Question

Why was it called the gilded age

Answer 1

used it to describe the era's patina of splendor—gilded, after all, is not gold—and the shaky foundations undergirding industrialists' vast accumulation of wealth.

Answer 2

The term "Gilded Age," coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, was an ironic comment on the difference between a true golden age and their present time, a period of booming prosperity in the United States that created a class of the super-rich

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