2. Spiral Check TODAY Vocabulary Quiz Friday!! Gilded Age Test Thursday 10/8

4. This age, beginning around 1870 and lasted until 1900, gets its name from an 1873 novel by Mark Twain entitled The Gilded Age.

5. Intro Video clip

6. The title, according to Twain, referred to the post-Civil War years that were full of corruption, profiteering (making an unreasonable profit on the sale of essential goods), and false glitter (cubic zirconia). It was a time of deceptive appearances.

7. During this age, things appeared on the outside to be happy and perfect, but underneath lie many problems and immoral politicians and businessmen who just wanted to get ahead.

8. They wanted more money and power and they did not care whom they abused to get it.

9. “Indeed, the real movers and shakers of the Gilded Age were not the men who stay in the White House or the Congress but the captains of industry (think Morgan, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Schwab, etc.) who crisscrossed the continent with railroads and decorated its cities with plumes, smokestacks and gaudy mansions. These are the men who held America’s power.” According to the historian, Henry Adams,

10. The political problem: Both major parties failed to directly address AND solve the pressing issues of this time.

11. These pressing issues included: > taxes > monopolies > currency > worker’s wages and rights, > immigration.

12. Gilded Age Politics video clip