<P> Railroads were the major growth industry, with the factory system, mining, and finance increasing in importance . Immigration from Europe and the eastern states led to the rapid growth of the West, based on farming, ranching, and mining . Labor unions became important in the very rapidly growing industrial cities . Two major nationwide depressions--the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893--interrupted growth and caused social and political upheavals . The South after the Civil War remained economically devastated; its economy became increasingly tied to cotton and tobacco production, which suffered from low prices . With the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877, African - American people in the South were stripped of political power and voting rights and were left economically disadvantaged . </P> <P> The political landscape was notable in that despite some corruption, turnout was very high and national elections saw two evenly matched parties . The dominant issues were cultural (especially regarding prohibition, education, and ethnic or racial groups), and economic (tariffs and money supply). With the rapid growth of cities, political machines increasingly took control of urban politics . In business, powerful nationwide trusts formed in some industries . Unions crusaded for the 8 - hour working day and the abolition of child labor; middle class reformers demanded civil service reform, prohibition of liquor and beer, and women's suffrage . Local governments across the North and West built public schools chiefly at the elementary level; public high schools started to emerge . The numerous religious denominations were growing in membership and wealth, with Catholicism becoming the largest denomination . They all expanded their missionary activity to the world arena . Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians set up religious schools and the larger denominations set up numerous colleges, hospitals, and charities . Many of the problems faced by society, especially the poor, during the Gilded Age gave rise to attempted reforms in the subsequent Progressive Era . </P> <P> The term "Gilded Age" for the period of economic boom after the American Civil War up to the turn of the century was applied to the era by historians in the 1920s, who took the term from one of Mark Twain's lesser known novels, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873). The book (co-written with Charles Dudley Warner) satirized the promised' golden age' after the Civil War, portrayed as an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding of economic expansion . In the 1920s and 30s "Gilded Age" became a designated period in American history . The term was adopted by literary and cultural critics as well as historians, including Van Wyck Brooks, Lewis Mumford, Charles Austin Beard, Mary Ritter Beard, Vernon Louis Parrington and Matthew Josephson . For them, "Gilded Age" was a pejorative term used to describe a time of materialistic excesses combined with extreme poverty . </P> <P> The early half of the Gilded Age roughly coincided with the middle portion of the Victorian era in Britain and the Belle Époque in France . With respect to eras of American history, historical views vary as to when the Gilded Age began, ranging from starting right after the American Civil War (ended, 1865), or 1873, or as the Reconstruction Era ended in 1877 . The point noted as the end of the Gilded Age also varies . It is generally given as the beginning of the Progressive Era in the 1890s (sometimes the United States presidential election of 1896) but also falls in a range that includes the Spanish--American War in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt's accession to the presidency in 1901, and even the U.S. entry into World War I (1917). </P>

Who came up with the phrase gilded age and what was meant by it
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