Gilded Age Word Search

Find 15 Gilded Age words in one grid, from Railroad and Steel to Tenement and Strike, with an answer key.

Name Date

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 15 words found

RWFOPOPULISTPPD

RAILROADNETIOTT

RSKYSCRAPERFPOY

GMZTFWRHGNUQEHS

TENEMENTEISADOT

TPRFWDTOQMTSWRE

BEIOILELOMHOGOE

MONOPOLYFIRIIAL

HSTRIKEOGGCOLFY

EEAICRPRNRFPDAE

EZDFORHHNAIWECA

HMTYCOONNTDLDTF

NYPQRONTDINSLON

EIBHBFEKOOFHARI

RWRLABORUNIONYS

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

RailroadRAILROAD
SteelSTEEL
OilOIL
FactoryFACTORY
TelephoneTELEPHONE
GildedGILDED
MonopolyMONOPOLY
TrustTRUST
TycoonTYCOON
ImmigrationIMMIGRATION
TenementTENEMENT
SkyscraperSKYSCRAPER
Labor UnionLABOR UNION
StrikeSTRIKE
PopulistPOPULIST

15 words from the Gilded Age list.

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Answer key: Gilded Age Word Search

RWFOPOPULISTPPD

RAILROADNETIOTT

RSKYSCRAPERFPOY

GMZTFWRHGNUQEHS

TENEMENTEISADOT

TPRFWDTOQMTSWRE

BEIOILELOMHOGOE

MONOPOLYFIRIIAL

HSTRIKEOGGCOLFY

EEAICRPRNRFPDAE

EZDFORHHNAIWECA

HMTYCOONNTDLDTF

NYPQRONTDINSLON

EIBHBFEKOOFHARI

RWRLABORUNIONYS

RAILROAD, STEEL, OIL, FACTORY, TELEPHONE, GILDED, MONOPOLY, TRUST, TYCOON, IMMIGRATION, TENEMENT, SKYSCRAPER, LABOR UNION, STRIKE, POPULIST

Next step Test the spelling of Monopoly and Philanthropy Make a puzzle from your own unit's words

All 141 words

Railroads, Steel and Oil 27

Boxcar A closed train car for goods.
Coal The black rock burned to drive trains and factories.
Depot A train station.
Dynamo A machine that makes electric current.
Electricity The power that began to light streets and homes.
Factory A building where workers and machines turn out goods in great numbers.
Freight Goods carried by train.
Golden Spike The last one driven to join the tracks from east and west, on May 10, 1869, was made of gold.
Industry The making of goods in factories, or one whole branch of it.
Invention Something new that someone has thought up and built.
Iron The metal that steel is made from.
Kerosene Lamp fuel refined from petroleum.
Light Bulb A glass lamp lit by electric current.
Locomotive The engine at the head of a train.
Oil Liquid pumped from the ground and refined into fuel.
Patent A government grant that protects an inventor's idea.
Phonograph A machine that plays back recorded sound, invented in 1877.
Promontory The summit in Utah where the tracks from east and west met in 1869.
Railroad The era's biggest growth industry. Its tracks first joined east and west in 1869.
Rails The bars a train runs on.
Refinery A plant that turns crude petroleum into fuel.
Smokestack A tall chimney over a mill or a foundry.
Steel A strong metal made from iron. It went into rails, bridges and tall buildings.
Telegraph It sent messages along a wire in dots and dashes.
Telephone A device for talking over a wire, patented in 1876.
Time Zone On November 18, 1883 the railroads reset their clocks to a shared set of these.
Typewriter A machine with keys that prints letters on paper.

Show all 141 words (114 more)

