What Was The Gilded Age (Are We Living In a Second One)

Historian and Author Professor Edward T. O’Donnell speaks about the tumultuous period in American history known as the Gilded Age (1870-1900). It was a period when the nation experienced astonishing growth in prosperity, population, and industry, but also urban squalor, political corruption, worker exploitation, Robber Baron ruthlessness, and an alarming growth in the gap between the rich and the poor.. This talk examines this first Gilded Age and the key issues it raised, as well as how out of its turmoil the U.S. entered a period known as the Progressive Era that was marked by wide-ranging reform movements.