Why did they call it Gilded Ages when the Titanic was built?

Answer 1

It was a period of various economic depressions and corruption. The term was coined by Mark Twain, and it refers to a gilt metal: it is gold on the outside (beautiful), but if you dig a little deeper you find what truly lies beneath (hideous).

Answer 2

Mark Twain came up with the term "Gilded Age": dazzling on the surface, base metal below. The time was all about wealth and appearance. Underneath the surface you see corruption and filth. It was a time of reform and growth as well as peoples' own ambition to have the true American Dream.

Answer 3

Gilded ages are largely imagined.

Certain periods of history were highly favourable to particular groups.

The Titanic belongs to a period that is easy to glamorise in retrospect, because it came just before the devastation of World War I, which put an end to that whole way of life.

We are encouraged to believe that it was a good time to be at the top. But letters and memoirs from that period confirm that people at the top felt that they had a good deal to complain about.

It was actually the heyday of the middle class, rather than the upper class - a very good time to have a secondary education, and your own house and car, your first telephone, your first fridge. Those were the people who were saying "What a time to be alive."