American History

The mid to late 19th century was a time of major change and transition in American society the division of the Civil War and the turmoil of Reconstruction in a newly free South, changes in commerce, immigration, and ever growing expansion all had the effect of irreparably altering the American consciousness. Called the Gilded Age by Mark Twain, in his novel of the same name, it was a time of excess and broken rules the old world was finally being left behind as capitalism began to churn at ever increasing speeds, letting even a man of the most humble begins flourish. The term aristocracy, which Twain uses to describe the varying levels of high society in Washington, D.C., can only be applied loosely when looking at the wealth of this era. This was not the blooded tradition of inheritance, but the actualization of the self made man. It was an era of Andrew Carnegies and Pullmans, growing wealthier and wealthier as increasing numbers of Americans and immigrants moved into the cities while others ventured farther west. For all its grandeur, and largely because of it, the Gilded Age was also a time of major social and economic division. Those untouchables of upper society, separated and forgetful of the common man who was himself finding a voice in the trade unions and new political parties of the time. As shown in Twains novel and the examination of historical evidence from the time period it that time in American history earned its designation as a Gilded Age the metaphor being realized in the glittering glory and newness of the time which hid a dark undercoat of political and social upheaval that would later culminate in the movements of the 20th century.

The society that inspired Twains novel of the late 19th century in Washington was of a totally new design of that previously seen and celebrated as epitomes of wealth and elegance. There is instead brashness, a newness to the wealth of Twains fictional Washington. As Ward Just explains in the introduction to The Gilded Age, For Mark Twain, this was the point, Washington as crisp as a new dollar bill  and if sometimes counterfeit, well, that too was part of American life. This almost primitive version of social life, devoid of the polish of New York or Boston, caught between the once divided northern and southern United States, was being built on the new ideals of capitalism and new money. It is a society where the money of new can encounter the old guard of the dying era. Unsure of how to maneuver this new found wealth, the Parvenus as Laura calls them in the novel, are caught between reality and a dream. They are living the life of money for which they have dreamed but within the realistic confines of their understanding of society. They imitate what they believe money should look like, there clothes, speech, and social manners belying their origins.

Lauras afternoon tea with the two ends of the wealthy social spectrum, the Antiques and then the Parvenus show the divide between the two. In the fact that both should come calling in the same manner shows how much has changed, as money itself has become the title-maker of the day. Family blood and deep roots were all well and good in the previous generation but as the possibilities for realizing the American dream began to grow, money became raised above even this. As Laura observes,

Great wealth gave a man a still higher and noble place in It than did official position. If this wealth had been acquired by conspicuous ingenuity, with just a little spice of illegality, all the better. This aristocracy was fast, and not averse to ostentation. The aristocracy of the Antique ignored the aristocracy of the Parvenus the Parvenus laughed at the Antique, (and secretly envied them.)

The ladies who come calling illustrate from each group illustrate the snobbery of one, while equally condemning the other for their ostentatious manners and extravagances. However, though they seem themselves as different, they shared a similar desire to imitate an image of wealth. Speaking about different vacation spots, an heir to the Antiques, the daughter of Mrs. Major-General Fulke-Fulkerson explains her refusal to go to lesser resorts, that have little standing on the social register, Newport is damp, and cold, and windy and excessively disagreeable, said the daughter, but it is very select. One cannot be fastidious about minor matters when one has no choice.

While the women of the ancient aristocracy were sacrificing comfort for image, the women of the Parvenus group seem more intent on sacrificing self-identity and worth for the acceptance and approval of the downward turned noses of the Antiques. Laura observes that while the Antiques group were subdued in their outward displays of wealth, the new money of the Parvenus was proudly illustrated in their clothing and accessories, Their costumes, as to architecture, were the latest fashion intensified they were rainbow-hued they were hung with jewels  chiefly diamonds. It would have been less plain to any eye that it had cost something to upholster these women. Describing the women as having been upholstered has interesting connotations. First, it implies that the outside coverings of these women are hiding the true workings of their inner selves. There roots, stuffing to fulfill the upholstery metaphor, are hidden beneath bright distractions. The second implied meaning is one of decoration a piece of furniture, a fixture that provides comfort or shows wealth, is upholstered, not a wife. It is possible that Twain is not simply condemning the gaudy garments of these ladies but also the tastes of their husbands who are equally concerned with showing their new prosperity.

