The Gilded Age
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49 free The Gilded Age trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Gilded Age started life as a Downton Abbey prequel about Lord Grantham's courtship, was announced for NBC in 2018, and ended up on HBO as Julian Fellowes's study of 1880s New York: old money on one side of East 61st Street, the robber-baron Russells on the other, and Bertha Russell determined to gate-crash the opera boxes whatever it costs her children. These 49 questions cover three seasons and the behind-the-scenes story: the Stanford White mansion, the charity bazaar George buys out, the aldermen he ruins, the train derailment and the faked axles, Mrs. Astor's early return to Newport, Gladys's debutante ball, the Opera War between the Academy of Music and the new Met, the Duke of Buckingham and the dowry, Peggy Scott's work for T. Thomas Fortune and her trip to Tuskegee, Jack Trotter's alarm clock patent, Oscar's ruin at the hands of Maud Beaton, and the shooting in George's office. There are production questions on the actress Carrie Coon replaced, the Newport mansions and the Troy street that stood in for Manhattan, the real Vanderbilts and Astors behind the characters, and the Emmy nominations. Easy questions stick to the network, the creator and the leads; the hard ones ask about valets, bridges and clock money. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a period-drama quiz night.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who created and writes The Gilded Age?
Julian Fellowes
Julian Fellowes, who also created Downton Abbey, said the era's new rich drew him because they "redesigned being rich": if they wanted a palace, they built a palace.
Q 02On which network does The Gilded Age air?
HBO
HBO took over the series in May 2019. NBC had ordered it the year before, but the show's biggest champion there, Bob Greenblatt, had since moved to HBO's parent company.
Q 03Who co-wrote the novel The Gilded Age?
Mark Twain
Mark Twain wrote The Gilded Age with his neighbour Charles Dudley Warner as a satire of greed and political corruption, and historians later borrowed its title for the whole era.
Q 04Who plays Bertha Russell in The Gilded Age?
Carrie Coon
Carrie Coon joined late, after the first Bertha dropped out, and her arrival changed the wardrobe: the costume designer switched to metallic gowns inspired by machinery.
Q 05Who plays Agnes van Rhijn in The Gilded Age?
Christine Baranski
Christine Baranski's Agnes storms across the street into the Russells' luncheon when an anonymous note reveals her own butler is serving there, then beats an awkward retreat.
Q 06Who plays Ada, Agnes's younger sister, in The Gilded Age?
Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Nixon's Ada begins as the meek sister living on Agnes's charity, yet by the end of season three Agnes concedes that Ada now heads the household.
Q 07Who plays Bertha's robber-baron husband in The Gilded Age?
Morgan Spector
Morgan Spector's George Russell answers aldermen who bet against his railroad stock by buying up the shares himself, driving the price so high that they cannot pay.
Q 08Which actress was originally cast as Bertha Russell before pulling out in 2020?
Amanda Peet
Amanda Peet was announced in 2019, but when the pandemic pushed filming back to a time she was no longer free, she had to give up the part.
Q 09Who plays Marian Brook, the orphaned niece who comes to live with her aunts?
Louisa Jacobson
Louisa Jacobson's Marian is left at the station without her purse or a ticket to New York, and Peggy Scott, the stranger who pays her fare, ends up living under the same roof.
Q 10Who plays Peggy Scott, the writer who becomes Agnes's secretary?
Denée Benton
Denée Benton's Peggy lands the job when Agnes admires her handwriting, and she later turns down a magazine that would print her story only without her name.
Q 11Who plays Peggy's mother Dorothy, a skilled pianist?
Audra McDonald
Audra McDonald's Dorothy spends season three absorbing the snobbery of her daughter's would-be mother-in-law, then tells the woman to her face that she has acted without grace or manners.
Q 12Where in Manhattan do the Russells and van Rhijns live opposite each other?
East 61st Street
East 61st Street gains a third household from the story in season three, when the van Rhijns' footman Jack comes into money and buys a house of his own there.
Q 13Which real architect designed the Russells' mansion in The Gilded Age?
Stanford White
Q 21Which real humanitarian do Bertha, Marian and Peggy travel to Dansville to hear speak?
