Historian Answers Gilded Age Questions

I'm Carl Raymond,

host of the Gilded Gentleman History Podcast.

Let's answer your questions from the internet.

This is Gilded Age Support.

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@guccionmiuccii asks, What do you admire so much

about The Gilded Age?

Most people when they think of The Gilded Age

think of great mansions and balls and extravagant food,

and most of that is true.

But what's interesting about The Gilded Age

is this was a moment

when the very infrastructure of America was being built.

Railroads, transportation, electricity, gas,

all of these were coming together

to create a modern America.

There was a moment when Thomas Edison flipped the switch

in lower Manhattan,

and for the first time New Yorkers saw electric light

in their buildings.

Technology was moving at an incredible rate,

sort of like it is today.

@leonatus asks, I find the colors

of almost all of the dresses in The Gilded Age to be garish,

although the designs can be lovely,

and I wonder if the coloration is historically accurate

or a 21st century spin.

Well, we have to remember that after all, this is TV.

The good news is, we can see actual gowns

from The Gilded Age

in museum collections all across the country.

And while the colors are not quite as garish,

the designs are just as lovely

and some of them are absolutely based

on original Gilded Age gowns.

Because all the photography of this period

is all in black and white,

we tend to think of muted colors and blacks and grays,

but that's not true either.

It might not be as strong

or as bright as what we see on TV today,

but of course there were beautiful colors.

There were rich dyes.

Look at pages of fashion magazines and you see that color.

@nocrad asks, Am I dumb for not knowing

what The Gilded Age means?

I thought it was an expansion pack for elden ring.

You have to think about things that are gilded.

Gilding is a very thin surface of gold

hiding something underneath.

So The Gilded Age is actually a pejorative phrase

coined by Mark Twain.

He and a co-writer wrote a novel

called The Gilded Age: A Tale for Today.

What he was saying was that there's beauty and style,

but that can cover up things

like greed and racial inequality and injustice.

@Lemon_Chiffonbk asks,

Were they really giving themselves BBL,

a Brazilian butt lift

with those dresses in The Gilded Age?

What's interesting is that no gown could survive on its own.

It was all about the undergarments that gave the shape

to a woman's figure.

By the time The Gilded Age came around,

it was thought attractive

to have a bustle in the back of your dress.

Well, what exactly is a bustle?

Think of a slinky on your lower backside.

It was to make the back of the dress protrude out

and then often attach a train to it

to give you a sense of elegance when you moved about a room.

Think about that, ladies.

If you had a lot of mechanics back here,

how did you sit down?

And the answer is, you could only perch

on the edge of a chair.

And here's a question from Quora.

What did they eat at those fancy Gilded Age parties?

12-course meals? What is the weirdest thing on the menu?

These dinners were not short, maybe three hours.

You had silver and crystal,

and everybody watched to make sure

that you used the right utensil.

But what was on your plate?

There are a number of actual menus

that exist from places like Delmonicos.

There are also in some archives, some catering notebooks

that actually list the private menus

at places like the Astors and the Vanderbilt.

So we actually can see exactly what was served.

Two of the most famous and popular dishes,

one was canvas back duck and the other was terrapin,

which is freshwater turtle.

They were expensive and they were hard to get.

One of the strangest was roast peacock.

It was a peacock that you plucked of its feathers,

you roasted the body meat,

and then you reassembled the peacock.

The head was stuffed and all the plumage was reinserted

and that's how it arrived at the table.

Now, I don't know about you,

but my favorite part of any dinner party is dessert.

The most popular dessert was ice cream.

At this particular time,

we didn't have the enormous freezers that we have today.

And so to make and to serve ice cream

for 400 people, that cost you a lot of money

and a whole lot of ice to keep the ice cream cold.

The other thing that I think

is really important to remember, ladies,

is that you were strapped into a corset.

So if you think you even had the possibility

of eating a lot, let me tell you right now, you didn't.

