Gilded Age

The Unlikely Success of James Garfield in an Age of Division

by C.W. Goodyear

In a bitterly divided and restive political climate, James Garfield was too old, too esconced in the Washington establishment, and too conciliatory to be a credible candidate or a successful President. But he did ultimately change politics, though he didn't live to see it. 

The Robber Barons Had Nothing on Musk

by David Nasaw

Like the Gilded Age robber barons, Elon Musk's self-made mythos hides the government subsidies supporting his businesses. Unlike them, he has the werewhithal to move financial markets to his advantage through Twitter. 

Will Stanford University Acknowledge its Bloody Origin Story?

“What I expect Stanford to do, as I always expected, is that they’ll ignore it,” says Richard White, whose new book argues that the university's president David Starr Jordan covered up murder and spread the lie that founder Jane Stanford died of natural causes in order to preserve her bequest. 

Jane Stanford's Murder Shows the Moral Vacuum of Gilded Age Fortune and Philanthropy

by Richard White

Jane Stanford's murder by poisoning in 1905 was part of a long chain of inequities and moral abdications that attended the great Gilded Age fortunes at every step, from their accumulation to their dispersal as philanthropy. 

Musk's Twitter Bid Harkens Back to Hearst

Richard White and Brad DeLong consider how the megabillionaire's bid for Twitter stacks up against other efforts by the ultra-rich to build media empires – is it more about attention and less about advancing financial interests? 

Union Organizing in the Long Shadow of the Gilded Age

by Daisy Pitkin

On listening to Andrew Carnegie's "The Gospel of Wealth" in Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library as librarians perform the kind of social services Carnegie deplored (and try to organize a union, which he deplored more). 

The Gilded Age's Original "Galentine's Day"

by Anya Jabour

The search for alternatives to the compulsory heterosexual coupledom of Valentine's Day could learn from the example of the "Perfect Little Ladies" of 1890s Rochester, New York.

How the Left Lost the Constitution

by Benjamin Morse

 Law professors Joseph Fiskin and William Forbath revisit the Reconstruction Amendments to argue that they represent a fusion of a "democracy-of-opportunity" tradition in the law that embraces an affirmative government duty to redistribute wealth. 

The True History Behind HBO's "The Gilded Age"

by Kimberly A. Hamlin

The new series follows fictional characters but is well-grounded in the innovations and inequalities that characterized urban America in the late nineteenth century, thanks in large part to the work of the show's historical consultant Professor Eric Armstrong Dunbar.

The Surfside Disaster is Our Generation's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Moment

by Hannah Lebovits

The deadly collapse of the Surfside condo building near Miami should be a call for Jewish Americans to protest for reform in the way that Jewish immigrant workers did after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. 

How Will Jeff Bezos Spend His Billions Now?

by Margaret O'Mara

John D. Rockefeller used philanthropy to blunt harsh criticism of his business practices and the social dysfunction represented by his immense wealth. What will his 21st-century analogue Jeff Bezos do for an image-burnishing second act? And will it be about service to the public or service to Bezos? 

History and Gentrification Clash in a Gilded Age Resort

A proposal to redevelop a section of Newport, Rhode Island far from the city's typical tourist destinations has generated an unlikely alliance of low-income residents who fear displacement and affluent historic preservation advocates. 

Big Alex McKenzie and the Last Great Fraud of the Gilded Age

by Paul Starobin

Alexander McKenzie’s plot to corner Alaska’s gold proved to be the last great swindle of the original gilded age, as this seamy chapter in our national life gave way to what become known as the Progressive Era.

SHGAPE Prizes 2020

by Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Andrew Huebner, Caroline Grego, Alana Toulin and Mark C. Boxell are winners of annual prizes from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 

We’ve Been Looking in the Wrong Places to Understand Sanders’s Socialism

by Richard White

Detractors like to equate Senator Bernie Sanders’s socialism with Soviet and Chinese Communism, but they’re swinging at the wrong century, the wrong country and the wrong socialism.

How the Gilded Age's Top 1 Percent Thrived on Corruption

Railroads Were at the Forefront of Political Corruption  

The Court Case That Inspired the Gilded Age’s #MeToo Moment

A turn-of-the-century trial, the focus of a new book, took aim at the Victorian double standard.

Think journalism’s a tough field today?

by Randall S. Sumpter

Try being a reporter in the Gilded Age.

Are We Living in the Gilded Age 2.0 ?

by Edward T. O’Donnell

The original Gilded Age was followed by the Progressive Era.  Will ours?

Lessons From the Gilded Age

by Sarah Jones

America today has a lot in common with that bygone era of monopolies and gross inequality. But will the country respond similarly?