The drama, expansion, mansions and wealth of New York City's transformative Gilded Age era, from 1870 to 1910, captured in a magnificently illustrated hardcover. In forty short years, New York City suddenly became a city of skyscrapers, subways, streetlights, and Central Park, as well as sprawling bridges that connected the once-distant boroughs. In Manhattan, more than a million poor immigrants crammed into tenements, while the half of the millionaires in the entire country lined Fifth Avenue with their opulent mansions. The Gilded Age in New York captures what is was like to live in Gotham then, to be a daily witness to the city's rapid evolution. Newspapers, autobiographies, and personal diaries offer fascinating glimpses into daily life among the rich, the poor, and the surprisingly large middle class. The use of photography and illustrated periodicals provides astonishing images that document the bigness of New York: the construction of the Statue of Liberty; the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge; the shimmering lights of Luna Park in Coney Island; the mansions of Millionaire's Row. Sidebars detail smaller, fleeting moments: Alice Vanderbilt posing proudly in her "Electric Light" ball gown at a society-changing masquerade ball; immigrants stepping off the boat at Ellis Island; a young Theodore Roosevelt witnessing Abraham Lincoln's funeral. The Gilded Age in New York is a rare illustrated look at this amazing time in both the city and the country as a whole. Author Esther Crain, the go-to authority on the era, weaves first-hand accounts and fascinating details into a vivid tapestry of American society at the turn of the century. Praise for New-York Historical Society New York City in 3D In The Gilded Age, also by Esther Crain: "Vividly captures the transformation from cityscape of horse carriages and gas lamps 'bursting with beauty, power and possibilities' as it staggered into a skyscraping Imperial City." -Sam Roberts, The New York Times "Get a glimpse of Edith Wharton's world." - Entertainment Weekly Must List "What better way to revisit this rich period . . ?" - Library Journal

An expansive exploration of The Gilded Age in New York City, from of the extravagant lifestyles and magnificent mansions of the ultra-rich to the daily doings of the wretchedly poor who lived in the shadows of their newly constructed skyscrapers. Written by the curator of Ephemeral New York and illustrated with hundreds of rarely-seen images. Mark Twain coined the term the "Gilded Age" for this period of growth and extravagance, experienced most dramatically in New York City from the 1870s to 1910. In forty short years, the city suddenly became a city of skyscrapers, subways, streetlights, and Central Park, as well as sprawling bridges that connected the once-distant boroughs. In Manhattan, more than a million poor immigrants crammed into tenements, while the half of the millionaires in the entire country lined Fifth Avenue with their opulent mansions. The Gilded Age in New York City covers daily life for the rich, poor, and the burgeoning middle class; the colorful and energetic entrepreneurs known as both "captains of industry" and "robber barons" including John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, and J.P. Morgan; the opulence and excess of the new wealthy class; the influx of immigrants which caused the city's population to quadruple in 40 years; how new-found leisure time was spent in places such as Coney Island and Central Park; crimes that shocked the city and altered the police force; the rise of social services; and the city's physical growth both skyward and outward toward the five boroughs. With more than 300 illustrations and photographs (including images colorized specifically for this book) combined with firsthand accounts and fascinating details, The Gilded Age in New York presents a vivid tapestry of American society at the turn of the century.

The drama, expansion, mansions and wealth of New York City's transformative Gilded Age era, from 1870 to 1910, captured in a magnificently illustrated hardcover. In forty short years, New York City suddenly became a city of skyscrapers, subways, streetlights, and Central Park, as well as sprawling bridges that connected the once-distant boroughs. In Manhattan, more than a million poor immigrants crammed into tenements, while the half of the millionaires in the entire country lined Fifth Avenue with their opulent mansions. The Gilded Age in New York captures what is was like to live in Gotham then, to be a daily witness to the city's rapid evolution. -Newspapers, autobiographies, and personal diaries offer fascinating glimpses into daily life among the rich, the poor, and the surprisingly large middle class. -The use of photography and illustrated periodicals provides astonishing images that document the bigness of New York: the construction of the Statue of Liberty; the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge; the shimmering lights of Luna Park in Coney Island; the mansions of Millionaire's Row. -Sidebars detail smaller, fleeting moments: Alice Vanderbilt posing proudly in her "Electric Light" ball gown at a society-changing masquerade ball; immigrants stepping off the boat at Ellis Island; a young Theodore Roosevelt witnessing Abraham Lincoln's funeral. The Gilded Age in New York is a rare illustrated look at this amazing time in both the city and the country as a whole. Author Esther Crain, the go-to authority on the era, weaves first-hand accounts and fascinating details into a vivid tapestry of American society at the turn of the century. Praise for New-York Historical Society New York City in 3D In The Gilded Age, also by Esther Crain: "Vividly captures the transformation from cityscape of horse carriages and gas lamps 'bursting with beauty, power and possibilities' as it staggered into a skyscraping Imperial City." -Sam Roberts, The New York Times "Get a glimpse of Edith Wharton's world." - Entertainment Weekly Must List "What better way to revisit this rich period . . '" - Library Journal.

The Gilded Years of the late nineteenth century were a vital and glamorous era in New York City as families of great fortune sought to demonstrate their new position by building vast Fifth Avenue mansions filled with precious objects and important painting collections and hosting elaborate fetes and balls. This is the moment of Mrs. Astor’s “Four Hundred,” the rise of the Vanderbilts and Morgans, Maison Worth, Tiffany & Co., Duveen, and Allard. Concurrently these families became New York’s first cultural philanthropists, supporting the fledgling Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Opera, among many institutions founded during this period. A collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York, Gilded New York examines the social and cultural history of these years, focusing on interior design and decorative arts, fashion and jewelry, and the publications that were the progenitors of today’s shelter magazines.

A fully illustrated, insightful portrait of this historic time of dramatic economic growth marked by glamorous haves and struggling have-nots. The Gilded Age—the name coined by Mark Twain to refer to the period of rapid economic growth in America between the 1870s and 1900—offers some intriguing parallels to our own time. Bestselling author and historian Alan Axelrod tackles this subject in a fresh way, exploring this intense era in its various dimensions, and looking at also looks at how it presaged our current era, which many are calling the “Second Gilded Age.” Photographs, political cartoons, engravings, news clippings, and other ephemera help bring this fascinating period into focus.

The Gilded Age (1865-1918) saw the sudden rise of America's first High Society, including such prominent families as the Astors, Whitneys, and Vanderbilts. As an aristocracy based on fortunes recently acquired, these families endeavored to live like Europe's blue-blooded nobility, shedding Puritan restraint as they joyously flaunted their new wealth--especially where their homes were concerned. They erected French chateaus and Italian palazzos on New York's Fifth Avenue, at Newport, and elsewhere, often taking inspiration from Parisian styles of the Second Empire. They rejected more modest American styles just as they rejected middle-class society, and for interior decoration they turned to such artisans as Tiffany, Herter Brothers, and Allard's of Paris. Immensely readable and illuminated with 250 stunning color and black-and-white illustrations, this is the fascinating story of America's first millionaire society, the way they lived and partied, and the lush artistic and cultural legacy they established.