Explain the meaning of "gliding" and why the period between about 1870 and 1900 was called the "gliding age"?
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Anonymous
ANSWERS: 1
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There are two possibilites as to the use of the word "gilded" in this context. One could mean covering something with Gold that doesn't need it, like covering a flower that is already beautiful. Perhaps a synonym might be "ostentatious". Another sense of the word is a contrast between a golden age and a gilded age, implying that the second is not quite worthy in comparison to the first. This period was called the "Gilded Age" because of the extreme wealth that was created for certain individuals in this period due to industrialization and population growth and the lifestyle they chose to live, which might be described as "ostentatious" for the sake of being ostentatious. In the pejorative sense, many people such as Rockefeller and Carnegie were known as robber barons, people who became rich through "ruthless" business dealings. The term was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.
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