@nelstamp says, One thing about The Gilded Age

that we should all be aware of

is how similar robber barons are to billionaires now.

Take everything from workers to enrich themselves.

I could pretty much agree with you.

We have another period

where there's a great deal of technological advancement.

There's a great deal of wealth.

The first thing we should do

is talk about who the robber barons were

in the 19th century Gilded Age.

At the top of the pile, you had Rockefeller,

that was oil money.

Vanderbilt was predominantly railroads.

Carnegie was steel.

And then you had J.P. Morgan and Jay Gould.

They were all about money and banking.

Our billionaires of today are creating infrastructure too.

Now much of it is digital

that arguably make our lives more connected,

but we see examples of tremendous dichotomy of wealth

and still instances of social injustice.

And here's a question from Quora,

Did the 1% of The Gilded Age throw wild parties

like some of their modern counterparts have?

You bet they did, and then some.

And you can see that depicted in the HBO series,

The Gilded Age, fairly accurately.

One of the craziest was in 1903

when a very wealthy businessman

decided he wanted to entertain his horse friends.

There was a famous dinner on horseback.

That means horses were brought into the dining room,

they were circled up, they were saddled,

and all of the guests climbed on horseback

and they were served a multi-course dinner

with bottles of champagne in their saddlebags.

In 1883, Alva Vanderbilt

to show off her brand new chateau on Fifth Avenue

threw an incredible party.

Everybody had to come as a figure from history.

One of the most famous costumes at that ball

was Alice Vanderbilt

who showed up in a stunning gold and silver gown

representing electric light

because let's remember electricity was so new at that point.

It was exciting.

And she was very much dressing on a very popular trend.

Often, a party evening began with a night at the opera.

Imagine sitting through a performance at the opera

in your grand gown and then going to Mrs. Astor's

or Mrs. Vanderbilt's at around 11 o'clock in the evening,

you'd have a big full buffet and dancing until about 6:00 AM

when you'd have another lavish breakfast,

and then it was time to go home.

And here's a question from Quora.

If Rockefeller lived today,

would he be the richest person alive?

It all depends on how you measure money and wealth.

If we look at it in terms of Rockefeller's wealth

as a percentage of gross domestic product, in 1913,

his wealth was measured at almost $1 billion.

So that means Rockefeller's wealth

was roughly 2.3% of the entire output of the country.

When we look at Musk's fortune,

it's approximately 4% of the gross domestic product today,

so he does beat out Rockefeller.

One gel asks, So I've started streaming The Gilded Age.

Am I wrong in thinking that the Russells

are the Vanderbilts?

'Cause similarities.

You're not wrong.

When we look at George Russell,

there is certainly some Vanderbilt overtones with him,

but there's also another financier of The Gilded Age,

Jay Gould, who's right here on the table with me.

We see some influence of Jay Gould

in the character of George Russell as well.

One of the characteristics of some of these financiers

of The Gilded Age, and particularly Jay Gould,

is that they were ruthless.

They were not afraid to roll the dice, make a fortune,

lose a fortune, and roll the dice again.

So when we look at Bertha Russell,

there are some similarities we could certainly say

with Alva Vanderbilt.

Now, Bertha comes from very humble beginnings.

That's not quite true with Alva.

She came from southern roots and they had some money.

But what was important is they were outside of society.

Mrs. Astor had not accepted either Bertha Russell

or Alva Vanderbilt.

And in order to maneuver at all in Gilded Age society,

Mrs. Astor had to give you her stamp of approval.

So of course, two of the most well-known families

in America's Gilded Age were the Astors and the Vanderbilts.

But what really was the difference between the two of them,

the Astors were a very old family.

John Jacob Aster came here in the 1700s

and he became a fur trader.

The Vanderbilts, well, they came here even earlier,

but they were just poor farmers on Staten Island.

They came from the Netherlands, from Der Bilt.

That's how they got their name, Vanderbilt.

