The Gilded Age Review

Calhoun, Charles W., ed. The Gilded Age: Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America, 2nd ed. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. The Gilded Age: Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America, Second Edition is a book compiled of historical essays on the many aspects of life during end of the nineteenth century (1870-1900). These essays are composed by many different modern Gilded Age historians, giving the book a great amount of diversity of topics and perceptions. Each of these historians is an expert in their field. For example, W. Bernard Carlson is a professor at the University of Virginia, where he focuses on the history of technology. His essay, Technology and America as a Consumer Society focuses on the technological developments of the Gilded Age and how these affected American society. The collection of essays is edited by Charles W. Calhoun, a professor of history at East Carolina University and former president of the Society of Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The Gilded Age has always been portrayed as a period of “corruption” and “greed,” an age of industrialization that created more benefits for small amounts of people (political bosses and big businesses) and more problems for larger amounts of people. It has been an age that has been setback with a focus on the problems of the time instead of the achievements. The Gilded Age: Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America, Second Edition tries to portray the period, without ignoring the problems, as period of great accomplishment and progress. By explaining how America transformed from a rural, agricultural, isolated, localized, and traditional society to an urban, industrial, integrated, national, and modern society, the compiled essays express how the beginning of “modern” America can be traced back to the Gilded Age. For example, Glenn Porter’s article, Industrialization and the Rise of Big Business, relates the many

inventions and innovations of the Gilded Age and relates them to the development of industrialization and the creation of an integrated national market. Leslie H. Fishel Jr.’s article, The African-American Experience, takes the experiences of African-Americans in the different parts of the country and explains the difficulties they faced, but at the same time presents the accomplishments that he states were “nurturing male and female leaders, preparing to organize to defend its rights, improving educational offerings, and fostering literary and artistic achievements”(160). Altogether these articles each present a different topic of the Gilded Age, but each one expresses the overall theme of the achievements of the time outweighing the problems. The Gilded Age: Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America, Second Edition presents a very well organized, scholarly, and enlightening perspective of the Gilded Age. Each historian provides enough evidence to explain the events and their interpretations of them. The books concept of the Gilded Age is becoming a more common theme of the time, but students are still being taught only the negative twists of the period. It provides educators with a quality piece of literature to represent all aspects of the time period. The period was not only one of “corruption” and “greed,” but was one of great achievements and progress that sparked the beginning of the “modern” American social, political, economical, and cultural nation. John C. McKnight Appalachian State University