<p>In United States history, the Gilded Age is a period approximately spanning the final three decades of the nineteenth century; from the 1870s to 1900. The term was coined by Mark TwainThe Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, satirizing what he believed to be an era of serious social problems disguised by a thin gold gilding. The theme of the novel is that the lust for getting rich through land speculation pervades society. The main action of the story...