It's our final podcast episode of our first season, and we of course go into the famous Vanderbilt ball that very clearly inspired events in the finale episode of The Gilded Age's season 1. (This ball made such an impact in the 1880s, it was still being talked about 60 years later!) To wrap up our own first season of the podcast, we look into the prominent individuals and families of the Gilded Age who featured in the series, including the Vanderbilts, the Astors, Jay Gould, JP Morgan, and others. We also give our thoughts about what stood out to us while researching and recording this podcast season and whether we could learn anything that might apply to today from our foray into America's gilded past.

What inspired this episode?

The series finale of The Gilded Age season 1 revolves around the show's fictional wannabe socialite, Bertha Russell, and her attempt to get the queen bee of New York society, Lina Astor, to attend her daughter's debutante ball. Afraid of being snubbed again by the frigid Mrs. Astor, Bertha hatches a plan to get Lina's daughter, Carrie (who on the show is a friend of Bertha's daughter Gladys,) to convince her mother to attend the ball. This storyline parallels the real-life ball that social climber and "new money" Alva Vanderbilt threw, a party so anticipated, so talked-about, so grand that the "old money" Astors had no choice but to attend.

Thank you so much for joining us for this first season of the Gilded Hour Podcast. We really enjoyed making these episodes for you. Please follow us on our social media accounts as we will provide updates on when this podcast will continue!

In this week's podcast episode, we explore the real-life Newport homes and talk a bit about how the concept of summer came about in the first place. We also go over some of the popular architectural styles of Victorian era homes, and how the Newport cottages took some of the most popular architecture of the time period to the next level, and again, left a lasting impact that we can still see in cities and towns today.

What inspired this episode?

Activities like taking a summer holiday and hosting a laid-back, casual social event in the warmer months are part of the concept of leisure that grew out of the 19th century. Nowadays, we look upon summers of the past with a lot of nostalgia. The romanticism of retreating in summer didn't emerge from nothing, however: in the U.S., the idea of taking a summer vacation began with the habits of the wealthy (and trend-setting) elites in the Gilded Age.

As we saw in the series "The Gilded Age," the elites began to ritualize summer by traveling to resorts, camps, and hot springs to get some well-deserved rest and relaxation. The ultra-elite of New York also bought seasonal residences in the coastal town of Newport, Rhode Island. The size and extravagance of these summer "cottages" in Newport are unlike anything we saw before or, possibly, will ever see again in American history. Yet, the ritualization of summer that they started and the styles of the palatial vacation homes they built has really remained fashionable and has been a part of the nostalgia of our national consciousness ever since.

In this episode of "The Gilded Age," drama unfolds against a backdrop of a very significant change happening in cities around the world in the 1880s: the dawn of electricity being widely available, and the start of lightbulbs as common household items. Over 140 years later, it's easy for us to take for granted electricity and artificial lighting, which surrounds us every day in our homes, workplaces, even on our portable devices. Putting ourselves in the shoes of late 19th century individuals, seeing the first electric lightbulbs lighting a city or in a home must have been breathtaking. In this episode of the podcast, we take a quick jaunt through the lead-up to the invention of lightbulbs, look at how fast electricity was installed across cities in the U.S. and around the world, and think about how it transformed our every day activities.

What inspired this episode?

In one of the most memorable scenes of the HBO streaming series' first season, a crowd of spectators gathers to watch as the New York Times building is lit up by the opening of a new electric generating station in the city. This scene was inspired by a real-life event that took place in September of 1882, when Thomas Edison’s Edison Illuminating Company turned on his power station on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan. This station then proceeded to provide electricity to New York City homes at a price that was comparable to gas. Residential and business customers quickly signed up, and the electrical age began. "The Gilded Age" chose to highlight this moment in American history because it did symbolize a big turning point in the U.S. and in the world: when we stopped using fire and gas to light our homes, and suddenly had access to the infinite possibilities (like coffee machines!) that electricity could offer.