Big Business and Trusts 27

Capital Money used to start or grow a business.
Competition Rival sellers trying to win the same customers.
Corporation A business that the law treats as one body, owned by its shareholders.
Depression A long, deep slump in business.
Fortune A very large amount of money.
Gilded Covered with a thin layer of gold over something cheaper.
Gospel of Wealth Name of an 1889 essay that said the rich have a duty to give for the public good.
Holding Company A firm that owns enough stock in other firms to control them.
Industrialist A person who owns or runs large factories.
Investor A person who puts money into a business hoping to earn more.
Mansion A huge, costly house.
Merger Two companies joining into one.
Millionaire A person worth a million dollars or more.
Monopoly Control of a whole market by one company, with no rival left.
Novel A long made-up story. The era takes its name from one published in 1873.
Panic A sudden rush of fear about money. One struck in 1873 and another in 1893.
Philanthropy Giving money to help the public.
Pooling Rival railroads sharing out traffic or markets among themselves. An 1887 law banned it.
Profit The money left after the costs are paid.
Rebate Money handed back as a discount. Railroads gave these to their largest shippers.
Robber Baron A critic's name for a rich businessman accused of getting ahead by unfair means.
Satire Writing that mocks greed and foolishness. The 1873 book that named the era is one.
Shareholder A person who owns part of a company.
Stock A share of ownership in a company.
Tariff A tax on goods brought in from other countries.
Trust A grouping of companies joined to cut down competition in one market.
Tycoon A very rich and powerful business owner.

Cities and Immigrants 29

Air Shaft A narrow opening that lets air into the middle of a building.
Brooklyn Bridge It opened on May 24, 1883 across the East River, the longest suspension span of its day.
Chicago The city that burned in October 1871 and held a world's fair in 1893.
Elevator The lift that made tall buildings practical.
Ellis Island The station in New York Harbor that began checking newcomers on January 1, 1892.
Europe The continent most newcomers of these years sailed from.
Exclusion A law of 1882 with this word in its name put a 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating.
Exposition A world's fair. Chicago held one in 1893.
Ferris Wheel The first one, 264 feet tall, turned at the Chicago fair of 1893.
Fire Escape Outside stairs for leaving a burning building.
Harbor A sheltered port for ships.
Hull House A neighborhood center founded in Chicago in 1889 to serve newly arrived immigrants.
Immigrant A person who has moved to a new country to stay.
Immigration Moving to a new country to live. Millions came from Europe in these years.
Inspection A check of each arriving passenger. At Ellis Island it usually took a few hours.
Nativism Favoring people born in a country over newcomers.
New York The city whose harbor held the country's busiest immigration station.
Newcomer A person who has only just arrived.
Newsboy A child who sold papers in the street.
Pushcart A cart rolled by hand to sell goods in the street.
Sanitation Keeping a city clean: sewers, clean water and trash removal.
Settlement A ___ house offered classes and help to poor city neighbors.
Sewer An underground pipe that carries waste water away.
Skyscraper A very tall building. A ten-story one finished in Chicago in 1885 is often called the first.
Streetcar A passenger car that runs on rails in city streets.
Streetlight A lamp on a pole that lights a road at night.
Tenement A crowded apartment building with many families and little light or air.
Trolley An electric streetcar fed by an overhead wire.
Urban Having to do with cities.

Workers and Unions 28

Arbitration Settling a dispute by letting an outsider decide.
Bargaining Talks between workers and owners over pay and hours.
Blacklist A list of workers that employers agree not to hire.
Boycott Refusing to buy or use something as a protest.
Child Labor Work done for pay by boys and girls, common in mills and mines.
Company Town A place where one employer owns the houses and the stores.
Craft A skilled trade, such as carpentry or printing.
Eight Hours The length of workday the Knights of Labor demanded.
Federation The American ___ of Labor, a league of craft unions, formed in December 1886.
Foreman The boss of a work crew.
Homestead Pennsylvania steel town where a strike ran from July to November 1892.
Injunction A court order to stop doing something. The government won one against the rail strikers of 1894.
Knights of Labor Union founded in 1869. By 1886 it had more than 700,000 members.
Labor Union A group of workers who join to ask for better pay and conditions.
Lockout An owner shutting the doors to keep workers out during a dispute.
Militia State troops. Pennsylvania sent its own to the steel strike of 1892.
Miner A worker who digs coal or ore underground.
Picket A line of strikers standing outside a workplace.
Piecework Pay by the item made, not by the hour.
Pullman Place in Chicago where a strike began on May 11, 1894 and spread along the railroads.
Scrip Pay in paper good only at the employer's own store.
Seamstress A woman paid to sew clothing.
Shift One stretch of working hours.
Steelworker A person who makes steel in a mill.
Strike Workers stopping work together to win a demand.
Sweatshop A shop or factory with long hours, low pay and unhealthy conditions.
Wages Pay for work, by the hour or the day.
Walkout A strike that begins with workers leaving the job together.

