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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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