Clara Barton
Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross, and Dansville was home to its first local branch. The trip pays off for Bertha, who is soon voted onto the charity's board.
Q 22What disaster threatens George with manslaughter charges in season one of The Gilded Age?
A train derailment
A train derailment kills five people after worn-out axles are passed off as new. George looks set for trial until his own stenographer is exposed as one of the people who framed him.
Q 23Which inventor switches on his Pearl Street power station in The Gilded Age?
Thomas Edison
Stanford White went on to design the Washington Square Arch, and in 1906 he was shot dead by a millionaire at the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden, a building he had designed himself.
Q 14Who plays Oscar van Rhijn, Agnes's son, in The Gilded Age?
Blake Ritson
Blake Ritson's Oscar pursues the Russells' daughter Gladys for her fortune while hiding his relationship with John Adams, a descendant of the president.
Q 15Who plays society arbiter Ward McAllister in The Gilded Age?
Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane's McAllister decides who belongs in New York society until season three, when his tell-all book about the elite gets him frozen out of it himself.
Q 16Who plays Caroline Astor, 'The' Mrs. Astor, in The Gilded Age?
Donna Murphy
Donna Murphy's Mrs. Astor shuts Bertha out of society at first, yet by season three a scandal in her own family has her asking Bertha to host her annual ball in her place.
Q 17The Russells appear to be based partly on which real couple?
Alva and William K. Vanderbilt
Alva and William K. Vanderbilt were dismissed as new money until Alva built a Fifth Avenue chateau and opened it in 1883 with a fancy-dress ball that all of society scrambled to attend.
Q 18How does George respond when Bertha's ballroom is snubbed for the charity bazaar?
He buys everything and closes it
He buys everything and closes it within minutes of the opening, in front of Mrs. Astor herself, leaving the hostesses who turned down Bertha's ballroom with nothing left to sell.
Q 19What does Alderman Morris do after George's stock squeeze ruins him?
Commits suicide
Commits suicide: the aldermen beg George to stop the squeeze, he tells them to face the music, and Morris goes home and ends his life, leaving a widow who blames the Russells.
Q 20Which real journalist publishes Peggy's story and hires her at the New York Globe?
T. Thomas Fortune
T. Thomas Fortune was born into slavery in Florida, moved to New York around 1880 and made the Globe known for editorials that denounced segregation.
Thomas Edison throws the switch as the city looks on, and the electric lights astonish the crowd. Peggy is there as a reporter, sent to interview the onlookers.
Q 24What goes wrong when Ward McAllister shows Bertha around the Astor summer house?
The owner arrives a day early
The owner arrives a day early: Mrs. Astor's carriage pulls up just as the tour begins, and Bertha is bundled out through the kitchens and the servants' yard.
Q 25What does Bertha do when the queen of New York society declines her call?
Rescinds her daughter Carrie's invitation
Rescinds her daughter Carrie's invitation to Gladys's ball, and it works: Mrs. Astor swallows her pride and calls so that Carrie can go, then brings old New York with her.
Q 26What is the secret of the Russells' French chef, Monsieur Baudin?
He is an American from Kansas
He is an American from Kansas: Josh Borden learned to cook in France and took a French name. Bertha fires him when she finds out, yet he is still running her kitchen in season three.
Q 27In The Gilded Age, who jilts Marian on the day they planned to elope?
Tom Raikes
Tom Raikes followed Marian to New York to court her, then failed to turn up for the elopement and chose the heiress Miss Bingham instead.
Q 28In The Gilded Age, what does Peggy learn about the son she was told had died?
He was adopted
He was adopted: her father had lied and given the baby away. Peggy and her mother trace him to a family in Philadelphia, only to arrive after the boy has died.
Q 29Bertha backs which new institution against Mrs. Astor's Academy of Music?
The Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera was founded by new-money families who were not welcome among the Academy's boxholders. In the show both houses open on the same night, and society picks Bertha's.
Q 30In The Gilded Age, Bertha's former maid Turner reappears in season two as the wife of whom?
Mr. Winterton
Mr. Winterton is a rich, elderly widower, and marrying him turns Bertha's sacked maid into a society rival who schemes, without success, to wreck one of her grandest dinners.