Gilded Age: The Gilding

Hey, guys, today we're gonna talk about the Gilded Age,

which is from 18.

70 to about 1910 ish.

Ah, lot of historians like to end it around 1900

I'm going to assert that it goes a little bit

longer than that.

And I'm calling this, uh, this lesson the gilding, because

that's really what we're gonna focus on eso.

The Gilded Age is characterized by the world's first crazy,

stupid, insanely, ridiculously and unfathomably rich private citizens.

Okay, because rich people exist before this, But before this

time, they usually had to be like an emperor or

a king or a queen or something like that.

And of course, it's about their corporations.

So the things that made them that wealthy eso John

D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie are a couple of the

most famous Gilded Age crazy, stupid rich people on dhe.

Their total net worths are estimated to be like over

$300 billion when adjusted for inflation.

You know, back in the day, nominally, you know, Andrew

Kearney was like only 475 million.

But you know, again so again, calculating for inflation, they

are more than double Jeff Bezos, the current or recent

richest man in the world.

One of my students pointed out to me that he's

not this rich anymore after the divorce, but I think

he's still number one anyway.

Back in the day.

Gilded Age Stupid rich people are even more stupid rich

than the richest person today.

Like it's just it's unimaginable.

Alright, Another guy that I got a mention.

Those Cornelius Vanderbilt.

He was kind of a loser, though he was on

Lee estimated, be worth $100 billion.

God, what a loser he must have been toe on.

Lee have gotten $100 billion on I want to help

you visualize kind of some of the things that were

going on.

And that's really what this lesson about is about helping

you think about what life was like.

S my learning target questions is what is the figure

to meeting behind the term Gilded Age?

Why do we call it that?

And what evidence in circumstances lead to that label that

we give it?

All right, So let's talk about what is gilding.

Let's talk about the literal meaning of gilding before we

can talk about the figurative meaning all right.

So, to gild, something means to decoratively cover it with

a thin layer of gold.

All right, so if it's gilded, another way to think

about it is that it is gold plated or its

gold covered.

But it's definitely not solid gold, but it's been painted

as such to give it an appearance of gold.

All right, so it could be ah, wooden frame.

It could be a statue.

It could be a gate, whatever it is.

But beneath the gilding, whatever it is, wood, stone, metal,

iron it is not as opulent as the gold is

meant to make it look.

All right.

So opulence is I really like this word opulence.

And just think about its meaning, rich or luxurious.

All right.

So this gold plating is meant to make something look

opulent and luxurious.

And this era of the Gilded Age is this era

of opulence.

Opulence. I just like to say the word opulence.

All right.

The arrow opulence, eh?

So what did the crazy, stupid rich people do with

all that money?

They just They had so much to spend.

All right, Eh?

So quick.

A little back story between 18.

37 1900 is in Britain is known as the Victorian

era after Queen Victoria.

Alright, so Queen Victoria reigns between 18 37 and 19

when she's actually born in, like, 18 20 or something.

Anyway, Queen Victoria, I want you to think of Queen

Victoria as, like, the world's first or at least the

world's first biggest social influencer.

Okay, so just like there are influences today, people say

things like, Oh, I want that thing because I see

it. Queen Victoria, was that person in 18 40?

Okay, everybody like, knew what Queen Victoria was doing, like

way over there in England.

And they're like, Oh, Queen Victoria, she thought of necklace,

I want that necklace.

Okay, she's got the address.

I want that dress.

I want to be with you.

Okay, so I am not going to get the idea.

She's the first social influencer of like e Don't know

that you can think about for this time, period.

So also quick fun Fact about Queen Victoria.

So the reason why women like to have white wedding

dresses now is because Queen Victoria got married and a

white wedding dress.

Now some people were doing the white wedding dress thing

before Queen Victoria.

But Queen Victoria made it popular as soon as she

got married.

And everybody saw Queen Victoria get married in this white

wedding dress.

They're like, Oh, my goodness, I want a white wedding

dress and now it's become a cultural thing.

But so anyway, rich Americans, though they would want to

imitate the European royalty and a lot of different ways.

And so again, that's what this lesson is about is

helping you visualize what things looked like.

And so I'm just gonna give you a couple small

examples here.

So this is Alva Vanderbilt who marries into the loser

only $100 billion Vanderbilt family.

All right, she she This is a dress that she

wears, her policy that she throws in 18 83.

All right, just look at this picture for a second.

She's got doves like she's got doves in this picture,

and I honestly, I really wonder, like I feel like

they've got to be taxidermy like they've got to be

dead or fake doves that she's got stuffed and she's

just holding them like I want to be heralding dogs.

And I'm sure that made sense in her mind.

Anyway, look at her hat like this dress.

Okay? Again.

She's this the imitation of opulence opulence.

All right, That's what she wants.

Uh, this is her mansion that Alva Vanderbilt has built

in New York City on dso again.

This is her.

This is a private residence.

This is her home is where she lives on.

Did you look?

It's just huge on.

Then there's another visual representations to eso.

Another thing that that super crazy rich people do is

they were just there, throw parties, and so on The

left is a artistic, like painting representation of maybe what

one of these parties might have looked like.

