[mc32]

You're right. I had conflated GDP with disparity. GDP in the 1910s was more or less on par in Mexico, Finland, Portugal, Norway and Italy. That parity has dissolved and become disparity in the intervening years. On the other hand, in the age of the robber barons, you had the lower class and the wealthy, with little in between, so those not at the top were not as unequal as they are today. It's my impression it was more stratified (into two lobes). And given most people were rural and there were few in the professional class, I think it makes sense.