7 Misconceptions About the Gilded Age

The Gilded Age is remembered as a time when some people got really rich, particularly the heads of industry known as the “robber barons,” like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and William K. Vanderbilt. A big reason for that influx of wealth was a boom in steel that changed the industrial game. 

And with that wealth came high-profile money flaunting. Rich people built massive mansions and threw outrageous parties—but that doesn’t mean everyone was getting richer. Let’s debunk some common misconceptions about the Gilded Age. 

1. Misconception: The Gilded Age has a positive meaning.
2. Misconception: The Gilded Age was a time of uninterrupted financial growth. 
3. Misconception: Railroads were universally embraced as a positive thing for the country.
4. Misconception: The wealthy elite spoke like they do on The Gilded Age TV show. 
5. Misconception: Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.
6. Misconception: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. 
7. Misconception: Cornelius Vanderbilt helped invent the potato chip. 

Misconception: The Gilded Age has a positive meaning.

Even though it sounds nice, the Gilded Age isn’t supposed to be a compliment. This term is typically used to describe the period of time in the U.S. from the 1870s through about the turn of the century.  It came from Mark Twain and his friend and neighbor Charles Dudley Warner’s 1873 novel The Gilded Age—which was a piece of satire. 

To understand what they meant by the title, we can turn to the Shakespeare quote that inspired it. In King John, the Earl of Salisbury says, “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily […] is wasteful and ridiculous excess.” 

That’s what Twain and Warner were saying with their novel: This was a time filled with wasteful and ridiculous excess. It's a story of greed, corruption, and scammers across the country. And though the book was successful in that it got the distinction of naming a whole era, Twain was disappointed in its reception at the time—there were only about 56,000 copies sold. He did eventually earn $100,000 in royalties when one of the characters was spun off into a successful play, though.

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Misconception: The Gilded Age was a time of uninterrupted financial growth. 

As a whole, the U.S. experienced economic growth during the Gilded Age, largely thanks to industrial work; American factories increased their financial output by 600 percent between 1860 and 1900. 

But financial inequality also increased. By 1890, America’s richest 1 percent owned 40 percent of the country’s wealth, and 44 percent of the country shared a mere 1.2 percent of wealth. 

Marginalized communities, in particular, had limited opportunities, financial and otherwise. Many immigrants worked in dangerous factories for low wages. And as the Reconstruction era wound down, Black Americans were watching Jim Crow laws be passed and upheld, which limited their rights. As one economist wrote in 1879, this was a time of “a widespread feeling of unrest and brooding revolution.”

And the overarching financial growth had starts and stops. The Panic of 1873 began when one of the major railroad investors, Jay Cooke & Company, went bankrupt; more banking firms soon collapsed. This ultimately led to the downfall of 18,000 businesses. By 1876, unemployment was at a whopping 14 percent. Not too long after, the Panic of 1893 saw even more bank failures and another recession, largely due to debt in the railroad industry. Two “panics” in 20 years was certainly not the smooth times the phrase the gilded age seems to promise. 

Misconception: Railroads were universally embraced as a positive thing for the country.

It’s easy to look at this time through rose-colored glasses and think about how new rail lines were giving people unprecedented access and opportunity in new parts of the country. And that’s partially true. Between 1871 and 1900, the amount of railroad tracks quadrupled in the United States. But there were some hiccups and downsides—and not everyone was thrilled. 

The first transcontinental railroad was officially completed when the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad met in Omaha in 1869. This was possible thanks to all the new and exciting American steel. It was also possible due to back-breaking, dangerous, and undercompensated labor often done by Chinese, Black American, and Irish immigrant railroad workers. And they spoke up about the problems: For instance, in 1867, Chinese workers organized the largest labor stoppage the country had ever seen. 

In addition to providing terrible working conditions, railroad companies unapologetically built through the land of 15 different Indigenous tribes. Bison were slaughtered en masse—tens of millions of bison were killed by hunters, U.S. troops, and settlers as a result of the railroad access to new territories.

And as every businessman was striving to be the next great industrialist, railroad construction became pretty wasteful. During the 1800s, competition for business led to two east-west railroads getting built basically parallel to each other and just two miles apart. Monopolies emerged, as did corruption; Union Pacific Railroad executives got caught forming a fake construction company they could skim money from. 

This didn’t go unnoticed by the general population. Some even protested railroads being built through their towns. Politically, the Populist Movement gained traction with its push to nationalize the railroads and put an end to the madness. 

Misconception: The wealthy elite spoke like they do on The Gilded Age TV show. 

There are a few popular shows and movies that take place around the Gilded Age, like The Age of Innocence, The Greatest Showman, and The Gilded Age. If you watch all those back-to-back, you’ll notice the actors take a variety of approaches to their accents. And generally, they err on the side of an accent that sounds like how we talk today. 

