Episode 28 features a conversation with CARLA L. PETERSON, author of the 2011 book “Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City.” Professor Peterson’s book served as a resource for the creation of the characters, story, and the Black community in HBO’s THE GILDED AGE.

Part detective tale, part social and cultural narrative, "Black Gotham" is Carla Peterson's riveting account of her quest to reconstruct the lives of her nineteenth-century ancestors. As she shares their stories and those of their friends, neighbors, and business associates, she illuminates the greater history of African-American elites in New York City. (Source: Yale University Press)

Carla L. Peterson is professor emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a specialist in nineteenth-century African American literary and cultural studies. In addition to "Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City" (published in 2011) she has published numerous essays and a second book "Doers of the Word: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North, 1830-1880" (1995). Carla Peterson is currently at work on a new project, "Urbanity and Taste: The Making of African American Modernity in Antebellum New York and Philadelphia."

Recorded 1/13/23

Download the transcript for Ep. 28 from this link.

TIMESTAMPS

0:08 Podcast Generic Open

1:21 Introduction to Black Gotham and The Gilded Age Conversation

3:55 Carla Peterson Introduction

5:07 Black Family History

12:42 Historical Resources and Detective Work

22:00 New York's Black Cosmopolitans

29:42 Southern Slave Economy and Northern White Wealth

38:26 Break

29:03 The Scott Family in HBO's "The Gilded Age"

44:11 Peggy and Arthur Scott: Class, Gender, and Generational Conflict

47:41 Who Has Taste? Black Education, Peggy Scott and Agnes van Rhijn

54:41 Lightning Round: Conversation with Ancestors, Thomas Downing, Interracial Stories, and Stories of the Black Elite

1:06:07 Stay Connected with Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters

1:07 Boilerplate Closing

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