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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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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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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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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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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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.

Essential Reading:

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

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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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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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