The Gilded Age was a time of great economic change, of great wealth created and lost, and of fierce competition among the newly wealthy. Season 2 begins on the morning of Easter 1883, when Bertha Russell learns that her bid for a box at the New York Opera has been rejected. Bertha will challenge Mrs. Astor and the old system as she strives to not only gain a foothold in high society, but possibly lead it. George Russell has his own battles as he faces his own growing union in the steel mills of Pittsburgh. Back in the Brooks, Marian continues her journey to find her own way by secretly teaching at a girls' school, while Ada, to everyone's surprise, begins a new relationship. Of course, Agnes is unimpressed. In Brooklyn, the Scotts slowly recover from a shocking discovery, and Peggy exercises her activist spirit through her work with T. Thomas Fortune at the New York Globe.