But it wasn't until the early mid-part of the 19th century

when Cornelius Vanderbilt

started to create a transportation empire

that they amassed their fortune.

So in perfect Gilded Age society,

you had to be an old family with old money

that went back as far as four generations.

The Vanderbilts were an old family with new money,

and there was the problem.

One of the interesting stories here

where we can draw some fascinating similarities

is in the character of Gladys Russell,

Bertha and George's daughter.

Now she's married off

to a very important and titled British Duke.

Well, Alva and Willie K. Vanderbilt,

they had a daughter too,

and her name was Consuelo Vanderbilt.

In order to secure her position in society,

Alvin manipulated a marriage with Consuelo

to the Duke of Marlborough.

This was not a very happy marriage.

It certainly wasn't a love match.

It was orchestrated by her mother

so that Consuelo would become a duchess,

and New York Gilded Age society liked nothing more

aside from their grand dinner parties than a title.

Ineffable_Twaddle asks,

One bathroom in a four-story house?

Maybe one of the things that you have to remember

about bathrooms in The Gilded Age

is there were fewer of them than we have today.

Not every bedroom had their own bathroom.

People had to share. And also think about it.

When you went to a grand ball with your ball gowns,

there was no ladies' room or men's room,

so that meant you had to be very careful

about what you ate and what you drank.

For gentlemen, there was sometimes a chamber pot

behind a screen in that men's smoking room,

and that made things a lot easier.

If you're a lady, it was a little more difficult.

There was a famous story when Consuelo Vanderbilt

marries the Duke of Marlborough

and she moves to Blenheim Palace.

She said in all this palace, there's not one habitable room.

And one of the challenges were the bathrooms.

Often there'd only be one on a floor

and there's a story she tells of all of the maids lining up

so that their mistresses would not lose a place in line

to use the bathroom.

Psychological_Roof85 asks, What would be the benefit

to marrying into poor British aristocracy?

There was nothing more seductive in Gilded Age high society

than having a European aristocratic title.

A lot of the European aristocrats had titles,

but not enough money.

So in that way, it was a perfect marriage.

A young, beautiful,

well-educated American heiress

could marry a sort of impoverished European aristocrat.

The American family got a title for their daughter

and the European aristocrat got a lot of money

to top up their coffers.

When we think of the great British country estates,

they were essentially working farms

and they got their money

by actually producing crops and selling them.

In the 19th century,

America became a great producer of wheat

and was able to ship that produce to Europe

at much lower prices.

Consequently, nobody wanted to buy the British grain

and it took a lot of money to maintain these estates

and these country houses.

So the easiest fix was to marry a wealthy American heiress

and get your money that way.

@AthertonKD asks, When did The Gilded Age end?

The 1890s, the 1910s, 1932,

or LOL, like it's ended?

Historians often disagree

as to when The Gilded Age actually started and ended,

but to me, it would start around 1870 post-Civil War.

There was a tremendous amount of wealth being created

as the infrastructure of the country was being born.

There was a lot of money in society

that was being spent with little restraint.

It really began to wane and end around 1900.

We had a new president, Teddy Roosevelt.

The Progressive Era was coming in,

income tax was being enforced.

All of those great fortunes were starting to wane.

dblan3 asks, What was the estimated time

for a Gilded Age woman to get ready

to go to a charity event or visit a friend?

It was all about your hair.

Great Gilded Age hairstyles took a long time.

For example, if you were going to go to a ball

in the evening, you would have to have the hairdresser

come to your house

maybe as early as eight o'clock in the morning

and dress your hair, maybe weave in some of the jewels,

and then you had to sit all day long without moving

before you could put on your gown and your furs

and the rest of your jewelry and go to the ball.

Now, no Gilded Age woman

could get into a ball gown by herself.

There was the bustle, there was the corset,

and that was another subliminal message

of wealth in society.

You needed maids to help you get into your clothes.