And, uh, the photo on the end is is like

a banquet halls again.

Just look it like the chandelier.

Look at the candlesticks.

Look at the people.

Look at the wallpaper.

There's this, like, excessive and like, compulsive mean to be

as extra as you possibly can.

And that was totally the nature of time.

Like if you have a stupid, crazy amount of money,

you're like, what can I, you know, decorate even more

so? And that's what you did.

So the my little Onley thing like note that I

want you to write down like they build mansions and

they throw parties.

Now, of course they did.

You know, they invested it and then, you know, they

grew their businesses.

But we're gonna talk about that later.

Today is all about the opulence.

All right, um, so if we're talking about the Gilded

Age again and gilding means to play something in gold,

what are we playing, this is for sure, the shiny

gold plating or covering something up.

What? We're covering up.

All right, so in 18.

90 the U.

S population is around 63 million people, and the richest

1% of those Americans own 51% off American wealth.

Alright, 1% of people own half of America.

Uh, so 1% of people is about 600,000.

All right.

And now you know, of course, Andrew, Carnegie and Rockefeller

and the loser Vanderbilt's are among the 600,000.

And maybe not everyone has got the mansion in New

York City.

But like, there's, like a lot of people that are

still doing really good, like in the various businesses and

industries. And they are living the high life.

Alright, so that is a very small portion, even though

100,000 people, it's like a lot of people, but there's

another 50 million or so you know, that they're like,

they're like, not doing great.

They're, like, really like not doing great, OK, eso this

that I'm presenting to you here.

I'm calling this like with a caveat.

And, man wells American social class proportions of 18 90

because I try really hard to find this information and

get these statistics a little bit better.

And I just like, I don't know, this is the

best that I could do.

So this is what I am asserting to the best

of my knowledge.

All right, so the crazy rich or about 1% of

our population and there's another like middle class that are

probably doing okay.

They've probably got some kind of skilled job, like they're

a tailor.

So they make clothes, um, like, like, you know, personally.

Or or maybe there are farmer, uh, maybe, you know,

they got the homestead act.

Maybe there.

Maybe there, cowboy, I don't You know eso people some

people are doing They're doing okay.

All right.

But then there's another on my colors, a little messed

up here.

There's not, like 44% that air poor.

And then up here there's another like 45%.

This is a little dark here, but like dirt and

less than dirt poor.

All right, so this is a time of the era

of, like mass manufacturing and factory work and also child

labor. We'll talk about child labor later on, De So

they This is your your poor.

You know, maybe every member of your family is going

toe work, and maybe they're getting a dollar or two

a day, and that would probably put you in, like,

probably the arguably poor category.

I mean, there's other people who, for whatever reason, you

know they're less than poor, like they are super in

debt or maybe their family.

You know, somebody is sick or injured, and they just

they can't afford to send everybody to work.

So maybe on Lee, the dad gets to Goto work

and Mom is at home with the kids.

Maybe Dad's not even there.

Maybe. Maybe, you know it's not a thing, So there's

just the point is there's a lot of people not

doing great, all right?

And so when we talk about gilding, where there's this

gold plated thin cover that is covering up something underneath,

and I'm hoping I'm painting that image for you now.

So Mark Twain is the one who's really credited, and

he actually is credited with saying Gilded Age and historians

now use Mark Twain's reference of the Gilded Age to

refer to this time period because of that.

So I leave you with one more visualization here and

is a political cartoon.

I don't always love political cartoons, but we will explore

this one a little bit more.

Um, it's called the Protectors of Industries, and that's what

the title is down here.

And I want you to think about who are the

protectors of our industries.

And another quick reminder.

Industry is just It's a type or category of business.

So let's take a look at this image.

Global closer, right?

So we got these four fat dudes up at the

top here.

They got dollar signs on their bellies.

They're sitting on bags.

That's a million's.

You can notice the guy on the right, says Vanderbilt.

So there's There's a boy, the loser $100 billion corner

near these Vanderbilt.

The other two dudes, we're not gonna worry about them.

I think they're bankers, but they're gonna look down at

the bottom of the picture.

And we got some guys there hunched over.

They got aprons on, so sort of suggesting they are

probably our workers are laborers.

This guy's got a hammer or an ax in his

hand, and so they just they don't look very comfortable,

right? And then we move up here and you can

see on the structure.

It's got the name of some of our industries, like

tin and paint and oils.

I'm not sure what that says in the back paper

leather. And then you got paper and leather workers $6

a week, $7 a week, Wu $67 a week.

Over here, you've got the cloth workers average $9 a

week, and the linen workers Whoa, look at the linen

workers. 11 whole dollars a week for the linen workers

guys, they are wakened it in.

Maybe not.

Um, so we'll talk about this image a little bit

later. Thio thinking about the protectors of our industry and

also thinking about the figurative meaning of Gilded Age and

the things that the gilding is covering over.

And I also hope that this this lesson help you

visualize what some of the things were like that we

will explore a little bit more in the future lessons.

Gilded Age: The Gilding

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