NWSA supporters across 5 different states: Oregon, Arizona, California, Kansas and Washington. The group had good luck in Illinois and later in Montana. These women showed that they could make great strides towards women's rights but t here was still some work that needed to be done until women could have full-on voting rights in all the states.  A women named Alice Paul, a Quaker activist, formed a new party called the National Woman’s Party. With this group she was determined to win an amendment to the U.S Constitution that would grant suffrage rights women without the need for struggling state-by-state.

The group wanted to stand out even more, so they started to picket in front of the White House. After several arrests of women and their non-stop push for womens rights; Woodrow Wilson finally gave in and he endorsed women’s suffrage in September 1918 and Congress adopted the nineteenth amendment that was ratified in 1920. This was the final victory for women to vote.

McGerr, Michael E. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920. New York: Free Press, 2003.

"The Women's Rights Movement, 1848–1920 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives." The Women's Rights Movement, 1848-1920. Accessed March 27, 2016. http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/WIC/Historical-Essays/No-Lady/Womens-Rights/

H, J. "A DIVIDED MOVEMENT." Cobblestone 30, no. 3 (March 2009): 29. Accessed March 27, 2016. EBSCOhost Academic Search Complete .

The Gilded Age

63 pages • 2 hours read

The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-11

Chapters 12-23

Chapters 24-37

Chapters 38-51

Chapters 52-63

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Summary and Study Guide

The Gilded Age , by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, is a satirical work of fiction originally published in 1873. Notable for being the only novel Twain co-authored with a collaborator, The Gilded Age satirizes greed and corruption in America’s post–Civil War era. Mark Twain, best known for his celebrated classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , was a pioneer in American literary Realism and vernacular writing. Charles Dudley Warner was a writer, editor, and close friend of Twain.

Written in the wake of the Civil War, The Gilded Age lampoons the racism , sexism , and unchecked avarice of the Antebellum South alongside the corruption of the federal government in Washington, DC. The book’s title, a play on the idea of a golden age, refers to the process of gilding—covering non-precious metals or other materials with a thin, cosmetic layer of gold. This metaphor for the era’s illusory promise of wealth, disguising an economy of fraud and exploitation, gave the era its nickname. The historical period in the US from approximately 1870 to 1900 is now referred to as the Gilded Age.

This guide refers to an e-book edition of the text published in 2014 by Xist Publishing. Pagination may differ from print versions.

Content Warning: The source text features slurs and racial epithets.

Plot Summary

The Gilded Age begins in the mid-19th century in Tennessee. Silas Hawkins is the patriarch of a poor Southern family. Despite having followed his charismatic friend Beriah Sellers into numerous speculative ventures, each failing to produce the promised riches, Silas hasn’t lost confidence in his friend or in his family’s future prosperity. Silas’s purchase of 75,000 acres of land in Tennessee, which he assures his wife will someday make their children rich beyond measure, marks the narrative’s inciting incident. At Beriah’s encouragement, Silas moves to Missouri with his wife, Nancy Hawkins, and two children, Washington and Emily Hawkins. He adopts two orphaned children, Clay and Laura, along the way. In the ensuing twelve years, Silas endures several financial catastrophes. Each takes a toll, and Silas dies a broken man.

A second storyline follows Philip Sterling and Harry Brierly, two men living in New York City who decide to seek their fortune out west, accompanying a railroad surveying team to Missouri. There they meet and befriend Beriah, who inspires Harry to partner in his schemes. Philip dedicates himself to studying engineering and railroad science while hoping to win the heart of the woman he loves, Ruth Bolton . Ruth, who lives in Philadelphia, longs to leave her Quaker community and defy society’s gender norms by becoming a doctor. Laura Hawkins is betrayed by a confederate soldier named Colonel Selby, who marries then deserts her. After the war, Senator Dilworthy visits the Missouri town where the Hawkins family is living along with Beriah, Philip, and Harry. Senator Dilworthy takes Washington Hawkins back to DC as his personal secretary and invites Laura Hawkins to visit during Congress’s winter session.

Beriah and Harry’s plan to found a great city in rural Missouri goes awry when money allocated to the project by Congress doesn’t come and the unpaid workers revolt. Harry’s investigation into the matter reveals such profound corporate financial corruption that he and Beriah now owe thousands of dollars. Ruth’s father hires Philip to survey land he owns in Pennsylvania. Confident there’s an abundant coal vein on the land, he begins a costly mining operation. Senator Dilworthy develops a plan with Washington and Laura to sell their Tennessee land to the government, via an appropriations bill, as a location for a university open to all races. They use bribery, blackmail, and any other tactic necessary to get the bill passed.

Philip’s mining project runs out of money and has to be shut down. The Tennessee land bill passes in the House of Representatives. Laura runs into Col. Selby, who is in DC on business with his family. Her plans for revenge falter with his renewed declarations of love, and she insists he leave his wife. He agrees, but when he and his family abruptly leave town, Laura follows and kills Col. Selby with a gun belonging to her brother. She is arrested and charged with murder. Ruth continues studying medicine and finally declares her love for Philip. Harry gets over an infatuation with Laura and starts a new venture out west.

Amidst an epic bribery scandal, Senator Dilworthy loses his bid for re-election. The Tennessee land bill fails to pass in the Senate. Laura’s defense lawyer successfully portrays her in court as a victim of past traumas that led to insanity, and she’s acquitted. Newly freed, she accepts an offer to go on a lecture tour but is jeered off the stage at her first appearance. She’s found dead shortly after. Washington finally lets go of the Tennessee land and his financial expectations of it. He heads home to Missouri to marry his sweetheart. Beriah goes with him, scheming new ways to achieve fame and fortune. Philip reopens the coal mine with a loan from a family friend. After a great deal of disappointment, his perseverance pays off when he finds enough coal to make him quite rich. Ruth pulls through a grave illness, and the two happily start their lives together.

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Home — Essay Samples — History — Gilded Age — Social Changes in the Gilded Age

Social Changes in The Gilded Age

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Words: 716 |

Published: Mar 6, 2024

Words: 716 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, the rise of consumer culture, the emergence of a new middle class, challenges faced by marginalized communities.

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