Farmers, Reform and Politics 30

Alliance The Farmers' ___ was a movement of growers that took shape around 1875.
Antitrust A law of this kind, passed in 1890, let the government take trusts to court to dissolve them.
Barbed Wire Fence strands twisted with sharp points. A patent of 1874 gave it its modern form.
Bribe Money given to buy a favor.
Civil Service Government jobs. An 1883 law began filling some by exam, on merit.
Corruption Dishonest use of power for private gain.
Cross of Gold Name of a famous speech for silver money, given in Chicago on July 9, 1896.
Debt Money a borrower still owes.
Free Silver The call to mint a white metal without limit, so that more money would go around.
Gold Standard Tying the value of every dollar to one precious yellow metal.
Graft Money gained dishonestly through public office.
Grange A farmers' organization founded in 1867 that fought for lower railroad rates.
Greenback Civil War paper money, printed in green on the back.
Inflation A rise in prices as money buys less.
Interstate Crossing state lines. An 1887 law set rules for railroad commerce of this kind.
Lobbyist A person paid to sway lawmakers.
Machine A political ___ is a party group, often led by a boss, that holds a city by trading favors for votes.
Patronage Jobs and favors given out by politicians.
Platform The list of things a party promises to do.
Populist A member of the People's Party, which farmers and workers launched in 1892.
Progressive Name of the reform era that came next.
Rates The prices railroads charged to carry crops.
Reconstruction The era that came just before this one. It ended in 1877.
Reform Change meant to fix a wrong.
Regulation A rule set by government.
Segregation Keeping people apart by race. The Supreme Court allowed it in an 1896 ruling.
Spoils System Handing government jobs to the winning party's supporters.
Suffrage The right to vote, which in these years was mostly limited to men.
Tammany Hall The organization that became the main political machine of New York City.
Third Party A political group that runs candidates against the two main ones.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the 141 words and every meaning were written for this page. Dates, names and laws were checked on October 16, 2026 against the National Archives Milestone Documents pages for the Interstate Commerce Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Pendleton Act and the Chinese Exclusion Act (https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents), the National Park Service history page for Ellis Island (https://www.nps.gov/elis/learn/historyculture/index.htm) and English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age and the article on each strike, building, law and organization named. Licence: own work

How it works

This Gilded Age word search hides 15 words: Railroad, Steel, Tenement, Monopoly, Immigration, Labor Union, Skyscraper and eight more. Five further lists cover industry, big business, the growing cities, the unions and the politics of reform.

Read the full guide

Five lists for the unit

Start from a list splits the 141 words: Railroads, Steel and Oil (27) has Golden Spike, Time Zone and Phonograph; Big Business and Trusts (27) has Robber Baron and Holding Company; Cities and Immigrants (29) has Ellis Island and Hull House; Workers and Unions (28); Farmers, Reform and Politics (30) has Grange, Free Silver and Cross of Gold.

Meanings with dates and laws

"A very tall building. A ten-story one finished in Chicago in 1885 is often called the first." is Skyscraper. "Government jobs. An 1883 law began filling some by exam, on merit." is Civil Service. No person is a puzzle word. To add one, type Carnegie, Rockefeller or Twain on the last line of the list.

Easy Gilded Age keeps to 21 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Oil, Coal, Trust, Wages and Graft.
The grid drops spaces, so look for LABORUNION, ROBBERBARON, ELLISISLAND and CROSSOFGOLD.

Questions and answers

What years were the Gilded Age?

About the late 1870s to the late 1890s, between Reconstruction and the Progressive Era. For the British factories that came first, print the Industrial Revolution word search.

Why is it called the Gilded Age?

Historians of the 1920s named it after an 1873 satirical novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. Gilded means coated in thin gold: bright on top, cheaper underneath.

What is a robber baron?

A critic's name for a rich, powerful businessman of the era who was accused of getting ahead by unfair means. The term was in print by 1870. A kinder name for the same men is captains of industry.

What was a tenement?

A crowded apartment building where many families rented small rooms with little light or air. An 1879 New York law said a tenement could cover no more than 65 percent of its lot.

All 141 words

Railroads, Steel and Oil 27

Big Business and Trusts 27

Cities and Immigrants 29

Workers and Unions 28

Farmers, Reform and Politics 30

How it works

Five lists for the unit

Meanings with dates and laws

Questions and answers

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