What Would Mrs. Astor Do?: The Essential Guide to the Manners and Mores of the Gilded AgeA richly illustrated romp with America's Gilded Age leisure class and those angling to join it Mark Twain called it the Gilded Age. Between 1870 and 1900, the United States' population doubled, accompanied by an unparalleled industrial expansion, and an explosion of wealth unlike any the world had ever seen. America was the foremost nation of the world, and New York City was its beating heart. There, the richest and most influential Thomas Edison, J.