The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

117: 2026 SHGAPE Prize Winners

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:38:22 GMT

Today we are delighted to welcome a guest host, Dr. Chelsea Gibson of SUNY Binghampton, and the co-editor of the SHGAPE Blog. who is interviewing three of the 2026 SHGAPE prize winners:

Carlotta Wright de la Cal, winner of the SHGAPE research grant for her project “Rule of Rail: Railroad Labor and Cross-Border Mobility in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1880-1930.”

Nicole Martin winner of the Fischer -Calhoun article prize for “The Indian, Chinese, and Mormon Questions: The American Home and Reconstruction Politics in the West”, Pacific Historical Review 93, no. 3 (Summer 2024): 445–474.

Manisha Sinha winner of the 2026 Presidents’ Book Prize for The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920 (Liveright, 2024)

As many of you may know, our podcast’s sponsoring organization, Society for Historians of the GAPE or (SHGAPE) is an affiliated society of the Organization of American Historians (or OAH. This means that we are quite engaged in the OAH’s annual conference, which is being held this year in Philadelphia on April 16-19, 2026.

SHGAPE sponsors panels at the conference, and also offers workshops, lectures, a luncheon, a reception, and mentoring opportunities for emerging scholars at the annual meeting. The Society also offers a variety of awards, including book and article prizes, a graduate student essay prize, a distinguished historian award, and travel grants to the OAH for graduate students and contingent faculty.

You can find out more information about these prizes and our other opportunities on the SHGAPE.org and more about the Organization of American Historians at oah.org

A big congratulations to the winners and thanks to Dr. Chelsea Gibson for joining us as a guest host!

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116: The Feather Wars: And the Great Crusade to Save America’s Birds

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 06:00:00 GMT

In this episode, Boyd Cothran and Cathleen Cahill sit down with James H. McCommons to discuss his sweeping new book, The Feather Wars: And the Great Crusade to Save America’s Birds — publishing March 17, 2026.

📘 Pre-order now:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250286895/thefeatherwars/

At a moment when conservation feels both urgent and politically contested, McCommons takes us back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Americans nearly drove some of their most iconic bird species to extinction — not primarily for food, but for fashion. Millions of birds were killed to supply the booming plume trade. Entire rookeries were destroyed so feathers could adorn women’s hats.

But The Feather Wars is about far more than birds. It is a story about how societies change.

McCommons shows that reform required not only outrage, but organization; not only persuasion, but law. The eventual passage of federal wildlife protections reshaped American culture and preserved species that might otherwise have vanished.

As we confront our own era of environmental crisis, this story raises enduring questions: How does a society move from normalization to moral reckoning? When does law follow culture — and when must it lead? What does it take to create durable change?

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115: Votes for College Women: Alumni, Students, and the Woman Suffrage Campaign

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 04:59:00 GMT

There’s a lot in the news these days about politics on college campuses with discussions of student protests, curriculum debates, and faculty engagement serving as hot button issues. This sudden and intense focus makes it seem as if this may be a new phenomenon, though anyone who lived through the 1960s and 70s would beg to differ.

Our guest today, Dr. Kelly L. Marino’s recent book, Votes for College Women: Alumni, Students, and the Woman Suffrage Campaign, (NYU Press, 2024) https://nyupress.org/9781479825196/votes-for-college-women/ pushes that chronology back even further by exploring the role that female college students and alumni played in the suffrage movement as well as in shaping college activism moving into the future.

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114: The Political Reconstruction of American Tobacco

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 04:00:00 GMT

In this episode of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast, Boyd Cothran talks with historian Patrick O’Connor about his new book, The Political Reconstruction of American Tobacco, 1862–1933.

Rather than treating tobacco primarily as a moral problem or a corporate success story, O’Connor approaches it as a window onto the making of the modern American state. Beginning with Civil War–era taxation and moving through the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the conversation traces how tobacco became deeply embedded in federal governance—through revenue collection, market regulation, inspection and classification regimes, agricultural science, and expert bureaucracy.

Along the way, we discuss how taxation helped create national markets, how “quality” and knowledge functioned as forms of power, how growers were disciplined through debt and market institutions, and how Progressive Era expertise reshaped both agriculture and state capacity. The episode also reflects on why tobacco proved so difficult to regulate or dismantle in the early twentieth century—and what this history can tell us about the long-standing challenges of governing harmful but profitable commodities.

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113 Unforgettable Sacrifice

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Cathleen talks with Dr. Hilary N. Green, whose most recent book, Unforgettable Sacrifice: How Black Communities Remembered the Civil War, was published by Fordham University Press in 2025. https://fordhampress.com/unforgettable-sacrifice-hb-9781531508531.html

An exciting addition to scholarship on Civil War memory with its focus on African American traditions of memorialization, the book also offers historians important methodological tools.

For Dr. Green's public history projects, see

With Their Hands: https://www.davidson.edu/news/2025/10/21/memorial-brings-unacknowledged-into-story

Hallowed Grounds https://www.hngreenphd.com/the-hallowed-grounds-project.html

We also mentioned Dr. Martha Jones' Hard History project at Johns Hopkins University:

https://hardhistory.jhu.edu/

We mentioned a number of books in our conversation including:

David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Harvard UP 2001)

Barbara A. Gannon, The Won Cause: Black and White Comradeship in the Grand Army of the Republic (The University of North Carolina Press, 2011)

Caroline Janney, Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation (University of North Carolina Press, 2013)

David Silkenat, Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2019)

Contact the host:

Cathleen Cahill

cdcahill@psu.edu

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112: The Menance of Prosperity

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 04:00:00 GMT

In this episode of The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast, Boyd Cothran speaks with historian Daniel Wortel-London about his new book, The Menace of Prosperity, a sweeping history of New York City and the political economy of urban growth from the aftermath of the Civil War through the late twentieth century.

The conversation centres on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, when New York’s leaders increasingly tied the city’s finances to real estate development, municipal debt, and rising property values. Wortel-London introduces two key concepts—social costs and fiscal imaginaries—to explain how elite-driven prosperity repeatedly generated fiscal crises, inequality, and instability, even as critics advanced alternative visions rooted in cooperation, public ownership, and democratic control of urban resources.

Along the way, Boyd and Daniel discuss the 1870s fiscal crisis and fears of “monstrous growth,” Gilded Age fiscal radicals and the cooperative commonwealth, Henry George and the single tax, Progressive Era debates over municipal ownership and planning, and interwar struggles over housing and economic stabilization. The episode concludes by tracing how these late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century choices shaped the New Deal, the 1970s fiscal crisis, and contemporary debates over housing, development, and inequality in New York.

The Menace of Prosperity is available from the University of Chicago Press

Contact the host:

Boyd Cothran can be reached at cothran@yorku.ca

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111: The Best of: Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 08:09:19 GMT

There are a few people that embody a period. Isabella Stewart Gardner knew many of the the movers and shakers of the Gilded Age and lived from 1840-1924. Her story, and her compulsion to buy the art of the age, makes her a great lens through which to understand the Gilded Age. Dr. Natalie Dykstra joins the show to discuss her latest biography of Bella.

Natalie Dykstra, Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner (2024).

The webpage for Clara Endicott Sear's Fruitland Museum can be found at https://thetrustees.org/place/fruitlands-museum/

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110: The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 04:00:00 GMT

In this festive episode of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era podcast, we welcome back food historian Becky L. Diamond to discuss her latest book, The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook. Using recipes as historical evidence, Becky takes us into nineteenth-century kitchens to explore how Christmas took shape during the Gilded Age—an era defined by inequality, immigration, and the rise of modern consumer culture.

We talk about forgotten holiday treats like sugar plums, German and Central European influences on the American Christmas table, the labor behind seasonal abundance, and the challenges of translating nineteenth-century recipes for modern kitchens. Along the way, Becky shows how food opens a powerful window onto aspiration, memory, and domestic life in the Gilded Age.

This episode builds on Becky’s earlier appearance on the podcast for The Gilded Age Cookbook and reminds us why food history belongs at the centre of Gilded Age and Progressive Era scholarship.

----

Becky L. Diamond, The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook (Lyons Press)

Becky L. Diamond, The Gilded Age Cookbook

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109: Best of: The Allure of Empire

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 04:00:00 GMT

While Cathleen and I are working on new content for the podcast—lots of great episodes are on the way—we’re also taking time to revisit some of Michael’s excellent past interviews.

For my second “best of” pick, I chose Episode 54, The Allure of Empire, which first aired on July 4, 2023. In this episode, Michael talks with historian Chris Suh about his award-winning book The Allure of Empire: American Encounters with Asians in the Age of Transpacific Expansion and Exclusion. Suh’s work invites us to rethink the Gilded Age and Progressive Era through the lens of empire—tracing how U.S. expansion in the Pacific intertwined with racial exclusion and the politics of belonging at home.

It’s a rich, thought-provoking conversation that shows how the legacies of the Gilded Age still shape America’s place in the world today.

We hope you’ll enjoy (re)listening as much as we did—and, as always, we’d love to hear which past episodes have been your favourites!

Essential Reading:

Chris Suh, The Allure of Empire: American Encounters with Asians in the Age of Transpacific Expansion and Exclusion (2023).

Recommended Reading:

David C. Atkinson, The Burden of White Supremacy: Containing Asian Migration in the British Empire and the United States (2016).

Eiichiro Azuma, Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America (2005).

Thomas Bender, A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History (2006).

Akira Iriye, Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion, 1897– 1911 (1972).

Richard S. Kim, The Quest for Sovereignty: Korean Immigration Nationalism and U.S. Sovereignty, 1905– 1945 (2011).

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108: Best of: Oceans of Grain: Wheat, Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S.

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 04:00:00 GMT

While Cathleen and I are working on new content for the podcast—stay tuned, there’s lots of exciting stuff coming—we wanted to take a moment to revisit some of Michael’s excellent past episodes.

For my first “best of” pick, I chose Episode 17, Oceans of Grain, which originally aired on March 2, 2022. In this episode, Michael talks with historian Scott Reynolds Nelson about how the global trade in wheat reshaped the modern world. It’s a fascinating look at how the Gilded Age and Progressive Era fit into a much larger story of empire, capitalism, and global connection.

When the episode first aired, Russia had just invaded Ukraine, and Nelson’s discussion of the Black Sea grain routes suddenly felt eerily relevant. Listening again now, it’s striking how powerfully this conversation links nineteenth-century global trade to the world we live in today.

We hope you’ll enjoy (re)listening as much as we did—and we’d love to know which episodes stand out as your favourites!

Essential Reading:

Scott Reynolds Nelson, Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Neal Ascherson, The Black Sea (1996).

Bettany Hughes, Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities (2017).

Avner Offer, The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (1989).

Vaclav Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and their Lasting Impact (2004).

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107: Best of: “Gilded? Progressive? Let’s Call the Whole thing Off?"

