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Gilded Age

Historical And Literary Periods
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The late 19th-century period (1870s-1900) in America characterized by rapid industrialization, extreme wealth inequality, and conspicuous consumption among the wealthy. Named by Mark Twain as a thin layer of gold over base metal.

Detailed Definition
The Gilded Age inspired American poetry exploring wealth, industrial transformation, and social inequality. Poets documented the era's contradictions and moral crises. This era appears in poetry through depictions of wealth and luxury, documentation of industrial development and urbanization, critique of social inequality, exploration of American values and materialism, and engagement with questions of progress and morality, establishing the Gilded Age as crucial to understanding American modernity's emergence and contradictions.
Example
Example in poetry:
A satirical poem exposing the corrupting influence of wealth, the social climbing of the nouveau riche, and the political corruption of post-Civil War America during the Gilded Age; A narrative poem contrasting the opulent mansions of the wealthy with the desperate poverty of the urban slums; A work that uses the imagery of factory smoke, railroad barons, and mass production as symbols of American expansion; A poem critical of the era's materialism and lack of moral compass.
Additional Notes
The Gilded Age (late 19th century America) reflected economic growth and social inequality. Poetry mirrored wealth and corruption, exploring industrial alienation and moral contrast through realism and satire.
Also Known As
Gilded Age Period Robber Baron Era
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