In United States history, the Gilded Age is described as the period from about the 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction Era and the Progressive Era. It was named after an 1873 Mark Twain novel by historians in the 1920s who saw this interval of economic expansion as an era of materialistic excesses combined with political corruption.

The Progressive Era (1896–1917) was a period in the United States during the early 20th century of widespread social activism and political reform across the country. Progressives sought to address the problems caused by rapid industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption as well as the enormous concentration of industrial ownership in monopolies. Progressive reformers were alarmed by the spread of slums, poverty, and the exploitation of labor. Multiple overlapping progressive movements fought perceived social, political, and economic ills by advancing democracy, scientific methods, and professionalism; regulating business; protecting the natural environment; and improving working and living conditions of the urban poor.