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 04:59:00 GMT

Boyd and I are working on new content for the podcast-we have lots of good stuff planned for the future.

But in the meantime, we wanted to take a moment to revisit some of Michael’s excellent content.

We each picked two of the previous episodes as our “best of” but we totally acknowledge that we could have picked many more than two; this was a very tough choice, but we hope you enjoy (re)listening as much as we did. And we'd love to know which are your favorite episodes!

Christopher McKnight Nichols and Nancy Unger, A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. (John Wiley & Sons, 2017)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118913994

For a nice short introduction to historical thinking with some more definitions, check out Flannery Burke and Thomas Andrews' Perspectives essay, "What Does it Mean to Think Historically": https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/what-does-it-mean-to-think-historically-january-2007/

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106: Recasting the Vote

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 03:59:00 GMT

Think you know the story of women’s suffrage? Think again. In this episode of The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast, Boyd sits down with co-host Cathleen D. Cahill to discuss her groundbreaking book Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement (UNC Press, 2020). Cahill’s book challenges the traditional narrative of women’s suffrage by centring the Indigenous, African American, Latina, and Asian American women who organized, mobilized, and redefined the fight for political rights.

Cahill introduces us to a cast of remarkable women—Zitkála-Šá, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Carrie Williams Clifford, and Adelina “Nina” Otero-Warren—who pushed the fight for the vote beyond white, middle-class reformers. Their activism linked suffrage to sovereignty, citizenship, immigration, and racial justice, recasting the movement as part of a much bigger struggle for equality.

Along the way, we explore why the story doesn’t end in 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment—and why it still matters for today’s fights over voting rights.

Further Reading:

Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (1997)

Martha S. Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (2020)

Michelle Duster, Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells (2021)

Alison M. Parker, Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell (2020)

Jad Adams, Women and the Vote: A World History (2014)

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105: The Sentimental State

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 06:02:28 GMT

Today Cathleen interviews Elizabeth Garner Masarik, about her book, The Sentimental State: How Women-Led Reform Created the American Welfare State (University of Georgia Press, 2024), which is the 2025 winner of SHGAPE's H. Wayne Morgan Book Prize. For more information about the Society's three book awards (deadlines in October) see https://www.shgape.org/prizes-awards/

Books mentioned by Dr. Masarik in today's interview:

Katherine G. Aiken, Harnessing the Power of Motherhood: The National Florence Crittenton Mission, 1883-1925 (University of Tennessee Press, 1998)
Brian Balogh, The Associational State: American Governance in the Twentieth Century (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)
Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 (Yale UP, 1993)
Rickie Solinger, Wake up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade (Routledge, 1992)
Molly Ladd Taylor, Raising a Baby the Government Way: Mothers’ Letters to the Children’s Bureau, 1915-1932 (Rutgers University Press, 1986)
Jane Tomkins, Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860 (Oxford UP, 1985)

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104: The Voyage of the Edwin Fox

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 13:38:17 GMT

Hello listeners! Boyd and Cathleen are back and looking forward to giving you more regular content this fall. This week, Cathleen interviews Boyd about his recent book, The Voyage of the Edwin Fox: How An Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization (UNC 2023). In this sweeping story of globalization seen from the deck of an ordinary ship, the small details, individual people, and multiple connections that made up this tumultuous moment in history become clear.

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103: Gilded Age Architect Richard Morris Hunt

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 04:00:00 GMT

In this episode, Boyd and Cathleen talk to Leslie Jones, Director of Museum Affairs and Chief Curator at The Preservation Society of Newport County, about the society's new exhibit: Richard Morris Hunt: In A New Light. Through the conversation we learned more about this important Gilded Age architect and his vision for American national identity that visible through his architectural projects, the organizations he helped found, and the large collection of his papers, many of which are on display here. The exhibit will run from May 30 – November 2, 2025 at Rosecliff Mansion in Newport.

For more information, follow this link: https://www.newportmansions.org/events/richard-morris-hunt-in-a-new-light/

One book that Leslie Jones mentioned, was Sam Waters's The Gilded Life of Richard Morris Hunt, which can be found here: https://gilesltd.com/product/gilded-life-richard-morris-hunt

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Introducing New Hosts Boyd and Cathleen

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 04:00:00 GMT

Cathleen Cahill and Boyd Cothran introduce themselves and lay out their plans for the Gilded Age & Progressive Era podcast over the next few months, including an upcoming interview with Leslie Jones, curator of the Newport Preservation Society's new exhibit about Gilded Age architect Richard Morris Hunt. Cathleen and Boyd also offer their gratitude to podcast creator and former host, Michael Cullinane, for trusting them with the podcast. They also thank former podcast intern Michael Connolly from Loyola University in Chicago; H-SHGAPE List Editor and host of another great podcast, Dig History, Elizabeth Masarik; and SHGAPE president ,Stacy Cordery, for their advice. Finally, they give their new contact information and invite feedback about the podcast and future episodes. Cathleen can be reached at cdcahill@psu.edu and is active on LinkedIn (Cathleen Cahill) and BlueSky (cathleendcahill.bsky.social) while Boyd can be reached at cothran@yorku.ca. Finally, the podcast's website can be found at https://www.shgape.org/the-gilded-age-and-progressive-era-podcast/

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Update!

Tue, 27 May 2025 23:00:00 GMT

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101st Episode: Anniversary and Update

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 23:00:31 GMT

This episode marks the show's anniversary and after nearly five years of production, host Michael Patrick Cullinane explains where the show might go from here.

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When Coins were King

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 23:00:00 GMT

In the Gilded Age, the coinage of gold and silver had real implications for the economy. Mike Moran joins the show to discuss his latest book When Coins Were King and how the bonanza in mines had a reaction in the Treasury.

Essential Reading:

Michael Moran, When Coins Were King (2025).

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Starlings: The Gilded Age Invasion

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Have you ever hated a bird? Pigeons might come to mind, but America's most hated bird is the European Starling and they got their start on the continent in the 1880s. The environmental history of the Starling is a story about hubris and the unintended consequences of human meddling with non-native species. Author Mike Stark joins me to discuss his latest book on the topic.

Essential Reading:

Mike Stark: Starlings: The Curious Odyssey of a Most Hated Bird (2025).

Recommended Reading:

Joel Greenberg, A Feathered River across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction (2014).

Andrea L. Smalley and Henry M. Reeves, The Market in Birds: Commercial Hunting, Conservation, and the Origins of Wildlife Consumerism, 1850–1920 (2022).

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Building the Metropolis

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Construction history is entirely unfamiliar to most scholars, and yet it is a crucial part of urban history. Alexander Wood joins the show to discuss how New York City was built from blueprints to scaffolding to demolition.

Essential Reading:

Alexander Wood, Building the Metropolis: Architecture, Construction, and Labor in New York City, 1880–1935 (2025).

Recommended Reading:

Joanne Abel Goldman, Building New York's Sewers: Developing Mechanisms of Urban Management (1997).

Gerard Koeppel, City on a Grid: How New York Became New York (2015).

Mike Wallace, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 (2017).

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The Pacific's New Navies

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Context is crucial and perspective is everything. Dr. Tommy Jamison's debut book about the growth of naval power in the Pacific is a wonderful addition to our understanding of Gilded Age security. We discuss the impact of Chile, Peru, China, and Japan on geopolitics and the US Navy.

Essential Reading:

Thomas Jamison, The Pacific's New Navies: An Ocean, its Wars, and the Making of US Sea Power (2024).

Recommended Reading:

William D. Riddell, On the Waves of Empire: U.S. Imperialism and Merchant Sailors, 1872-1924 (2023).

Marilyn Lake, Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and Transpacific Exchange Shaped American Reform (2019),

Rolf Hobson, Imperialism at Sea: Naval Strategic Thought, the Ideology of Sea Power, and the Tirpitz Plan, 1875-1914 (2002).

Elting Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy (1968).

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Roundtable: Native American Studies Today

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:45 GMT

Three expert scholars join the show to discuss the state of the field. My thanks to Dr. Cahill, Dr. Cothran, and Dr. Sweet. They have compiled important texts in the hope this bibliography can help aspiring minds to delver deeper. The full list is extensive and cannot be included in its entirety in the show notes, so please find a link to the complete list here.

Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America.

Bsumek, Indian-Made.

Cahill, Federal Fathers & Mothers.

Cothran, Remembering the Modoc War.

Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places.

Doerfler, Those Who Belong.

Farr, Blackfoot Redemption.

Gage, We Do Not Want the Gates Closed Between Us.

Harmon, Rich Indians.

Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn.

Kauanui, Hawaiian Blood.

LaPier, Invisible Reality.

Meyer, The White Earth Tragedy.

Ostler, Surviving Genocide.

Raibmon, Authentic Indians.

Roberts, I've Been Here all the While.

Silva, Aloha Betrayed.

Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies.

Sturm, Blood Politics.

Theobald, Reproduction on the Reservation.

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Women in the Valley of Kings

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 00:00:15 GMT

Who are the people who unearthed Egyptian antiquities and brought them to Western museums? Besides the countless male archaeologists we've heard about, several important women dug in the sands and their stories are an intersectional revelation. Kathleen Sheppard joins the show to talk about her book Women in the Valley of Kings.

Essential Reading:

Kathleen Sheppard, Women in the Valley of Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age (2024).

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Team of Giants

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:31 GMT

The Spanish-American War has a central place in the history of American empire; it also launched the careers of Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, and Richard Harding Davis. It propelled the Lost Cause mythology and set American ambitions for the century to come. Matthew Bernstein joins the show to discuss his latest book on the subject, Team of Giants.

Essential Reading:

Matthew Bernstein, Team of Giants: The Making of the Spanish American War (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Evan Thomas, The War Lovers (2010).

John Offner, An Unwanted War (1992).

Warren Zimmerman, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made their Country a World Power (2002).

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Interpreting Christmas

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 00:00:57 GMT

With the holidays upon us, let's take a closer look at the Gilded Age traditions that define Christmas and other end-of-year celebrations. Joining me is Ken Turino and Max van Belgooy the co-authors of Interpreting Christmas and one of the book's contributors, Lenora Henson. Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites takes a look at how the nation's cultural centers celebrate the holidays.

Essential Reading:

Ken Turino and Max van Belgooy (eds.), Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites (2024).

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Constructing Disability

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 00:00:01 GMT

The Great War transformed the world order, and it also revolutionized societies and individual experiences. In one of the year's most interesting books about the war's impact, Dr. Evan Sullivan explores the lives of blinded veterans and how their injuries completely changed the way we think about disability. Evan joins the show to discuss his book and the wider implications of disability studies for historical scholarship.

Essential Reading:

Evan Sullivan, Constructing Disability after the Great War: Blind Veterans in the Progressive Era (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Beth Linker, War's Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America (2011).