Someone like Mrs. Vanderbilt would have a ladies' maid,

and that was who took care of your clothes

and your jewelry and your hair.

But there were other maids

that took care of the ironing and the linen

and all the other aspects of the house

that were handled by butlers and footmen.

One statistic that's truly fascinating

was when Henry Clay Frick built his house on Fifth Avenue,

there were three of them,

and there were 30 servants employed in the house.

From the NoStupidQuestions subreddit,

I am watching the HBO series, 'The Gilded Age.'

Where are all these palatial

single-family Manhattan homes today?

And what area of Manhattan is that supposed to be?

The area that you asked about is the Upper East Side.

Central Park was new and anybody that could

wanted to live along the park.

As we got to the 20th century,

it simply became impossible to have these mansions function.

Many of these palatial mansions were in fact torn down.

One of the grandest stood

on the site of where you find Bergdorf Goodman today

on the corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue.

That was the mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt II.

At one time, that was the grandest,

most palatial mansion in the city.

A number of organizations took over some of the mansions.

For example, the Warburg family,

their mansion is still there on Fifth Avenue.

It now houses the Jewish Museum.

The Ukrainian Institute,

that's one of the original Gilded Age mansions,

so a number of them still exist.

SeaTie8730 asks, Okay, but why is no one talking

about Mrs. Astor and her power over society?

There is a lot to say about Mrs. Aster.

This was a portrait done by Carolus-Duran.

Mrs. Aster is painted here in a black velvet gown.

That was one of her favorites,

but that still doesn't explain why she had so much power

over Gilded Age society.

By the 1870s, after the Civil War,

Mrs. Aster saw that society was changing,

the old money was still there,

but there was new money coming in,

and she thought, I can help create a new American society.

She had a henchman named Ward McAllister

that we see in the HBO Gilded Age series,

and between Ward McAllister and Mrs. Aster,

they decided who was in and who was out.

So often people talk about The Gilded Age 400,

and the only proper people were the 400 people

that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.

Well, that's a little bit of mythology.

Ward McAllister, in 1892,

actually published a list in the newspaper of the families

that he thought were the appropriate families

of Gilded Age society, and it wasn't 400.

It was barely 300.

Yes, these were grand ballrooms,

but think about it, 400 people dancing

all at the same time.

I don't think anyone ever actually counted.

Fidelllll asks, I'm a middle-class man

living in New York City in the 1880s.

Where can I get a bite to eat?

There were several restaurants

that were starting to become very, very popular.

Rector's was known as a lobster palace

where you could get all kinds of wonderful seafood.

Luchow's was a German-inspired beer hall.

One of your choices was for good New York oysters.

Now, there's still a delicacy in New York today,

but in the 19th century, they were everywhere

and they were much less expensive than they are today.

In fact, tourists would come to New York

in the 19th century from Europe

and they were shocked by the size of the oysters

and how succulent they were.

You could buy them in restaurants,

you could get them from stands on the corner,

and the oysters here in New York were local oysters

and they had a taste all their own.

@whereyouat42wallabyway asks,

Wait, how did most Gilded Age millionaires

flex their money?

Were they just blowing money on mansions, cars and [beep].

If you were a Gilded Age gentleman,

having a yacht was one of the most ostentatious ways

that you could display your money.

Also, men loved to race,

and there were horse tracks up in Northern Manhattan

where men could actually race each other.

So just like today,

anybody with a significant amount of money

often wants to have a second home.

In addition to your townhouse,

you wanted to have a country house

and the place to have your country house

was often Newport, Rhode Island.

Newport became a famous resort among The Gilded Age elite,

and they built palace after palace after palace

to entertain each other.

Again, another way to show off your money

and hopefully find a husband for your daughter.

And here's a question from the history subreddit.

Is this what trending looked like in the 19th century?

And we have an image of one of the newspaper offices,

the New York Journal,

with the headlines splayed across the front.

