The Gilded Gentleman  By  cover art

The Gilded Gentleman

By: Carl Raymond
  • Summary

  • The Gilded Gentleman history podcast takes listeners on a cultural and social journey into the mansions, salons, dining rooms, libraries and theatres including the worlds above as well as below stairs of America's Gilded Age, France's Belle Epoque and late Victorian and Edwardian England. thegildedgentleman.com
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Episodes
  • The Hidden World of Gramercy Park: Unlocking History with Keith Taillon
    Mar 19 2024

    The small two acre square known since the 1830's as Gramercy Park has also been called "America's Bloomsbury". Taking the reference from London's famous neighborhood once home to many great writers and artists, New York's Gramercy Park has similarly included noted cultural icons from architect Stanford White to actor Edwin Booth to the great politician Samual Tilden.

    Wandering along the park today it's easy to gain a view back into the past - many of the original Greek Revival brick townhouses and brownstone mansions remain, some still in private hands.

    The park in the center is one of the most unique in America - it is a private park, not a city property and it's upkeep has been managed since its inception in the early 19th century by the property owners around the park itself. Writer and historian Keith Taillon joins Carl for this episode to look back into this hidden pocket of New York City's past and unlock its history.

    The Gilded Gentleman website

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    57 mins
  • The American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City
    Mar 5 2024

    Carl is joined by noted architect, interior designer and author Phillip James Dodd for an in-depth discussion of the "look" of the Gilded Age - a style known as American Beaux-Arts.

    Architecture constructed during the height of America's Gilded Age most certainly had a distinctive look. It was a uniquely American combination of stylistic elements of classical antiquity, the Renaissance palaces of the Medici, as well as the more flamboyant styles of France's Belle Epoque.

    But just how does one define the eclectic style that came to be known as American Beaux-Arts and who were its most famous and influential practitioners? In this episode Carl and Phillip James Dodd discuss these concepts in general to arrive at a definition and understanding, but also take a look at major examples, such as the facade and Great Hall or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and the Morgan Library, as well as the architects who created them: Richard Morris Hunt, Charles Follen McKim, and the architectural team of Carrè re and Hastings.

    After having listened to this unique episode, you'll look at the Gilded Age and New York City with whole new eyes.

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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Daring Dandies: Early 20th Century Men of Style and Scandal
    Feb 20 2024

    In the previous episode "Dandies: Gentleman of Style from the 19th Century to Today", Carl was joined by cultural historian and maker of fine custom clothing, Nathaniel Lee Adams for a look at this most interesting breed of society's tastemaking men.  In this new episode, Carl and Natty take the discussion further and focus on the early 20th century, when a new brand of dandy was emerging  - one with style perhaps, but also often tinged by scandal. 

    Being a "dandy" is generally thought to be more than just being a stylish dresser.  There is attitude, perspective and perhaps even a sense of the revolutionary that ties many of history's so-called dandies together.  In this episode, Carl and Natty start with the world of the dandy immediately following the death of Oscar Wilde and begin with a discussion of the British author and caricaturist Max Beerbohm and the  American self-proclaimed inventor of the tuxedo, Evander Berry Wall.  

    They then discuss the fascinating, complex black American boxer Jack Johnson, who in order to fight not only his opponents but the pervasive prejudice of his time,  created a boundary-breaking persona of style laced with scandal.  Returning to Europe the discussion continues Oscar Wilde's own nephew and writer (and also boxer),  Arthur Cravan, the War Poets including Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon, the minimalist Austrian architect Adolf Loos and finally one of the most polarizing personalities of them all, the flamboyant Italian poet and would be revolutionary, Gabriele D'Anunzio.  

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    52 mins

Featured Article: The Gilded Age in History and Fiction


While fans of Julian Fellowes’s Gilded Age may be gagging on the luxurious costumes and sumptuous sets, part of the fun is sorting out fact from fiction in the HBO period drama. With a mix of invented characters and actual historical figures—such as society queen Caroline Astor and African American newspaper editor and civil rights leader T. Thomas Fortune—enthusiasts have plenty of resources available so they can learn the truth about the extravagant era when wealthy railroad magnates and other arrivistes were upending late 19th-century New York City society and culture.

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