The term for this period came into use in the 1920s and 1930s and was derived from writer Mark Twain's 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding. The Breakers, a Gilded Age mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, belonging to the wealthy Vanderbilt family of railroad industry tycoons. A Tour Through the Gilded Age New York The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West. As…