Audra Jennings, Out of the Horrors of War: Disability Politics in World War II America (2016).

Catherine J. Kudlick, "Disability History: Why We Need Another 'Other'," American Historical Review 108, no. 3 (June 2003).

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Learning for Work

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:00:56 GMT

With the industrial revolution came a revolution in the education of Americans. In this episode, Connie Goddard discusses her latest book on the industrial education system that taught Americans how to do trades, skilled labor activities, and generally find work in factories and industrial jobs.

Essential Reading:

Connie Goddard, Learning for Work: How Industrial Education Fostered Democratic Opportunity (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Kelly Ann Kolondy, Normalites: The First Professionally Prepared Teachers in the United States (2014).

Christopher J. Lucas, Teacher Education in America: Reform Agendas for the Twenty-First Century (1997).

Helen Proctor and Kellie Burns, The Curriculum of the Body and the School as Clinic: Histories of Public Health and Schooling (2023).

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Gilded Age Mythology: A Roundtable

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:00:46 GMT

Presidential elections often serve as periodic demarcations from one historical epoch to another. 1876 has often been seen as the beginning of the Gilded Age. This roundtable episode brings together leading scholars of American law and politics to discuss the virtues and vices of this approach with the aim of determining if we can make sense of American political history from the Gilded Age to the present.

Essential Reading:

Richard Slotkin, A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America (2024).

Cynthia Nicoletti, Secession on Trial: The Treason Prosecution of Jefferson Davis (2017).

Recommended Reading:

Heather Cox Richardson, "Reconstruction and the Gilded Age and Progressive Era" in A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2017).

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Spiritualism's Place

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:00:22 GMT

What do philanthropist Jane Stanford, author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln have in common? They all conducted séances. Spiritualism was popular in the Gilded Age, and Lily Dale, NY is the epicenter of the movement. From the voices that gave you Dig: A History Podcast comes Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Seances in Lily Dale. One of the authors - Dr. Elizabeth Garner Masarik - joins the show to discuss their new book.

Essential Reading:

Averill Earls, Sarah Handley-Cousins, Marissa Rhodes, and Elizabeth Garner Masarik, Spiritualism’s Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Seances in Lily Dale (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Robert S. Cox, Body and Soul: A Sympathetic History of American Spiritualism (2003).

Molly McGarry, Ghosts of Futures Past: Spiritualism and the Cultural Politics of Nineteenth-Century America (2008).

Bret E. Carroll, Spiritualism in Antebellum America (1997).

Cathy Gutierrez, Plato's Ghost: Spiritualism in the American Renaissance (2009).

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Imposter Heiress

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 23:00:23 GMT

I often say how similar the Gilded Age and Progressive Era is like our contemporary times. With this show, I take it back. Cassie Chadwick was able to swindle the banks in a way that would be impossible today. Listen to Annie Reed discuss her debut book, Imposter Heiress.

Essential Reading:

Annie Reed, Imposter Heiress: Cassie Chadwick, the Greatest Grifter of the Gilded Age (2024).

Oil Cities

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 23:00:51 GMT

The heyday of the boomtowns of Northern Louisiana is long since passed, but their mark on the geography and environment still lingers. Henry Wiencek joins us to discuss his new book, Oil Cities, and the people who built, occupied, and abandoned these towns.

Essential Reading:

Henry Wiencek, Oil Cities: The Making of North Louisiana’s Boomtowns, 1901-1930 (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Brian Black, Petrolia: The Landscape of America’s First Oil Boom (2000).

Terence Daintith, Finders Keepers? How the Law of Capture Shaped the World Oil Industry (2010).

Daneil Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (2009).

Perry W. Howard, Political Tendencies in Louisiana (1971)

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A Wonderful Career in Crime

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 23:00:07 GMT

While the Gilded Age led to the rise of robber barons and railroad tycoons, it also led to the proliferation of another type of character, the con artist. Frank Garmon Jr. joins us to discuss the life Charles Cowlam, a confidence man and charlatan who spent decades making his money by swindling everyone from prime ministers and presidents to working men and wealthy women.

Essential Reading:

Frank Garmon, Jr., A Wonderful Career in Crime: Charles Cowlam’s Masquerades in the Civil War Era and Gilded Age (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Timothy J. Gilfoyle, A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York (2006).

Brian P Luskey, Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America (2020).

Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870 (1982).

Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (1987).

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Massacre in the Clouds

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 23:00:42 GMT

In early March 1906, the United States Army and the Filipino Constabulary attacked a insurgent outpost of Moros on the island of Jolo. Over 1,000 men, women, and children were killed in the battle, and less than two dozen Americans lost their lives. It was deemed an atrocity by all observers, even the soldiers that took part. Professor Kim Wagner recalls this violent episode in his latest book.

Essential Reading:

Kim Wagner, Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Paul A. Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (2006).

Stuart Creighton Miller, Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 (1982).

Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917 (2000).

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Zouave Theaters

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 23:00:14 GMT

During the nineteenth century, the Zouave was everywhere. The uniform characterized by an open, collarless jacket, baggy trousers, and a fez, originated in French Algeria, but became common amongst military men in France, the United States, and the Papal States, taking on a life of its own. Historians Carol E. Harrison and Thomas J. Brown join us to explain the often-misunderstood outfit and its connection to colonialism, race, gender, fashion, and military tactics, and dress.

Essential Reading:

Carol E. Harrison and Thomas J. Brown, Zouave Theaters: Transnational Military Fashion and Performance (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (2006).

John Bierman, Napoleon III and His Carnival Empire (1988).

Lorien Foote, The Gentlemen and the Roughs: Violence, Honor, and Manhood in the Union Army (2010).

Charles A. Coulombe, The Pope’s Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force that Defended the Vatican (2008).

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Red Dead History

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 16:57:09 GMT

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the best-selling video games of all time, but what is the history behind the game? Dr. Tore C. Olsson joins us to talk about the game itself, how video games are teaching American history, and what historians can learn from engaging with popular culture.

Essential Reading:

Tore Olsson, Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1987).

Ari Kelman, A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek (2013).

Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2011).

William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (1991).

S. Paul O’Hara, Inventing the Pinkertons, or Spires, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs: Being Story of the Nation’s Most Famous (and Infamous) Detective Agency (2016).

William Link, Southern Crucible: The Making of an American Region (2015).

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American Anarchy

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 23:00:31 GMT

What is anarchy? In the Gilded Age, the United States felt the convulsions of several radical ideologies, but none as violent and complex as the anarchist movement. Dr. Michael Willrich joins the show to discuss the key personalities and episodes that gave rise to a new approach to criminal justice and immigration law.

Essential Reading:

Michael Willrich, American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Beverly Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror (2009).

Richard Bach Jensen, The Battle Against Anarchist Terrorism: An International History, 1878-1934 (2014).

James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (2009).

David M. Rabban, Free Speech in its Forgotten Years (1997).

Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America (2015).

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Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 23:01:32 GMT

The Gilded Age West was a place to disappear for some. For Ray Hamilton and Jake Sargent - men from distinguished eastern families that sought privacy after scandals turned their lives apart - the West could not shield them from ongoing intrigue. Dr. Maura Jane Farrelly joins the show to talk about her latest book Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent, which detail these men's lives and those around them in Jackson, Wyoming.

Essential Reading:

Maura Jane Farrelly, Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Wendy Gonaver, The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840-1880 (2019).

Aaron Freundschuh, The Courtesan and the Gigolo: The Murders in the Rue Montaigne and the Dark Side of Empire in Nineteenth Century Paris (2017).

Julie Miller, Abandoned: Foundlings in Nineteenth-Century New York City (2008).

Stephen O'Connor, Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children he Saved and Failed (2001).

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Roundtable: Birth of a Nation

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 23:00:20 GMT

One of the most controversial and innovative motion pictures in American history is D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation about the end of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Lost Cause mythology. Michael Connolly joins Dr. Robert Bland, Dr. Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders, and Dr. Paul McEwan to discuss the way this film shaped, and continues to shape our conversations about race and politics.

Essential Watching:

D. W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation (1915).

Recommended Reading:

Allyson Hobbs, "A Hundred Years Later "Birth of a Nation" Hasn't Gone Away," New Yorker, December 13, 2015.

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White Man's Work

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 23:00:27 GMT

The intersections of race and class or work and power has tantalizing effects on our understanding of history. It can reshape our appreciation of socio-cultural norms and the way we define the Gilded Age. Joseph Jewell's latest book White Man's Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility into the Progressive Era takes the reader through the changing social structures caused by industrialization and Reconstruction, and the attendant anxieties these changes wrought among White communities.

Essential Reading:

Joseph O. Jewell, White Man's Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility into the Progressive Era (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Arnoldo De León, The Tejano Community, 1836-1900 (1982).

Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor (2004).

Erika Lee, At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (2003).

Raúl A. Ramos, Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861 (2008).

Philip F. Rubio, There's Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality (2010).

Eric S. Yellin, Racism in the Nation's Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson's America (2013).

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The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt

Tue, 28 May 2024 23:00:57 GMT

This episode is a feed drop from the Brattleboro Literary Cocktail Hour, a monthly event hosted by the Brattleboro Literary Festival. I am in conversation with Ed O'Keefe, the author of The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women who Created a President. Given Roosevelt's lifetime overlaps the Gilded Age and Progressive Era quite neatly, and the women in his life have gotten short shrift, I thought this would be of interest to podcast listeners.

Please also check out the podcast sponsor SHGAPE (Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era)

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Preserved: A Cultural History of the Funeral Home

Tue, 14 May 2024 23:00:13 GMT

SHOW SPONSOR SHGAPE & The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era:

I have never thought of funeral directors as the preservationists of Gilded Age architecture, but they are. Thanks to Dr. Dean Lampros's cross-disciplinary research on the cultural history of these residential funeral parlours we see the remnants of the Gilded Age in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Dean joins me to discuss his new book, and the amazing research he has compiled.

Essential Reading:

Dean Lampros, Preserved: A Cultural History of the Funeral Home in America (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death (1963).

Stephen Prothero, Purified by Fire: A History of Cremation in America (2002).

Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2004).

Gary Laderman, Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (2005).

Marilyn Yalom, The American Resting Place: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds (2008).

Suzanne Smith, To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death (2010).

Michael Rosenow, Death and Dying in the Working Class, 1865 – 1920 (2015).

Caitlin Doughty, From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death (2018).

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Mining the Irish West

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:00:30 GMT

The Irish are best known for migrating to American cities along the east coast, notably Boston and New York. Dr. Alan Noonan joins the show to explain how the Irish also moved to the American West, and settled among mining communities in places like Butte and Virginia City. Noonan's narrative is rich with stories about race, class, religion, and imagined communities, making his book a must read for scholars of industrialization and migration.

Essential Reading:

Alan J. M. Noonan, Mining Irish-American Lives: Western Communities from 1849 to 1920 (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Michael MacGowan, The Hard Road to Klondike (2003).

