Yes, one reason is that America was extremely effective. The second reason is the rich were rich and had awesome lives yet the poor battle and had a hard life.
The period after Reconstruction, the most recent couple of many years of the nineteenth century, was known as the "Plated Age," a term instituted by Mark Twain in 1873. The Gilded Age was a time of change in the economy, innovation, government, and social traditions of America.
