by Lacey Alkire, Manning School
Students will research one aspect of the Gilded Age and present their findings to the class with a poster.
Introduction
Mark Twain called the late nineteenth century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. In the popular view, the late nineteenth century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display.
It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to think of this as modern America’s formative period, when an agrarian society of small producers was transformed into an urban society dominated by industrial corporations.
Excerpt from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/gilded_age/index.cfm