Jeff Broxmeyer, an expert on 19th-century politics, is taking us back to who got the vote—and how—during an infamous era that embraced a creative intertwining of capitalism and party politics. In the Gilded Age, party leaders found incredibly novel ways to become wealthy. Control over political property and political offices was everything. As we enter […]
New York’s Fifth Avenue is one of the most remarkable thoroughfares in the world. By the end of the 19th century it had become synonymous with the most fashionable lifestyles and mansions (and all that accompanied them) of the wealthy. Aggressive arrivistes such as Alva Vanderbilt and Marietta Stevens used their "new money" to employ […]
In 1868, a spirit’s guiding hand led two sisters to New York City, to a home on beautiful Washington Square--an address reserved for the elite of the Gilded Age. Behind its doors lived the richest man in America, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt sized up the ladies, Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin, as sophisticated and savvy and, […]
