Gilded Age

'The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today' is the collaborative work of Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner that satirized the era of political greed and corruption that followed the American Civil War. This period is often referred to as 'The Gilded Age' because of this book. The corruption and greed that was typical of the era is exemplified through two fictional narratives; one of the Hawkins family, a poor family from Tennessee who try to get the government to purchase their 75,000 acres of unimproved land; and of Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly, two young upper-class men who seek their fortune in land as well.