The Gilded Age Do Now: List what you know about this time period…(it’s okay if you don’t know anything)

The Gilded Age In American history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century (1869-1896) Interesting Fact: The term “The Gilded Age” was coined by Twain: The name refers to the process of gilding and is meant to make fun of ostentatious display

Men of the Gilded Age The businessmen of the Gilded Age (also called the Second Industrial Revolution) created industrial towns and cities in the Northeast with new factories, and hired an ethnically diverse industrial working class, many of them new immigrants from Europe The late 19th century industrialists and “robber barons” included: John D. Rockefeller Andrew W. Mellon Andrew Carnegie J.P. Morgan Cornelius Vanderbilt The Astor family

John D. Rockefeller Andrew Mellon JP Morgan Andrew Carnegie

American Literary History Literature in America before the Civil War was usually characterized by romanticism : Included the novels of James Fenimore Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans), Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter), and Herman Melville (Moby Dick) The transcendentalist essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau Though the Gilded Age saw some continuation of romanticism, the more significant pattern was the gradual rise of realism, that is, a realistic--and sometimes quite critical--portrayal of life

Poets & Mark Twain & Stephen Crane Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson led the way in rejecting previous poetic forms and introducing a new, less structured, psychological approach Whitman also dealt with topics previously considered inappropriate The towering novelist of the era was Mark Twain, whose Huckleberry Finn (1885) may be read at many levels, from a nostalgic account of boyhood adventures to profound social satire Twain reproduced the everyday speech of unschooled whites and blacks, poked fun at social pretensions of the day, scorned the Old South myth, and challenged prevailing, racially biased attitudes toward African-Americans Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) depicted how urban squalor could turn a young woman to prostitution

Women & The Gilded Age Upper-middle-class women of the late 19th century were not content with the cult of domesticity of the early 1800s (think “The Angel in the House”) Many had become college educated and yearned to put their knowledge and skills to work for the public good For women who did not attend college, life was much different Many single, middle-class women took jobs in the new cities Clerical jobs opened as typewriters became indispensable to the modern corporation Telephone service required switchboard operators New department stores required sales positions Many of these women found themselves feeling marvelously independent, despite the lower wages they were paid in comparison to their male counterparts

Artists of the Gilded Age John Sloan Mary Cassatt

Edith Wharton Born Edith Newbold Jones January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937 From New York The saying "Keeping up with the Joneses" is said to refer to her father’s family Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of social and psychological insight Think Gossip Girl, but with manners and etiquette (and no nudity)

A Brief History of Edith Wharton In 1885, at 23 years of age, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years her senior He was from a well-established Boston family, he was a sportsman and a gentleman of her social class and shared her love of travel, although they had little in common intellectually From the late 1880s until 1902 he suffered acute depression In 1908 her husband's mental state was determined to be incurable and she divorced him in 1913 In 1908 she began an affair with Morton Fullerton, a journalist for The Times-the affair lasted over 10 years In addition to novels, Wharton wrote at least 85 short stories. She was also a garden designer, interior designer and lifestyle taste-maker of her time She wrote several design books including her first published work, The Decoration of Houses of 1897

Wharton’s Works Many of Wharton's novels are characterized by a subtle use of dramatic irony. Having grown up in upper-class pre-World War I society, Wharton became one of its most astute critics. In such works as The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence she employed both humor and profound empathy to describe the lives of New York's upper-class and the vanishing of their world in the early years of the 20th century. In contrast, she used a harsher tone in her novel Ethan Frome to convey the atmosphere of lower-class rural Massachusetts. In addition to writing several respected novels, Wharton produced a wealth of short stories and is particularly well regarded for her ghost stories.

Kate Chopin Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty (February 8, 1850 — August 22, 1904), was an American author of short stories and novels. She is now considered by some to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century. Her important short stories included "Desiree's Baby," a tale of miscegenation in antebellum Louisiana (published in 1893).