Kerby A. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (1988).

Janet Floyd, Claims and Speculation: Mining and Writing in the Gilded Age (2012).

Elliot J. Gorn, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America (2015).

David M. Emmons, The Butte Irish: Class and Ethnicity in an American Mining Town, 1875-1920 (1989).

Liping Zhu, A Chinaman's Chance: The Chinese on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier (2000).

J. Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets off a Struggle for the Soul of America (1998).

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Chasing Beauty

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 23:12:05 GMT

Essential Reading:

Natalie Dykstra, Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner (2024).

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Missionary Diplomacy

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 23:00:06 GMT

Thousands of Christian missionaries left the United States in search of souls to save. They often found trouble. And almost always became non-governmental diplomats, whether as translators or unofficial representatives. Dr. Emily Conroy-Krutz joins the show to explain how they influenced international relations in unexpected ways.

Essential Reading:

Emily Conroy-Krutz, Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (2024).

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The Money Kings

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:00:12 GMT

Jacob Schiff, Joseph Seligman, Marcus Goldman, and the Lehman Brothers have one thing in common. All were Jewish immigrants who made a fortune as financiers in the United States. Best-selling author and journalist Daniel Schulman tells their story and explains how left an indelible mark on American society.

Essential Reading:

Daniel Schulman, The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Susie Pak, Gentlemen Bankers: The World of J. P. Morgan (2013).

Roger Lowenstein, America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve (2016).

Christopher Shaw, Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic (2019).

Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild (1998).

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Special Episode: 2 Complicated 4 History

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:00:53 GMT

In this special episode, The Gilded Age and Progressive Era is taken over by popular podcast 2 Complicated 4 History and hosts Dr Lynn Price Robbins and Isaac Loftus. 2 Complicated 4 History is a show that examines the "deleted scenes" of history. In each episode, a different guest bringing a fresh perspective to the history you thought you knew.

This episode leads with the question: Is it the government's job to legislate the social behavior of its citizens? In the Progressive Era, many elites believed that it was, and they created institutions to "fix" non compliance. Lynn and Isaac are joined by Dr. Erin Bush to discuss child delinquency and social control at the turn of the twentieth century.

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Pax Economica

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:03 GMT

Economics might study trade, commerce, and financial markets, but the discipline explores human interaction as much as any other subject. The idea of free trade, especially the idea espoused by Richard Cobden, intersected with the millennial pursuit of peace like two halves of the same walnut. Marc William Palen joins the show to explain the legacy of Cobden and others in the global story of free trade and pacifism.

Essential Reading:

Marc William Palen, Pax Economica: Left Wing Visions of a Free Trade World (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Johanna Bockman, Markets in the Name of Socialism: The Left-Wing Origins of Neoliberalism (2011).

Eric Helleiner, The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History (2021).

Douglas Irwin, Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (1998).

Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018).

Thomas Zeiler, Capitalist Peace: A History of American Free-Trade Internationalism (2022).

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World War I and Modern Intelligence

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:56 GMT

When did modern intelligence gathering begin? The Gilded Age, of course. Dr. Mark Stout joins the show to discuss his book World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence. The advent of new technologies and the necessities of modern war show how a major transition occurred between the Civil War and World War II.

Essential Reading:

Mark Stout, World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence (2024).

Dressed for Freedom

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:13 GMT

The white dresses of suffragists stand out as one example of women's fashion that made a statement. Einav Rabinovitch-Fox joins the show to discuss her book Dressed for Freedom: American Feminism and the Politics of Women’s Fashion and the many ways that style brought the substance of women's activism into the public discourse.

Essential Reading:

Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, Dressed for Freedom: American Feminism and the Politics of Women’s Fashion (2021).

Recommended Reading:

Elizabeth Block, Dressing Up: The Women Who Influenced French Fashion (2021).

Nan Enstad, Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (1999).

Patricia Campbell Warner, When the Girls Came Out to Play: The Birth of American Sportswear (2006).

Patricia A. Cunningham, Reforming Women’s Fashion, 1850-1920: Politics, Health, and Art (2003).

Deborah Saville, “Dress and Culture in Greenwich Village,” in Twentieth-Century American Fashion, ed. Linda Walters and Patricia A. Cunningham (2005).

Allison Lange, Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women's Suffrage Movement (2020).

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The Octopus and the Orange

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 00:00:37 GMT

The rise of the Southern Pacific Railroad in California owes a great deal to the citrus industry and vice versa. Ben Jenkins joins the show to discuss how these two industries came to define the state during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Essential Reading:

Benjamin Jenkins, The Octopus's Garden: How Railroads and Citrus Transformed Southern California (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Genevieve Carpio, Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race (2019).

Jared Farmer, Trees in Paradise: The Botanical Conquest of California (2017).

Phoebe Kropp, California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place (2008).

Richard J. Orsi, Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1950-1930 (2007).

Douglas Sackman, Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden (2007).

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Feeble Times

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 00:04:45 GMT

How much can a president do to shepherd the economy? The question has bedevilled the inhabitants of the White House since the office came into being, and it has material relevance for elections, democracy, social policy, and international relations. Mark Zachary Taylor joins the show to explain his findings on this topic, and to discuss his latest book Presidential Leadership in Feeble Times.

Essential Reading:

Mark Zachary Taylor, Presidential Leadership in Feeble Times: Explaining Executive Power in the Gilded Age (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Edward O. Frantz (ed.), A Companion to the Reconstruction Presidents, 1865 - 1881 (2014).

Mark Wahlgren Summers, Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics (2005).

Jane McAlevey, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age (2020).

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Special Episode: The Gilded Age Cookbook

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 20:40:27 GMT

Are you stuck for that showstopper holiday roast or side dish? Becky Diamond's latest book, The Gilded Age Cookbook is there to help. Go back in time to see how families ate during the holidays. And please try the "devilled spaghetti." The recipe is listed here!

Essential Reading:

Becky Diamond, The Gilded Age Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from America's Golden Era (2023).

Recommended Recipe (Full Recipe in Book):

Butter six ramekins or Texas-size muffin pans and set aside.

Cook the spaghetti until al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain and allow to cool. When cool, chop finely and set aside.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk together to form a paste. Add the milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Turn down to low and add the chopped eggs, salt, cayenne, onion powder, nutmeg, and parsley.

Add the spaghetti to the sauce, stirring until combined. Using a large ladle, divide spaghetti mixture among the ramekins or muffin pan cups.

Mix bread crumbs and melted butter in a small bowl. Spoon on top of spaghetti.

Transfer to the oven and bake for 30 minutes until tops are nicely browned. Remove from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes. When cool, remove from the muffin pan by running a knife around the edges and carefully turning out onto a plate. If using ramekins, serve in the individual ramekin dishes. Make an indentation in the top of each with the back of a spoon and add a teaspoon of chili sauce if desired. Serve immediately.

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The Cost of Free Land

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:00:50 GMT

How does a family of Jewish homesteaders interact with the indigenous people of the Great Plains? Journalist Rebecca Clarren explains how her family immigrated from Russia to South Dakota, lured by the promise of free land and how generations later she writes how it came at the expense of the Lakota. This book might grapple with the past, but it is not hard to find the contemporary relevance.

Essential Reading:

Rebecca Clarren, The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020).

Pekka Hämäläinen, Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power (2019).

Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (2023).

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The Summer of 1876

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 00:00:50 GMT

There are some years, and some seasons within a given year, that bear witness to immense change. Chris Wimmer, a podcaster and public historian, tells the story of the Summer of 1876, one such year and one such season.

Essential Reading:

Chris Wimmer, The Summer of 1876 (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Bill Bryson, One Summer: America, 1927 (2013).

T. J. Stiles, Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America (2017).

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1898: Visions and Revisions

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

One of the most consequential wars in global history happened in 1898, and despite the 125th anniversary of that war, there has been little attention paid to this conflict. One exception is the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition 1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions. The museum's curator Taína Caragol and historian Kate Clarke Lemay who created the exhibition join the show to explain why it was so important to showcase the events of that fateful year.

Essential Reading:

Taína Caragol and Kate Clarke Lemay, 1898: Visual Culture and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific (2023).

1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revision (exhibition website)

Recommended Reading:

Bonnie Miller, From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898 (2011).

Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood (2000).

Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917 (2001).

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Custer's Trials

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 06:00:13 GMT

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian T. J. Stiles joins the show to talk about George Armstrong Custer, and the art of biography writing. As one of the leading authors of the Gilded Age we also take on the question of periodization, uncomfortable history, and unlikeable historical figures.

Essential Reading:

T.J. Stiles, Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America (2016).

Recommended Reading:

Robert Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891 (1974).

Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1987).

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Hangin' Charlie Flinn

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 06:00:18 GMT

Better known to Californians as Mortimer, this week's episode takes us to the Wild West and the Pacific coast's most wanted outlaw Charlie Flinn. Matthew Bernstein joins the show to discuss his latest book Hanging Charlie Flinn, a page-turning tale of theft, murder, and jailbreaks.

Essential Reading:

Matthew Bernstein, Hanging Charley Flinn: The Short and Violent Life of the Boldest Criminal in Frontier California (2023).

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The American Renaissance in Architecture

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 06:00:17 GMT

The architecture of the Gilded Age differed from that which came before and after. Phillip James Dodd joins me to discuss the various ways Beaux Arts design transformed the era, and the people responsible for the architectural renaissance that drew upon Greek and Roman style for the new American republic.

Essential Reading:

Phillip James Dodd, An American Renaissance: Beaux-arts Architecture in New York City (2021).

Recommended Reading:

Wayne Craven, Gilded Mansions: Grand Architecture and High Society (2009).

Zachery J. Violette, The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders and Architects Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age (2019).

Susanne Hinman, The Grandest Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal, and Architecture in Gilded Age New York (2019).

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The Modern Research University

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 23:00:24 GMT

Daniel Coit Gilman is one of the Gilded Age's most important university presidents, and finally we have a book about his influence at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins universities and the Carnegie Institute. His biographer is a university president, too. Michael T. Benson, president of Carolina Coastal University joins the show to talk about Gilman and the start of modern universities in America.

Essential Reading:

Michael T. Benson, Daniel Coit Gilman and the Modern University (2023).

Recommended Reading:

John Thelin, A History of American Higher Education (2019, third edition).

Jonathan Cole, The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected (2012).

Hal Boyd and Michael Benson, "The Public University: Recalling Higher Education’s Democratic Purpose," NEA Journal (2015).

Daniel Coit Gilman’s inaugural speech (1876 at Johns Hopkins).

