• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Is The Gilded Age Based On A True Story?

Home> Entertainment

Published 13:53 26 Jan 2022 GMT

Is The Gilded Age Based On A True Story?

Being dubbed the American Downton Abbey, is the HBO series The Gilded Age based on a true story?

Gabriella Ferlita

Gabriella Ferlita

Featured Image Credit: HBO/Sky

Topics: TV and Film

Gabriella Ferlita
Gabriella Ferlita

Gabriella Ferlita is a full-time journalist at LADbible Group, writing on lifestyle, communities and news across Tyla, LADbible and UNILAD. When she's not writing, she's fussing over her five-year-old Toyger cat, Clarence.

X

@Gabriellaf_17

Being dubbed the American Downton Abbey, the HBO series The Gilded Age sees the likes of Mamma Mia!’s Christine Baranski, Sex in the City’s Cynthia Nixon and Avengers: Endgame’s Carrie Coon take on socialite characters set during one of America’s most lavish moments in history. 

The nine-part series follows a young Pennsylvania-born Marion Brook (Louisa Jacobson), who becomes consumed by this new-found luxurious lifestyle. Viewers also see New York unfolding through her point of view, as aristocrats witness their playing field being transformed by rich industrialists. So, is The Gilded Age based on a true story?

Is The Gilded Age based on a true story?

Fans of this Downton Abbey-inspired show might be disappointed to learn that The Gilded Age’s storyline is “largely” fictional, as Smithsonian Magazine reported. The set of characters are just vessels to portray the lives of the rich and wealthy during “The Gilded Age”.

However, the time-frame of which the series is set in is pretty historically accurate, and does actually depict New York’s history during that period.

History reports that “The Gilded Age” describes “the tumultuous years between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century” which followed a similar increase in industry and technology to that of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. 

That particular time-frame followed the first transcontinental railroad being completed in 1869, with the first functioning typewriter being invented, Alexander Bell receiving a patent for the first telephone, and Thomas Edison showcasing the first functioning lightbulb following soon after in the next decade.

As opportunities for America started to become more apparent, there was a big financial difference between the rich upper class, and the less-well-off working class. The TV series does a pretty good job of depicting this dramatic divide between classes during this time-frame.

The Gilded Age is available to stream now on Sky and NOW.

Choose your content:

an hour ago
2 hours ago
18 hours ago
  • an hour ago

    Man who 'threw up after being told to let wife sleep with another bloke' explains what really made him vomit

    The couple appeared on Channel 4's Open House and have hit out at the show's editing

    Entertainment
  • 2 hours ago

    Man scammed out of hundreds by 'Jennifer Aniston' who told him 'she loved him'

    Paul Davis, 43, was fooled by the sophisticated AI scam

    Entertainment
  • 2 hours ago

    Nicole Kidman's husband ends interview abruptly after X-Rated question about her sex scenes

    Keith Urban was asked about his wife Nicole Kidman's raunchy sex scenes

    Entertainment
  • 18 hours ago

    People hit out at Drake after they spot something in recent six-pack photo

    Social media users trolled Drake after noticing a strange detail

    Entertainment