 THE GILDED AGERapid industrialization in the late 19th century ushered in a "Gilded Age" of big-business monopolies and corrupt machine politics. These conditions helped get a reformist Democrat, Grover Cleveland, elected twice, in 1884 and 1892. Republican Benjamin Harrison, grandson of the ninth president, served between Cleveland's two terms, and Republican William McKinley was elected in 1896.
|