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The Waves of Empire

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 23:00:22 GMT

As the labor movement pushed for greater recognition, pay, and conditions in the workplace (on land), the sailors of America had a tougher fight. The nature of maritime commerce made sailors foreign in a domestic sense, as the Supreme Court would rule. Geography complicated their place in constitutional law, and made them at once victims and agents of the American empire. Will Riddell joins me to discuss these labor issues and his new book On the Waves of Empire.

Essential Reading:

William D. Riddell, On the Waves of Empire: U.S. Imperialism and Merchant Sailors, 1872-1924 (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Julie Greene, “The Wages of Empire: Capitalism, Expansion, and Working-Class Formation,” in Daniel E. Bender and Jana K. Lipman (eds.), Making the Empire Work: Labor and United States Imperialism (2015) 35-58.

Beth Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America (2018).

Leon Fink, Sweatshops of the Sea: Merchant Seamen in the World’s First Globalized Industry, From 1812 to the Present (2011).

Moon-Ho Jung, Menace to Empire: Anti-Colonial Solidarities and the Transpacific Origins of the U.S. National Security State (2022).

Marilyn Lake, Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and Transpacific Exchange Shaped American Reform (2019),

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What I Learned in Newport

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 23:00:19 GMT

The 2023 Spring seminar series at the Breakers, hosted by the Preservation Society of Newport County focused on the transformation of the United States in the Gilded Age. Listen to CEO of the Society Trudy Coxe and Director of Curation and Programming Leslie Jones talk about the series. Here also are the links to the various lectures:

Visit the Newport Preservation Society

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The Rough Rider and the Professor

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 23:00:51 GMT

The lives and friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge spanned the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Few other politicians had such a monumental impact on the time, and Dr. Laurence Jurdem joins the show to explain of their friendship came to define the period.

Essential Reading:

Laurence Jurdem, The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship that Changed American History (2023).

Recommended Reading:

John A. Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge: A Biography (1965).

William Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (1961).

Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918 (1925).

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Race and American Socialism

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 23:00:00 GMT

The rise of socialism in the United States parallels the sprawl of industrial capitalism. The intellectual debates about how Marxism would play out in America became ever more complex when the Socialist Labor Party considered the idea race. Dr. Lorenzo Costaguta joins the show to explain how scientific racism - in its various forms - divided socialist activists and eventually contributed to the decline of the Socialist Labor Party of America.

Essential Reading:

Lorenzo Costaguta, Workers of All Colors Unite: Race and the Origins of American Socialism (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Daniel E. Bender, American Abyss: Savagery and Civilization in the Age of Industry (2013).

Philip S. Foner, American Socialism and Black Americans: From the Age of Jackson to World War II (1977).

Paul Heideman (ed.), Class Struggle and the Color Line: American Socialism and the Race Question, 1900-1930 (2018).

Sally M. Miller (ed.), Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Early Twentieth-century American Socialism (1999).

Mark Pittenger, American Socialists and Evolutionary Thought, 1870-1920 (1993).

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The Allure of Empire

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 23:00:07 GMT

How did Japan's rise to world power change the dynamics of geopolitics, and the way imperial powers viewed non-White people? Chris Suh joins the podcast to discuss his debut book on the effects of Japanese imperialism and the transformation of the Pacific world.

Essential Reading:

Chris Suh, The Allure of Empire: American Encounters with Asians in the Age of Transpacific Expansion and Exclusion (2023).

Recommended Reading:

David C. Atkinson, The Burden of White Supremacy: Containing Asian Migration in the British Empire and the United States (2016).

Eiichiro Azuma, Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America (2005).

Thomas Bender, A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History (2006).

Akira Iriye, Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion, 1897– 1911 (1972).

Richard S. Kim, The Quest for Sovereignty: Korean Immigration Nationalism and U.S. Sovereignty, 1905– 1945 (2011).

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The Wrath to Come

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 23:00:32 GMT

Where does the Old South end and the New South begin? The transition comes with Scarlet O'Hara and Margaret Mitchell's blockbuster romance Gone with the Wind. Here the ideas of the Lost Cause mythology take root, and the promise and peril of industrial capitalism take shape. Professor Sarah Churchwell joins the podcast to discuss her new book and how we all should be re-reading Mitchell's novel with today's context in mind.

Essential Reading:

Sarah Chruchwell, The Wrath to Come (2023).

Sarah Churchwell, Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream (2018).

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Making Catholic America

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 10:37:21 GMT

From the anti-Catholicism of the Know Nothings to the present-day Catholic nationalism in American politics, the Church and its leaders have left an indelible mark on society. Dr. William Cossen joins the show to explain how the idea of Catholic nationalism came to be in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Essential Reading:

William S. Cossen, Making Catholic America: Religious Nationalism in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Maura Jane Farrelly, Papist Patriots: The Making of an American Catholic Identity (2012).

Jenny Franchot, Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism (1994).

Jon Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America (2012).

John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (2003).

Kevin M. Schultz, Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Post-war America to Its Protestant Promise (2011).

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Citizens of the World

Tue, 23 May 2023 23:00:06 GMT

The peace movement, global citizenship, and global government are wrapped up in this week's episode. Dr. Megan Threlkeld joins to discuss her book Citizens of the World, which takes on these subjects and the role that nine women played in shaping the idea of global citizenship. Given the rise of internationalism in this period, Dr. Threlkeld's book is vital to how we interpret international relations in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Essential Reading:

Megan Threlkeld, Citizens of the World: U.S. Women and Global Government (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Keisha N. Blain and Tiffany M. Gill (eds.), To Turn the Whole World Over: Black Women and Internationalism (2019).

Daniel Gorman, International Cooperation in the Early Twentieth Century (2017).

Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The History of an Idea (2012).

Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler (eds.), Women’s International Thought: A New History (2021).

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The Pinchot Family

Tue, 09 May 2023 23:00:36 GMT

Some families are synonymous with the Gilded Age and Progressive Era: the Vanderbilts, the LaFollettes, the Roosevelts, and the Astors to name a few. Dr. David Patterson joins the show to remind us of another dynasty: the Pinchots, a reform-minded, Presbyterian family that held sway in Washington and Pennsylvania from the Civil War to the Kennedy administration.

Essential Reading:

David Patterson, The Pinchots: A Family Saga (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer (1998).

Bibi Gaston: The Loveliest Woman in America: A Tragic Actress, Her Lost Diaries, and Her Granddaughter’s Search for Home (2008).

Char Miller, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (2001).

Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (1947).

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Special Episode: Historical Fiction

Tue, 02 May 2023 23:00:25 GMT

Joy Callaway writes novels - novels infused with historical research. Her latest is a Gilded Age romance story set in Westchester Co., New York.

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A Lynching at Port Jervis

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 23:00:21 GMT

Throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, lynching took place across the country, even if we think of it as a phenomenon exclusive to southern states. Acclaimed historian and author of civil rights Philip Dray tells a different story, of a lynching in New York that rocked the small town of Port Jervis. The murder of Robert Lewis by a mob has great significance for how we remember the past and consider the present day.

Essential Reading:

Philip Dray, A Lynching at Port Jervis: Race and Reckoning in the Gilded Age (2022).

Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (2003).

Recommended Reading:

Richard Brown, Strains of Violence: Historical Studies of Violence and Vigilantism (1975).

Dan Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South (1979).

A.J. Williams-Myers, Long Hammering: Essays on the Forging of an African-American Presence in the Hudson River Valley (1994).

Jacqueline Goldsby, A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature (2006).

Michael J, Pfeifer, Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society 1847-1947 (2004).

Amy Wood, Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940 (2009).

Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor and Politics in the Post Civil War North, 1865-1901 (2001).

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The Star Route Scandal

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 23:00:46 GMT

The Gilded Age had its fare share of political scandals, and the Star Route scandal ranks as one of its most important. It exposed the spoils system at a time when public debate about good government filled the headlines. Why has this scandal remained so obscure when compared to others like Credit Mobilier or the Whiskey Ring. Professor Shawn Peters joins the show to discuss his latest book When Bad Men Combine, the story of the star route scandal.

Essential Reading:

Shawn Francis Peters, When Bad Men Combine: The Star Route Scandal and the Twilight of Gilded Age Politics (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America (2016).

Lewis L. Gould, The Republicans: A History of the Grand Old Party (2014).

Adelbert Bower Sageser, The First Two Decades of the Pendleton Act: A Study of Civil Service Reform (1935).

Thomas C. Reeves, Gentleman Boss: the Life of Chester Alan Arthur (1975).

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In the Archives

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 23:00:46 GMT

In this episode, Dr. Michelle Krowl joins me to talk about the archives, and specifically one the biggest archives in the world, the Library of Congress. Michelle works there as the historical specialist on the Civil War and Reconstruction. She is also a specialist for the presidential papers from James K. Polk to William Howard Taft, and thereby an expert on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

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Child Labor and the Law

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:00:25 GMT

Child labor regulation seems emblematic of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and yet federal legislation to protect children only became settled law many decades later. Professor John Fliter joins the show to discuss the history of child labor laws and how it has shaped the contemporary political debates.

Essential Reading:

John A. Fliter, Child Labor in America: The Epic Legal Struggle to Protect Children (2018).

Recommended Reading:

Betsy Wood, Upon the Altar of Work: Child Labor and the Rise of a New American Sectionalism (2020).

Hugh D. Hindman, Child Labor: An American History (2002).

Vincent DiGirolamo, Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys (2019).

Paul Chrystal, Factory Girls: The Working Lives of Women and Children (2022).

James D. Schmit, Industrial Violence and the Legal Origins of Child Labor (2010).

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Henry George: Land and Liberty

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:00:56 GMT

If any figure of the Gilded Age has major relevance on the lives of the working class today - especially those that cannot or struggle to buy a home - it is Henry George. The best-selling author and single tax advocate offered Americans and the world a big idea that could change the way governments tax its people.

Essential Reading:

Christopher William England, Land and Liberty: Henry George and the Crafting of Modern Liberalism (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879).

Edward T. O'Donnell, Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age (2015).

Phillip J. Bryson, The Economics of Henry George: History's Rehabilitation of America's Greatest Early Economist (2011).

Mary M. Cleveland, "The Economics of Henry George: A Review Essay," The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 71, no. 2 (April 2012): 498-511.

Ramesh Chandra, "Allyn Young on Henry George and the Single Tax," Review of Political Economy 34, no. 4 (December 2022): 766-88.

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The Silver Women

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 00:00:15 GMT

Historians often look for excluded voices, and that task is difficult because archives keep scarcer records of ordinary people leading seemingly ordinary lives. When a scholar finds records that can tell a new story it is exciting. Professor Joan Flores Villalobos accomplishes this task in the story of The Silver Women. She joins me to talk about migrant women who transformed the Panama Canal project.

Essential Reading:

Joan Flores Villalobos, The Silver Women: How Black Women's Labor Made the Panama Canal (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Velma Newton, The Silver Men: West Indian Labour Migration to Panama, 1850-1914 (2004).

Julie Greene, The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal (2009).