You'd often find on street corners,

newsboys with newspapers held up or signs

proclaiming the latest news.

Newspaper publishers like Hearst and Pulitzer

vied for that dollar.

It was all about making it as sensational as possible,

which led to the rise of what was called yellow journalism,

which is scandalous, maybe not always 100% correct,

but it sold papers and made money.

There was a fair number of gossip in the press too.

There was a publication called Town Topics

that was pretty salacious and pretty scandalous

that reported what our Gilded Age 1% was up to

and just who they were up to it with.

@_ADoodle Esquire asks, What was the craziest sex scandal

of The Gilded Age?

That would involve Stanford White,

who was the most famous architect of The Gilded Age,

according to many people, on a sultry evening in 1906

on the top of Madison Square Garden,

which at the time was actually at Madison Square.

It was after a performance of the theater.

He was actually murdered at point-blank range

by a man named Harry K. Thaw,

who had married a woman named Evelyn Nesbit, with whom,

when she was quite young, Stanford White had a relationship.

The result of this is the tabloids ate it up.

The trial, the ensuing trial, all of this,

even down to what Harry K. Thaw was served in prison

for dinner was covered by the newspapers.

Any-Concentrate-1922 asked,

Well, what did they do all day?

You didn't have a phone, so you had to write letters.

Business proceeded much more slowly

because you had to send things like telegrams.

One of the things families did was to use a stereograph.

Photography was becoming so much more popular,

and these were fascinating.

The way it worked is you had a card with double images,

maybe of scenes of Europe,

maybe of here in New York in Central Park,

and you slipped it in

and magically the two images came together

and created a 3D image.

And as technology began to change,

things like listening to music at home changed too.

You didn't have to have an orchestra in your ballroom

just to listen to good music.

You actually could start

to have the beginnings of a phonograph,

and these cylinders were becoming popular

that you could actually put on and you could hear sounds

and voices and music.

They're a little heavy,

and when you look at them,

they have these fine lines just like a record did

once upon a time before we even got to compact discs.

So think of this as a Gilded Age compact disc.

wholevodka asks, Is The Gilded Age depiction

of Black wealth accurate?

Yes.

One of the most exciting and fascinating things to me

about the HBO Gilded Age series is we actually see

the storyline of Peggy Scott and her family.

The show has been meticulous

in actually presenting this story.

So in the first part of the 19th century,

the Black population was much more integrated

and it centered in lower Manhattan.

By the end of the 19th century, the move was out to Brooklyn

and the area around Fort Greene

and other neighborhoods and communities of Brooklyn

became areas of black wealth.

Scholarship in this really began around 2012

with a landmark book called Black Gotham

by the scholar, Dr. Carla Peterson,

who actually, in researching her own family,

uncovered a story of a wealthy black elite

that created this community.

And that story had been lost for so, so many years.

The story of the Black population

in New York sort of went from enslavement

to the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance,

and now we have a much fuller story to tell.

And another question from Quora, Why were rich people

so obsessed with the opera?

How did you get an invitation?

As we can see in some of the scenes from the show,

when you went to the opera, everyone was looking at you.

We have to look at the structure of a 19th century theater.

One of the most important aspects

of that were the box seats.

Who doesn't want a box seat today?

Well, the box seats in the opera house

had some of the worst views of the stage,

but they had the best views for the audience to see you.

It wasn't so much

about the opera being performed on the stage.

@jewishcomicsqueen asks, I really love the show,

but where are all the Jewish characters?

There were great Jewish families of wealth

and famous well-known financiers, Otto Kahn,

who contributed greatly to the artistic life of the city.

The story of Jacob Schiff, who was an immigrant,

and through his financial dealings,

he funded so much of the settlement house movement,

which actually helped immigrants establish their lives.

There are so many entwined,

fascinating stories of Jewish New York

at the end of the 19th century,

and I hope that they will be told.

These are all the questions that we have time for today.

Thank you for watching Gilded Age Support.

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