The Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Explore America’s transformative age of industrialisation, expanding wealth, inequality and social change.
This resource sheds light on this transformative period in American history, through the records of some of its most famous luminaries of industry, culture and politics.
A richly varied range of archival sources charts the contradictions of the age. The resource includes the personal and business papers of key industrialists; records of rail, steel and oil corporations; material on labour disputes, politics and progressivism; rich visual content on fashion, material culture and architecture.
This is the most expansive and diverse digital collection of primary sources available for the study of The Gilded Age and Progressive Era, allowing for fresh perspectives to be drawn on a much-discussed period in American history.
Highlights
- John D. Rockefeller Sr's personal papers including business records, personal correspondence and photographs
- The Astor Family papers from the New York Historical Society
- Diaries, scrapbooks and ephemera from the Newport Historical Society, documenting the opulent mansions and lavish social scene of this elite summer resort
- Edith Wharton's personal correspondence and holograph manuscripts of The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth
- Records and drawings from renowned Gilded Age architecture firm McKim, Mead and White
- Political satire and cartoon collections including original illustrations by Thomas Nast and Joseph Keppler
- Industry, labour and business records from the Hagley Museum and Library, covering railway and steel corporations.
Included in
Key data
Source archives
- Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
- Hagley Museum and Library
- New-York Historical Society
- Newberry Library
- Newport Historical Society
- Rockefeller Archive Center
- Winterthur Library
- Architecture
- Culture and society
- Finance and economic growth
- Industrialisation
- Labour movements
- Philanthropy and charity
- Politics, corruption and reform
- Progressivism, activism and social justice
- Urbanisation and the rise of the modern city
- Davarian Baldwin, Trinity College, Connecticut
- Sven Beckert, Harvard University
- Albert Churella, Kennesaw State University
- Gideon Cohn-Postar, Northwestern University
- Jessica Derleth, Independent Historian
- Alan Kraut, The American University
- Christopher McKnight Nichols, Oregon State
- Margaret Nettesheim-Hoffmann, Marquette University
- Clayton Ruminski, Clemson University
- Nancy Unger, Santa Clara University
- Cultural Studies
- International Relations
- North American Studies
- Political History and Science
Collection insights
On Sunday 20th March the lights will go out for the start of the first Grand Prix of the 2022 Formula 1 season. Several of our recent resources contain mentions of the sport in the early days – namely The Gilded Age and Progressive Era and Interwar Culture – and it is these that I want to explore to get us all ready for the new F1 season.
The coronavirus pandemic has triggered renewed popular and academic interest in, and research about, the 1918 influenza epidemic. Professor Christopher McKnight Nichols, explores the development of the epidemic in the context of an increasingly interconnected world, evolving medical knowledge, usage of censorship and propaganda, and intervention of “big government” in the lives of ordinary people.
This week marks the publication of The Gilded Age and Progressive Era, a resource which brings together varied primary source material from eight archives to shed light on this transformative period in American history.