David McCullough, The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (1977).

Walter Lafeber, Panama Canal The Crisis in Historical Perspective (1978).

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Special Episode: Disrupting Time

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:59:48 GMT

This special episode is a reading by author Aaron Stark from his new book Disrupting Time, an account of the Waltham Watch Company and the international espionage that led to its demise.

https://www.aaronstarkbooks.com/

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The Chinese Exclusion Act

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:58 GMT

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first federal legislation to prohibit an entire nation of people from coming to the United States. It instigated a century or more or immigration regulations and codified "illegal" immigration. Dr. Ben Railton joins the show to explore the act. Ten years ago, Ben wrote about how the legislation still reverberates throughout the twentieth century, and in this episode we bring that history to bear on current events.

Essential Reading:

Benjamin Railton, The Chinese Exclusion Act: What It Can Teach Us about America (2013).

Recommended Reading:

Hidetaka Hirota, Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (2017).

Jane Hong, Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion (2019).

Erika Lee, America for Americans and The Making of Asian America (2016).

Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller, Fortunate Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization (2011).

Beth Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America (2021).

Robert Weir, Knights Unhorsed: Internal Conflict in a Gilded Age Social Movement (2000).

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The Politics of Trash

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 00:00:53 GMT

Professors Patricia Strach and Kathleen Sullivan are better known in political science circles as "The Garbage Girls." They have been researching the history and politics of trash collection for nearly a decade, which culminates in a most important book called The Politics of Trash. They join me to talk about why your waste matters.

Essential Reading:

Patricia Strach and Kathleen S. Sullivan, The Politics of Trash: How Governments Used Corruption to Clean Cities, 1890–1929 (2022)

Recommended Reading:

Joel A. Tarr, Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective (1996).

Martin V. Melosi, Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment (2004).

Stanley K. Schultz and Clay McShane, “To Engineer the Metropolis: Sewers, Sanitation, and City Planning in Late-Nineteenth America,” The Journal of American History 65, no. 2 (September 1978): 389-411

Carl A. Zimring, Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States (2016).

Kimberley S. Johnson, Reforming Jim Crow: Southern Politics and State in the Age before Brown (2010).

Carol Nackenoff and Julie Novkov, eds., Statebuilding from the Margins: Between Reconstruction and the New Deal (2014).

Jessica Trounstine, Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities (2018).

Lily Baum Pollans, Resisting Garbage: The Politics of Waste Management in American Cities (2021).

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Edith Wharton: In Morocco

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 00:00:51 GMT

Edith Wharton ranks as one of the Gilded Age's most prolific and popular writers. In this episode, Professor Stacy Holden tells us about her research on Wharton's lesser known travelogue In Morocco, a revealing account of the author's travels to the French and Spanish colony. It tells us a great deal about American and European imperialism, and the Orientalism that pervaded her thinking.

Essential Reading:

Edith Wharton, In Morocco (1920).

Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton (2007).

Recommended Reading:

Julie Olin-Ammentorp, Edith Wharton’s Writings from the Great War (2004).

Alan Price, The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton and the First World War (1996).

Andrew Patrick, America’s Forgotten Middle East Initiative: The King-Crane Commission of 1919 (2015).

Andrew Priest, Designs on Empire (on the podcast in 2022).

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Special Episode: Five Little Peppers

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:00:38 GMT

Last year, we had Professor Thomas Ruys Smith with us to talk about his book Christmas Past. Keeping in the festive spirit, Tom has returned, and with co-conspirator Professor Hilary Emmett to do a special holiday reading of a Gilded Age classic Five Little Peppers. This was one of the biggest stories of its day and it launched Margaret Sidney's career into the stratosphere of best known authors. In this episode Hilary reads a chapter from the republished story.

Margaret Sidney, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (UEA Publishing Project, 2022).

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The Most Dangerous Woman in America: Mother Jones

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 00:00:21 GMT

The newspapers called Mother Jones the most dangerous woman in America because her presence at a labor rally would stiffen the resolve of workers. As Professor Simon Cordery relates, she raised "Cain and Consciousness." Prof. Cordery joins me to talk about Jones and her influence on the labor movement in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Essential Reading:

Simon Cordery, Mother Jones: Raising Cain and Consciousness (2010).

Recommended Reading:

Philip S. Foner, ed., Mother Jones Speaks: Collected Speeches and Writings (1983).

Edward M. Steel, ed., The Correspondence of Mother Jones (1985).

Thomas G. Andrews, Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War (2010).

Melvyn Dubofsky and Joseph A. McCartin, Labor in America: A History (2017).

Elliott J. Gorn, Mother Jones (2001).

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Union Busting in the Gilded Age

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 00:00:30 GMT

Professor Chad Pearson joins me to talk about his latest book Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century. The book explores the way in which employer organizations helped stope industrial action and bust union activism. The tactics "employed" will shock you, even if you know a great deal about the period. Pearson also makes a strong case for thinking about these groups in a broader manner than past scholars have, including the KKK in the typically class-centric story.

Essential Reading:

Chad Pearson, Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Vilja Hulden, The Bosses' Union: How Employers Organized to Fight Labor before the New Deal (2023).

Aaron Goings, The Port of Missing Men: Billy Gohl, Labor, and Brutal Times in the Pacific Northwest (2020).

James Gray Pope, "Snubbed Landmark: Why United States v. Cruikshank (1876) Belongs at the Heart of the American Constitutional Canon," Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review 49 (2014): 385-447.

Brian D. Palmer, "The New New Poor Law: A Chapter in the Current Class War Waged from Above," Labour / Le Travail 84 (Fall 2019), 53–105.

Steven Hahn, "Emancipation, Incarceration, and the Boundaries of Coercion," Journal of Southern History 88, no. 1 (February 2022): 5-38.

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Texas: The Birthplace of Populism

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 07:00:42 GMT

Everything is bigger in Texas, including political movements. I have yet to speak with scholars of populism, and this show rectifies that with two outstanding authors of the latest Texas populism histories (professors Gregg Cantrell and Thomas Alter) and a guest host, my colleague at Dickinson State University Dr. Jeff Wells.

Essential Reading:

Gregg Cantrell, The People’s Revolt: Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism (2020)

Thomas Alter II, Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Donna Barnes, Farmers in Rebellion: The Rise and Fall of the Southern Farmers Alliance and People’s Party in Texas (1984).

Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America (1976).

Matthew Hild, Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists, Farmer-Labor Insurgency in the Late-Nineteenth-Century South (2007).

Roscoe Martin, The People’s Party in Texas: A Case Study in Third-Party Politics (1933).

Robert C. McMath, Jr., Populist Vanguard: A History of the Southern Farmers' Alliance (1975).

Charles Postel, The Populist Revolt (2007).

Marion K. Barthelme, (ed.), Women in the Texas Populist Movement: Letters to the Southern Mercury (1997).

Theresa Case, The Great Southwest Railroad Strike and Free Labor (2010).

Tim Lehman, Up the Trail: How Texas Cowboys Herded Longhorns and Became an American Icon (2018).

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Food in the Gilded Age

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 00:00:53 GMT

I've been looking forward to talking about food for a while. Dr. Helen Zoe Veit joins me to answer all my questions about decadent recipes, food security, poverty, picky children, and the connections between Gilded Age foodstuff and our diet today. Dr. Veit is professor at Michigan State University and the director of the "What America Ate" project.

Essential Reading:

Helen Zoe Veit, Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century (2013).

Recommended Reading:

Benjamin R. Cohen, Pure Adulteration: Cheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food (2020)

April Merleaux, Sugar and Civilization: American Empire and the Cultural Politics of Sweetness (2015)

Jonathan Rees, The Chemistry of Fear: Harvey Wiley's Fight for Pure Food (2021)

Megan Elias, Stir It Up: Home Economics in American Culture (2008)

Andrew Haley, Turning the Tables: Restaurants and the Rise of the American Middle Class, 1880-1920 (2011)

Laura Shaprio, Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century (1986)

Rebecca Sharpless, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South,1865-1960 (2010)

Special food issue of The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, ed. Megan Elias, Volume 18, Issue 4 (October 2019)

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Who Killed Jane Stanford

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 01:00:04 GMT

Someone poisoned Jane Stanford, the co-founder of Stanford University. Who done it, is up for debate. This murder story includes a cover up and a winding tale of Gilded Age policing, patronage, gender norms, immigration, and higher education. Two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard White joins me to explain how he researched the case and what, if any, conclusions can be made about the chief suspects.

Essential Reading:

Richard White, Who Killed Jane Stanford: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits, and the Birth of a University (2022).

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The Mythic China Market and Foreign Banks

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 23:00:49 GMT

Foreign banks saw great opportunity in China. Financing trade and commercial activities such as railroad construction was lucrative. Like all investments there is risk and foreign banks faced substantial risks in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Wars and revolutions threatened growth, and banking in many ways sparked wars and revolutions. Ghassan Moazzin's book Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919 explores these turbulent years of foreign investment.

Essential Reading:

Ghassan Moazzin, Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919 (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Michael Schiltz, Accounting for the Fall of Silver: Hedging Currency Risk in Long-Distance Trade with Asia, 1870–1913 (2020).

Austin Dean, China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (2020).

Geoffrey Jones, British Multinational Banking 1830–1990 (1993).

Shizuya Nishimura, Ranald Michie and Suzuki Toshio (eds.), The Origins of International Banking in Asia: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2012).

Linsun Cheng, Banking in Modern China: Entrepreneurs, Professional Managers and the Development of Chinese Banks, 1897–1937 (2003).

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Man of Steel: Grover Cleveland

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 14:03:36 GMT

Grover Cleveland has an interesting place in American political history. He won more presidential election popular votes than anyone other than FDR, and he is the only president to serve non-consecutive terms. Is there any more to say about him? Troy Senik, a former speech writer, makes a strong case to remember Cleveland today.

Essential Reading:

Troy Senik, A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland (2022).

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Anniversary Episode

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 23:00:23 GMT

The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast is 1 year old. I use this opportunity to reflect on the year, the top downloaded shows, the new friends made, and some behind-the-scenes insights. I also want to thank everyone who has joined me on this journey - the guests, the listeners, and the publishers. Many, many thanks!

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Jay Gould: An American Rascal

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 23:00:48 GMT

Of all the tycoons of the Gilded Age, Jay Gould stands out as a speculator and industrialist that would do anything to make money. Greg Steinmetz, a journalist and Wall Street analyst joins me to discuss the life of this legendary "rascal." Regardless of how you might interpret Gould's place in American history, he cannot be ignored.

Essential Reading:

Greg Steinmetz, American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune (2022).

Recommended Reading:

T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (2009).

Edward J. Renehan Jr., Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould (2006).

