You know how back in 2023 men (especially) were admitting that they thought about Rome? Thought a lot about Rome? And maybe you’ve read recently, like I did, that children (children!) think a lot about the Titanic.

Although it’s a little alarming to realize that children have memorized all of the Titanic’s escape routes, I am glad when anyone thinks about, or better yet, studies the past. In fact, I’m more hopeful about the future when people have a historical perspective.

Which leads me to admit the historical era I’ve been thinking about a lot recently: America’s Gilded Age.

The Gilded Age first sparked my curiosity in college, when I focused my graduate studies around the 1890’s social justice movement in New Orleans, and eventually, the fascinating women of Gilded Age New Orleans inspired the characters of my first historical mystery Fanny Newcomb & the Irish Channel Ripper.

I continue to invest my study time in Gilded Age history and if you’d like to know a little more about the Gilded Age, read on….

History Books

• America in the Gilded Age by Sean Dennis Cashman
• Goodreads’ Gilded Age Biographies list has 132 entries.
• How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis. Published in 1890, Riis’s landmark book is a sobering photographic reckoning of poverty in New York City.
• The Gilded Age: 1876-1912 Overture to the American Century by Alan Axelrod
• The Gilded Age: A History From Beginning to End by Hourly History
• The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910 by Esther Crain

Historical Fiction

• The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr.
• The Buccaneers and House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.

• The Waterworks and Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow. Although set in 1871 and 1902, respectively, these two tales of New York City are suitable bookends for the the Gilded Age.
• Goodreads’ Gilded Age Books list is 2,542 (fiction and non-fiction) books strong.
• Goodreads’ Gilded Age Romances list has 47 offerings

Blogging (and shamelessly promoting PLW blogs…)

• 5 Books about Gay Life in the Gilded Age by Kathryn Pritchett
• 7 Things About Gilded Age Fashion by Kathryn Pritchett

The Japanese Parisian, Alfred Stevens, 1872

• Gilded Age Actress Maude Adams on Dressing the Part by Kathryn Pritchett
• Gilded Holiday Recipes Found in Historical Fiction by Kathryn Pritchett
• The Written Word ~ New Orleans Gilded Age Newspapers & Editor Eliza J. Nicholson by Ana Brazil

Television

• 1883 on Paramount. Guess what? The Gilded Age wasn’t only about New York City; Americans were still forging toward the west coast.
• The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness on TNT. Two killer collisions of NYC’s upper and lower classes.
• The Buccaneers on Appletv. The Gilded Age interpreted for a younger, more contemporary audience.
• The Gilded Age on HBO. Natch!
• The Knick on HBO. Totally gritty and totally entrancing medical drama in NYC, circa 1900.

Movies

• An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving – adapted from a Louisa May Alcott short story
• Hello, Dolly! ~ directed by Gene Kelly; adapted from Thornton Wilder’s 1954 The Matchmaker
• Hester Street – directed by Joan Micklin Silver; adapted from Abraham Cahan’s 1896 novella Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto
• The Age of Innocence ~ directed by Martin Scorsese; adapted from Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1920 novel
• The Bostonians ~ directed by James Ivory; adapted from Henry James’ 1886 novel

Got some Gilded Age links to share? Please do!