But rich people who lived in New York City during the Gilded Age typically spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent. As “mid-Atlantic” implies, it’s as if it emerged mid-way through the Atlantic Ocean, like a blend of a British accent and a New England one. One major feature is what’s known as non-rhoticity, which is the dropping of “r” sounds: “cars” are “cahs,” for example.  Another quality is the precise enunciation of “t” sounds. You may be familiar with this accent from hearing recordings of Franklin D. Roosevelt or watching Katharine Hepburn movies. 

But speaking in a mid-Atlantic accent doesn’t come naturally to people. It had to be taught—or it also doesn’t sound natural. If you were watching media in which everyone was leaning into the mid-Atlantic, it might come across as irritating and distracting, which is why some actors opt for a subtler version. 

Misconception: Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.

A Gilded Age game-changer was the widespread adoption of electric light—the world literally got brighter. And as electric lights spread, so did infrastructure that made it possible to bring more machinery and appliances into mainstream use. 

Thomas Edison often gets credit for inventing the electric lightbulb, particularly because he patented the first one in the U.S. on January 27, 1880. But there were plenty of electric light predecessors before that. For example, in 1761, Ebenezer Kinnersley heated a wire until it emitted light; in 1841, Frederick de Moleyns patented the first incandescent light. Even entire streets and buildings were electrically lit before Edison patented his lightbulb. British chemist Humphrey Davy invented carbon arc lamps in the early 19th century, and they were illuminating cities by the 1870s. 

But Edison was trying to create an electric lightbulb that was safer, brighter, cheaper, and could last longer. And he did. He found—after testing 6000 other options—that carbon (and then later carbonized bamboo specifically) was an ideal filament for the bulb. With that discovery, he created a bulb that could last an unprecedented 14.5 hours. 

Plenty of Edison’s contemporaries were working on the same issue and making their own inventions in the world of electric lighting. English chemist Joseph Swan is worth mentioning, along with Canadians Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. There are also Americans William Sawyer and Albon Man, who applied for a patent on an incandescent lamp in January 1880. And of course, there were a series of people after Edison who improved on his design, like Lewis Latimer, who made the filaments sturdier and easier to manufacture. 

It’s also worth noting that Edison didn’t work alone. He had dozens of employees, whom he called his “muckers,” helping him. 

Misconception: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. 

For a long time, Alexander Graham Bell got most of the credit for inventing the telephone—another invention that marked changing times during the Gilded Age. And it’s true that in March 1876, Bell received a historic patent for “Improvement in Telegraphy.” But by this point, there were already hundreds of thousands of telegraph cables connecting the country. The world knew a big telegraphy development was coming. It was just a matter of when. 

In fact, the same day that Bell filed his patent, inventor Elisha Gray applied for a patent caveat for a similar technology. (A caveat was basically a way of saying that you were working on something that you planned to file for a patent on within three months.) The two men eventually went to court over this issue; Bell won the patent. 

There’s also Antonio Meucci, who demonstrated a telephone system in 1860. He invented it as a way to communicate between his workshop and the bedroom of his paralyzed wife, Ester. After improving on his design, Meucci filed a patent caveat in 1871 because he didn’t have the $250 for a patent. It expired three years later because he couldn’t afford the $10 renewal fee. 

Bell worked in the same laboratory as Meucci when he filed his telegraphy patent. Meucci sued him and the case made its way to the Supreme Court—but Meucci died before the hearing. In 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives officially passed a resolution acknowledging his contribution to the invention of the telephone. 

Misconception: Cornelius Vanderbilt helped invent the potato chip. 

Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the original robber barons. His success began in the steamship business, and then he became a railroad magnate in the 1850s. He eventually accumulated over $100 million in wealth. All of that is true. What is not true is that he helped invent the potato chip. 

The story goes that during the summer of 1853, Vanderbilt was dining at a restaurant called the Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York. He wasn’t happy with the state of his fries when his meal arrived—they were too thick. This complaint ticked off the chef, George Crum, who responded by cutting overly thinned potatoes and frying them to a crisp. But this attempt at malicious compliance backfired; Vanderbilt loved the chips, and the Lake House put them on the menu for good.

This mythical tale was so widely accepted that in 1976, a plaque went up near the restaurant honoring the invention of the potato chip. Crum even earned the nickname the “Edison of Grease.” There are a few problems with this story, though. For one, Vanderbilt was in Europe that summer. And there were already crispy fried potatoes being served in the Saratoga Springs area by at least 1849.  

It wasn’t until 1885 that Crum got added to the story. Vanderbilt made his first appearance in it almost a century after that, when the St. Regis Paper Company—which made potato chip packaging—included his name. 

So, who did invent the potato chip? We’ll probably never know. Within the Saratoga Springs region, at least five different creators have been suggested. Beyond that, it’s possible they originated somewhere else entirely. There’s even a recipe from 1817, written by English doctor William Kitchiner, that teaches the reader how to make “potatoes fried in slices.” Much like the lightbulb and the telephone, this snack is probably a case of some parallel thinking and some improving on others’ work.