H. W. Brands, The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield: A Tragedy of the Gilded Age (2011).

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Vivekananda: Guru to the World

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 23:00:41 GMT

Do you know Vivekananda? He was the leading Hindu spiritualist of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and a major influence on modern mindfulness, meditation, and yoga. You should know him, and thanks to Professor Ruth Harris we have a new biography that provides an intersectional approach to his life.

Essential Reading:

Ruth Harris, Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda (2022).

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American Crusade

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 23:00:57 GMT

Religion and war has a paradoxical relationship. Dr. Benjamin Wetzel joins me to discuss the history of religion and war in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, from mainline Protestant ministers calling souls to join the Union Army, to Catholic priests resisting the war against Spain in 1898.

Essential Reading:

Benjamin Wetzel, American Crusade: Christianity, Warfare, and National Identity (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (2012).

Matthew McCullough, The Cross of War: Christian Nationalism and U.S. Expansion in the Spanish-American War (2014).

Richard Gamble, The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation (2003).

Kristin Schwain, Signs of Grace: Religion and American Art in the Gilded Age (2008).

Jonathan Ebel, Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War (2010).

George Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War (2015).

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Diamonds and Deadlines: The Life of Miriam Leslie

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 23:00:49 GMT

Why have we not heard about Miriam Leslie? She was one of the richest New York women, and a media tycoon. She was also a seductress who broke the era's gender norms and charlatan that concocted her origin story. Her life is riveting and no better author to bring this biography to life than Betsy Prioleau.

Essential Reading:

Betsy Prioleau, Diamonds and Deadlines: The Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age (2022).

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The New Atlantic Order

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 23:00:39 GMT

No one can dispute the importance of the Great War, but where the conflict began, and the ideas that set it apart from other wars is the starting point of this episode. Patrick Cohrs discusses his latest tome The New Atlantic Order and explains how the long origin of World War I began in the 1860s and has reverberated to this very day.

Essential Reading:

Patrick O. Cohrs, The New Atlantic Order (2022).

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Do Pandemics End?: A Roundtable

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 23:00:58 GMT

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era published a roundtable called "What Came Next?: Reflections on the Aftermath(s) of the 1918-19 Flu Pandemic in the Age of COVID." Three of the participants join me to discuss how pandemics end, if they end, what lessons they teach (if any), and how they contribute to the history of a given era. The answers might surprise you!

Essential Reading:

Christopher McKnight Nichols, E. Thomas Ewing, K. Healan Gaston, Maddalena Marinari, Alan Lessoff, and David Huyssen, "What Came Next?: Reflections on the Aftermath(s) of the 1918-19 Flu Pandemic in the Age of COVID," Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 21, no. 2 (April 2022): 111-149.

Roundtable with Christopher McKnight Nichols, Nancy Bristow, E. Thomas Ewing, Joseph M. Gabriel, Benjamin C. Montoya and Elizabeth Outka “Reconsidering the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic in the Age of COVID-19” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 19, no. 4: 642-672.

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Black Indians and Freedmen

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 16:11:11 GMT

The African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) is one of the most important African American Churches in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and Christina Dickerson-Cousin shares how the AME worked in Indian Territory. The story is one of shared issues and common interests that helps add nuance to our understanding of the period.

Essential Reading:

Christina Dickerson-Cousin, Black Indians & Freedmen: The African Methodist Episcopal Church and Indigenous Americans, 1816-1916 (2021).

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The American Mirror

Tue, 10 May 2022 23:00:09 GMT

The United States and Brazil share the distinction of being the last places in the Americas to emancipate slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and Fourteenth Amendment (1865) accomplished this in the U.S. and the Golden Law in Brazil did the same in 1888, although emancipation occurred gradually there over three decades. Roberto Saba calls the experience "the American Mirror" and argues that it can tell us a great deal about the hemisphere, the industrialization of American economies, and the growth of a new order.

Essential Reading:

Roberto Saba, American Mirror: The United States and Brazil in the Age of Emancipation (2021).

Recommended Reading:

Emilia Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (2000).

Sven Beckert, The Empire of Cotton: A Global History (2015).

Matthew Karp, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy (2016).

Angela Alonso, The Last Abolition: The Brazilian Antislavery Movement, 1868-1888 (2021).

Greg Downs, The Second American Revolution: The Civil War-Era Struggle Over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic (2019).

Teresa Cribelli, Industrial Forests and Mechanical Marvels: Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (2016).

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Saving Yellowstone

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 23:00:26 GMT

Megan Kate Nelson takes us on a journey to Yellowstone, the first national park and a site of iconic western beauty. From the scientific surveys that explored the park's geysers, to the railroad expansion through Native American territory, Dr. Nelson's book paints a vivid portrait of the place. Join us for a conversation about the American environment, economic panics, landscape photography, and how to write narrative history.

Essential Reading:

Megan Kate Nelson, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Ferdinand V. Hayden, “The Wonders of the West II. More about the Yellowstone,” Scribner’s Monthly (February 1872): 388-396.

Thomas Moran, The Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone (1872).

Ernie LaPointe, Sitting Bull: His Life and Legacy (2009).

M. John Lubetkin, Jay Cooke’s Gamble: The Northern Pacific Railroad, The Sioux, and the Panic of 1873 (2006).

Heather Cox Richardson, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (2007).

Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (2000).

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The Art of Amalia Küssner

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 23:00:53 GMT

When you think of the artists of the Gilded Age, you might recall John Singer Sargent or James Abbott McNeill Whistler. But have you heard of Amalia Küssner? She painted royalty and robber barons, and became one of the era's most sought after artists. This week is an extra special treat as Kathleen Langone takes over the show. Kathleen is host of the People Hidden In History podcast, and Amalia Küssner features as one of those people she hopes to remind the world about. You can listen to an extended version of this episode on Kathleen's show.

Kathleen has published several article, including with Boston Magazine and has appeared on television and radio related to her work on historic events in New England. Check out her podcast and should you wish to get in touch, her Twitter handle is: @phihpod.

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The Approaching Storm

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 23:00:35 GMT

Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jane Addams take center state in Neil Lanctot's latest book The Approaching Storm, an intimate look at America's decision to enter World War I. Lanctot's character-driven narrative takes the reader on transatlantic peace missions and a deep introspective about American values.

Essential Reading:

Neil Lanctot, The Approaching Storm: Roosevelt, Wilson, Addams and Their Clash over America's Future (2021).

Neil Lanctot, "Biden, like Woodrow Wilson in WWI, treads a fine line in refusing to send troops to Ukraine," Chicago Tribune, 14 March 2022.

Recommended Reading:

John Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest (1983).

Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (2002).

Louise W. Knight, Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy (2005).

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Catastrophic Dipomacy

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:00:21 GMT

Disaster relief became an instrument of U.S. foreign policy in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The "progressive presidents" particularly utilized aid for American interests, sparking a trend. Prof. Julia Irwin joins me to discuss her upcoming book on this very topic.

Essential Reading:

Julia Irwin, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation's Humanitarian Awakening (2013).

Julia Irwin, "Our Climatic Moment: Hazarding a History of the United States and the World," Diplomatic History 45, no. 3 (June 2021): 421-44.

Recommended Reading:

Cynthia Kierner, Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood (2019).

Ted Steinberg, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America (2000).

Olivier Zunz, Philanthropy in America: A History (2012).

Heather Curtis, Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid (2018).

William N. Tilchin, “Theodore Roosevelt, Anglo-American Relations, and the Jamaica Incident of 1907,” Diplomatic History 19, no. 3 (1995): 385-405

Salvatore LaGumina, The Great Earthquake: America Comes to Messina’s Rescue (2008).

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Oceans of Grain: Wheat, Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S.

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 00:00:44 GMT

I spoke with Prof. Nelson the very day Russia invaded Ukraine and we talk about the history of the black paths that fed the world with bushels of grain, but also became the most fought over space in Eastern Europe. Scott's new book Oceans of Grain (Basic Books) is out this week and it couldn't have come at a better time to help us understand our world today.

Essential Reading:

Scott Reynolds Nelson, Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World (2022).

Recommended Reading:

Neal Ascherson, The Black Sea (1996).

Bettany Hughes, Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities (2017).

Avner Offer, The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (1989).

Vaclav Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and their Lasting Impact (2004).

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Designs on Empire

Wed, 23 Feb 2022 00:00:07 GMT

European imperialism had an influence on American policy makers, changing the way they thought about overseas colonization and building a new world order. Prof. Andrew Priest joins the show to discuss his latest book Designs on Empire: America's Rise to Power in the Age of European Imperialism.

Essential Reading:

Andrew Priest, Designs on Empire: America's Rise to Power in the Age of European Imperialism (2021).

Recommended Reading:

Mary Ann Heiss, “The Evolution of the Imperial Idea and U.S. National Identity,” Diplomatic History 26 (October 2002): 511-540.

A.G. Hopkins, American Empire: A Global History (2018)

Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (2nd ed. 2009).

Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (Thirty-Fifth Anniversary edition, 1998)

Frank Ninkovich, Global Dawn: The Cultural Foundation of American Internationalism, 1865-1890 (2009).

Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America (2012).

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Special Episode: Laird on the Lam

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 00:00:48 GMT

Professor Clive Webb tells the story of Lord Gordon Gordon, a impostor and fraud that stole millions from railroad tycoon Jay Gould. The theft also sparked a diplomatic row between the United States and Canada that nearly led to war.

This story first appeared in Canada's History and the publishers have kindly allowed us to reproduce the story with Clive as the narrator. Please visit their website: https://www.canadahistory.ca/ or you can find the original article here: https://canadas-history.myshopify.com/collections/canadas-history-back-issues/products/december-2021-january-2022

Many thanks to Fesliyan Studios for the free background music. You can find royalty-free tracks at their website: https://www.fesliyanstudios.com or their YouTube pages: https://www.youtube.com/user/fesliyanstudios

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Early Career Scholars Showcase

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 00:00:03 GMT

This week we hear from early career scholars about cutting-edge research and research. Aroop Mukharji will talk with me about the War of 1898 and presidential decision-making; Chelsea Gibson will share teaching innovations and her work on Russian-American activism; and Alex Bryne discusses the birth of aviation and its effect on Pan-Americanism. Please take some time to read their publications!

Essential Reading:

Aroop Mukharji, "What One Word Teaches Us about the Uncertainty of American Empire," War on the Rocks (February 12, 2021).

Chelsea C. Gibson, "The John Browns of St. Petersburg: Former Abolitionists and Russian Terrorism in the Late 19th Century," OAH Presentation (2020).

Alex Bryne, "The Potential of Flight: U.S. Aviation and Pan-Americanism During the Early Twentieth Century," 19, no. 1 (January 2020): 48-76.

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The Silver King George Hearst

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 00:00:45 GMT

Prospector, tycoon, westerner, politician, father, and husband, George Hearst was a man of his time and as Matthew Bernstein relates, an part of the Gilded Age. In his biography, Bernstein traces Hearst's life from his Missouri childhood to the booms and busts of his mining career. As the father of William Randolph Hearst, George left quite a legacy.

