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As a lay person just becoming interested in this topic because of a recent writing gig, I continue to learn ever more about this subject which gets ever more intriguing with each new posting! I am so glad I found this website. In my research of this term for my article, I found the whole thing so confusing because "gilded" seemed to apply just to one segment of the period/population, just one brief snapshot if you will, excluding most of the important movements and events that had been happening since the Civil War, according to most of your colleagues who have discussed this in the last dozen postings. I could never tie it to anything specific outside of Twain except as a reference to lavish lifestyles of 19th century captains of industry and architectural styles of early Florida hotels. On top of that, "gilded" has the connotation of gold and rich which many readers assign a positive interpretation -- gilded meaning the glittering mansions and lifestyles of the upper crust being a wonderful thing -- even though it really meant the opposite. I'm wondering if the connotation is changing as the years go by? I'm thinking that most people now know so little about what really went on at this time that "gilded" is almost becoming a positive term in the popular press and periodical literature because few people are informed about what went on back then. Especially in view of the present obsession with superficiality in our culture -- the emphasis on image to the exclusion of everything else, the obsession with make overs and plastic surgery and having all TV shows hosted and starred in only by people under 25, the role of TV in shaping public views of the Presidency, etc. etc. The lifestyles of the "American aristocracy" reflected in the GA term are what the public thinks of, not anything else. So that's what the term is coming to mean? Having a background in literature from decades ago, I, too, feel that the term is very close to its literary origins, and it almost seems like a term some freelance writer would invent to label a very complicated period of American history. May I suggest that SHGAPE develops its own GA website to inform the public and other researchers of your findings and various other analyses of the issue that have appeared on this discussion log. It sure would have helped me! There is nothing out there now except for a PBS website that is very limited in its offerings! (See www.pbs.org, "Gilded Age.") Someone please put a good educational site up to teach people about this period of time. Lani Friend
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