The Gilded Age
All That Glitters...
“The eternal glitter of wealth conceals a corrupt political core that reflects the growing gap between the very few rich and the very many poor.” - Mark Twain on America in the 1870s-1890s
Rose’s journey from the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side to the mansions of Fifth Avenue is set against the background of America in the throes of rapid industrialization, vast wealth disparity, and political corruption. The growth of industry, an expanding railroad network, and the resulting demand for iron, steel, and petroleum fueled immense economic growth and glaring social inequities as the “robber barons” employed unethical business practices and exploited workers to line their own pockets.
Appropriately named the Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 satirical novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, the era reflected a society that appeared prosperous on the surface, but was riddled with corruption and inequality underneath. In the exclusive culture of the well-to-do, serious social and economic problems were easily glossed over by a patina of wealth.
Less than five miles from the teeming neighborhoods of the Lower East Side, the glitterati of the Gilded Age occupied block-long mansions on Fifth Avenue, their extravagant costume balls, lavish dinners, and obsessive drive to outdo each other in business and society in stark contrast to the poverty, hunger, and squalid living conditions in the tenements. While the matriarchs of the mansions were attending
afternoon teas, getting fitted for new gowns, and decorating their Newport, Rhode Island summer “cottages,” destitute and desperate women in the Lower East Side were begging on corners or selling themselves on the street to pay the rent and feed their children.
By the late 1800s, the ultra-rich lived so opulently that 19th century economist and socialist Thorstein Veblen wrote, “…the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous, in the way of dwellings, furniture, bric-a-brac, wardrobe and meals, that the consumers of these things cannot keep up with them in the required manner without help from armies of servants.”
It was not until the late 19th century that the economic and social inequality and unfettered capitalism of the Gilded Age came to an end. Public outrage over political corruption and financial inequity, the Panic of 1893 that ushered in a severe economic depression, and the birth of the Progressive Era sealed its demise.