Essential Reading:

Matthew Bernstein, George Hearst: Silver King of the Gilded Age (2021).

Recommended Reading:

David Nasaw, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (2000).

W. A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst (1963).

Judith Robinson, The Hearsts: An American Dynasty (1991).

Alexandra Nickless, Phoebe Apperson Hearst: A Life of Power and Politics (2018).

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Confederate Monuments in the Gilded Age

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 00:00:37 GMT

Over the last five years, many confederate statues have come down. Professor Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders joins the show to explain why they went up in the first place. Commemoration of the confederacy offers a great insight into the politics of race in the American South and the enduring myth of the Lost Cause. So many statues go up in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era that we could (with tongues-in-cheek) consider re-naming the period the Age of Confederate Memorials. Why? Who advocated for their erection? And what do these statues say about the past and today?

Essential Reading:

Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders, "Removing Lost Cause Monuments is the First Step in Dismantling White Supremacy," Washington Post, 19 June 2020.

Recommended Reading:

Karen L. Cox, Dixie's Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture (2019).

David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001).

Caroline E. Janney, Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation (2016).

Adam H. Donby, The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory (2020).

Thavolia Glymph, "Liberty Dearly Bought: The Making of Civil War Memory in Afro-American Communities in the South" in Payne and Green (eds.), Time Longer than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950 (2003).

Gary Young, "Why Every Single Statue Should Come Down," Guardian, 1 June 2021.

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Theodore Roosevelt Double Bill - Religion and Memory

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 00:00:48 GMT

It had to happen: an episode about Theodore Roosevelt. I'm surprised it took ten episodes to get here! Prof. Benjamin Wetzel and I double as interviewer and interviewee in a conversation about our recent books about Roosevelt. Ben's explores TR's religiousity, a new vein of research that has been overlooked. My book shares new sources for the first time. Both depict TR in unique treatments.

Essential Reading:

Benjamin Wetzel, Theodore Roosevelt: Preaching from the Bully Pulpit (2021).

Michael Patrick Cullinane, Remembering Theodore Roosevelt (2021).

Recommended Reading:

Christian F. Reisner, Roosevelt's Religion (1922).

Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (2004).

Stacy A. Cordery, Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker (2008).

Hermann Hagedorn, The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill (1954).

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Christmas Past

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:00:06 GMT

How did Americans celebrate Christmas in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era? This episode has a festive feel as I ask Thomas Ruys Smith about his new book Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth Century America. We'll talk about household names such as Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as stories you may have never heard from slaves, immigrants, Native Americans, and non-Christians.

Essential Reading:

Thomas Ruys Smith, Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth Century America (2021).

Recommended Reading:

Penn Restad, Christmas in America: A History (1995).

Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday (1997).

Karal Ann Marling, Merry Christmas! Celebrating America's Greatest Holiday (2000).

Tara Moore, Victorian Christmas in Print (2009).

Robert May, Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory (2019).

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Rotary Clubs and the Culture of Capitalism

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:00:09 GMT

What is a Rotary Club? Who is a Rotarian? The answer might surprise you. This club has over 35,000 offices around the world, in almost every country. It began in 1905 in Chicago, and its history tells the story of American capitalism, racism, gender bias, and class identity. Independent scholar Brendan Goff talks with me about his new book Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism, an extensively researched book and a deep dive on the organization.

Essential Reading:

Brendan Goff, Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism (2021).

Recommended Reading:

Maureen A. Flanagan, Seeing with Their Hearts: Chicago Women and the Vision of the Good City, 1871-1933 (2002).

Paul A. Kramer, “Embedding Capital: Political-Economic History, the United States and the World,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 15 (July 2016): 331-362.

Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (1998).

Khalil Muhammed, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (2010).

Peter James Hudson, Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean (2017).

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Asian Place, Filipino Nation: Changing Perspectives

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 00:00:17 GMT

The Philippine Revolution is a seminal moment in global history that we too often view through the lens of American expansion and racial ideologies. Dr. Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz, author of Asian Place, Filipino Nation, offers a new way to think about the revolution in the context of Japanese ascendancy and Asian ideas of race. In doing so, we see how the Philippine Revolution became central to South East Asian anti-colonial movements. More than any other episode, this one pushes listeners to re-center our perspective on the Global South in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Essential Reading:

Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz, Asian Place, Filipino Nation (2020).

Additional Reading:

Reynaldo Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910 (1997).

Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (2002).

Cemil Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought (2007).

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The Age of Acrimony

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 00:00:03 GMT

After the Civil War, citizenship increased, and yet voter turnout decreased. Why? Jon Grinspan joins the show to discuss his latest book The Age of Acrimony: How American Fought to Fix Their Democracy. As a curator at the National Museum of American History (Smithsonian), Jon is uniquely placed to discuss the historical parallels to American politics today.

Essential Reading:

Jon Grinspan, The Age of Acrimony: How American Fought to Fix Their Democracy (2021).

Additional Reading:

Richard Franklin Bensel, The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (2004).

Rebecca Edwards, Angels in the Machinery: Gender in American Party Politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era (1997).

Joanne Freeman, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War (2018).

Mark Lawrence Kornbluh, Why American Stopped Voting: The Decline of Participatory Democracy and the Emergence of Modern American Politics (2000).

Michael E. McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics, The American North 1865-1928 (1986).

Mark Wahlgren Summers, Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics (2004).

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From the River to the Sea: The Railroad Wars

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 23:00:41 GMT

No industry is more central to the Gilded Age than the railroads. It transformed commerce. It shaped the contours of cities and maps. It created leisure and luxury in ways not known before. Best-selling author John Sedgwick talks about his latest book, From the River to the Sea, a tale of warring railroad tycoons.

Essential Reading:

John Sedgwick, From the River to the Sea (2021).

Additional Reading:

Stephen E. Ambrose, Nothing Like it in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 (2000).

Michael Hiltzik, Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America (2020).

Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2012).

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Footnotes: Gilded? Progressive? Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 23:01:29 GMT

Additional Reading:

Daniel T. Rogers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (1998).

Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age: 1865-1905 (2005).

Maureen Flanagan, America Reformed: Progressives and Progressivisms, 1890s-1920s (2006).

Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 (2010).

Glenda Gilmore, Who Were the Progressives? (2002).

Jacqueline Jones, Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical (2017).

Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist (1984).

Nancy Unger, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (2000).

Nancy Unger, Belle La Follette: Progressive Era Reformer (2015).

Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916 (1963).

Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (2007).

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Gilded? Progressive? Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 23:00:49 GMT

It had to be done: we need to talk about the title and periodization. What is the Gilded Age? What is the Progressive Era? When is it? With Christopher McKnight Nichols and Nancy Unger we set out to define the period we study.

Essential Reading:

Christopher McKnight Nichols and Nancy Unger (eds.), A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2017).

Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873).

Additional Reading:

Richard Schnirov, "Thoughts on Periodizing the Gilded Age: Capital Accumulation, Society, and Politics, 1873-1898," Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 5, no. 3 (2006): 189-224.

Rebecca Edwards, Richard R. John, Richard Bensel, "Forum: Should We Abolish the Gilded Age," Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 8, 4 (2009): 461-85.

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Footnotes: W.E.B. Du Bois and Critical Race Theory

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 23:01:07 GMT

Additional Reading:

David Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs (2018).

Michael Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (2005)

Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness (1993).

David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race (1994).

Benjamin Quarles, Allies for Freedom and Blacks on John Brown (1974).

Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism (1983).

Lewis Gordon, Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (2020).

Manning Marable, W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat (2004).

Host Suggestion:

Randall Westbrook, Education and Empowerment: The Essential Writings of W.E.B. DuBois (2013).

Almost all of W.E.B. Du Bois's writings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are in the public domain. Internet Archive offers access to these texts for free.

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W. E. B. Du Bois and Critical Race Theory

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 23:00:10 GMT

W. E. B. Du Bois made an indelible contribution to American thought and culture, an is an essential figure to those that study the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. With Professor Reiland Rabaka, this show explores the writings, influence, and internationalism of Du Bois.

Essential Reading:

Reiland Rabaka, Du Bois: A Critical Introduction (2021).

Additional Reading:

Reiland Rabaka, W.E.B. Du Bois and the Problems of the Twenty-First Century: An Essay on Africana Critical Theory (2008).

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Footnotes: Women's Reproductive Rights in the Progressive Era

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 23:06:03 GMT

Additional Reading:

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, The Roots of Power: Animate Form and Gendered Bodies (1999).

Jennifer Karnes Alexander, The Mantra of Efficiency: From Waterwheel to Social Control (2008).

Daniel Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985).

Host Suggestion:

JoAnn Yates and Craig Murphy, Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880 (2019).

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Footnotes: Gilded Age Cocktails

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 23:03:08 GMT

Additional Reading (cocktails):

Additional Reading (Gilded Age & Progressive Era history):

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Footnotes: The Last Flu Epidemic, 1918-1919

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 23:01:28 GMT

Additional Reading:

Host Suggestion:

Sarah Churchwell, Behold America: The Entangled History of America First and the American Dream (2019).

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Women's Reproductive Rights in the Progressive Era

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 23:05:42 GMT

The Progressive Era shaped the way we think about women's reproductive rights, and Prof. Barbara Schneider's book Corporal Rhetoric investigates all the ways. It tells how motherhood went from a natural experience to a pathogenic one, how the eugenics movement gathered steam, and how the medical profession changed.

Essential Reading:

Barbara Schneider, Corporal Rhetoric: Regulating Reproduction in the Progressive Era (2021).

Additional Reading:

Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty (1998).

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Gilded Age Cocktails

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 23:02:31 GMT

In this episode I talk cocktails with Cecelia Tichi the author of so many wonderful books, but most recently Gilded Age Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from America's Golden Age (Washington Mews Books)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Gilded Age Cocktails. Tichi shares stories of the bars, mixologists, and imbibers that gloried in the Golden Age of drinking, not long before Prohibition.

Essential Reading:

Cecelia Tichi, Golden Age Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from America's Golden Age (2021).

Recommended Reading:

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The Last Flu Epidemic, 1918-1919

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 23:00:10 GMT

Just over 100 years ago, the world faced a deadly pandemic not dissimilar to COVID-19. The "great flu" of 1918-1919 was largely forgotten until we needed to historic lessons on how to combat the waves of infection. With Christopher McKnight Nichols, this week's show investigates the pathogenic parallels.

Essential Reading:

Recommended Reading:

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Pilot

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 23:00:08 GMT

Welcome to The Gilded Age and Progressive Era! In the pilot episode, I introduce myself, describe the show, and outline the first three episodes. The Gilded Age and Progressive Era is a podcast for those of us interested in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Each episode features research from leading scholars.

Join us! And subscribe!

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