Men such as Oliver Higgins provide Twain with an ample character to illustrate the change in wealth distribution in America. He is a self-made man, who like his wife, as come to imitate an image of money that he has created largely from fiction. Coming from an outlying territory, Higgins also illustrates the connectedness and the separation between the established cities of the East and the newer outposts to the West. In describing Higgins, Twain notes, He had always been regarded as the most elegant gentleman of his territory, and it was conceded by all that no man thereabouts was anywhere near his equal in the telling of an obscene story except the venerable white-haired governor himself.  Grasping the coattails of manifest destiny and building a fortune from nothing, there is something to admire in Higgins. However, much as tenacity and self-confidence can earn admiration, Higgins and his wife make jokes of themselves in imitating the old rather than setting new practical standards. Even in his own community, his wealth is flaunted.

Across the country there was this division of wealth as the landscape of society itself changed with the nation. Like the transition described by Frederick Jackson Turner, the Higgins exhibit the migration of people and ideals that accompanied the Gilded Age. In looking at the changes to American society, politics, commerce, and ideals, Turner sees a kind of map in the procession from one stage to another,

Line by line as we read this continental page from West to East we find the record of social evolution. It begins with the Indian and the hunter it goes on to tell of the disintegration of savagery by the entrance of the trader, the pathfinder of civilization we read the annals of the pastoral stage in ranch life the exploitation of the soil by the raising of unrotated crops of corn and wheat in sparsely settled farming communities the intensive culture of the denser farm settlement and finally the manufacturing organization with city and factory system.

What he leaves unsaid is that as farmers once exploited the soil, the magnates behind the big factories and the urban politicians with their hand in the same pot of honey are using the increase in Americas potential as an excuse for the exploitation of workers and immigrants, worlds removed from the wealth of even the pretentious Mr. Higgins. While men such as Andrew Carnegie, the magnates of new wealth who had used this new dream to build their own empires, saw the division between rich and poor as the wide chasm it was, others did not. Even Carnegie, whose philanthropy more so than his wealth helped his name to live on in history, had a strongly divided sense of society. Though he supported a death tax for wealthy individuals, and saw inheritance as a precept for ill-squandered wealth, he also supported the idea that there should remain a divide between the wealthy and the poor. Like children, the poor needed to be taken care of by the rich but should not be allowed within the same society of the rich. Charitable though Carnegie was, such views simply devalued the lives of those he helped in many ways as he did not seem them capable of rising to his level of success.

Twain sensed this devaluation of human worth in the face of wealth, illustrating it throughout the novel in a variety of characters who each have one concern - money. Even Laura is described as having a change in attitude on arriving in this new society, When she arrived, she was possessed of habits of economy and not possessed of money now she dressed elaborately, gave but little thought to the cost of things, and was very well fortified financially. Greed is catching not simply money but the power it was created by were important levers in a world that had, as of that time period, sought to rework some of the fundamentals from the previous economic framework. Agriculture competed and supplied the manufacturers and new railways that made expansion all the more lucrative. In 1896, William Jennings Bryan made his famous Cross of Gold speech on the support of the gold standard, illustrating that even the fundamentals of currency were in question in this new world.

As Twain shows in his novel, the dreams were as big as the possibilities. Though by the 1890s, Frederick Jackson Turner explains there is no longer a frontier in the west, the idea of the frontier persists for generations. There is still, even now, a place for the stories of cowboys and adventurers going off to seek their fortune. Riding against time, these images of men and women breaking down the traditional modes of American society and creating their own communities are quintessential images of the American drive. Describing the wheelers and dealers of the Washington circle, Twain observes, The atmosphere was full of little and big rumors and of vast, undefined expectations. Everybody was in haste, too, to push on his private plan, and feverish in his haste, as if in constant apprehension that to-morrow would be Judgment Day. As the American west changed, time really was of the essence. The glitter and excess of the period, seems almost to be an effort to dress up a hastily drawn together society of even more hastily drawn together schemes. Aside from the fostering of deeper pride in Americas possibilities, such moves were largely profitable whereas other migrations at the crossroads of U.S. history were more principled. The first colonial settlers came over the Atlantic for both economic opportunity and to escape the religious persecutions of their home countries. During the Gilded Age, the gold drew the crowds and religion simply followed.

The Gilded Age in American history was something that had never been seen on such a large scale in Americas short history. Once confined to the eastern part of the continent, as the frontier shrank with more and more settlers, the opportunities of the age began to take shape. Once penniless immigrants were titans of industry, money from mining and railway expansion was lining the pockets of many from the easy coast to the west. Below the shine of new dreams and opportunity, the same problems plagued society. Poverty was still widespread, private banks and businesses were growing, Indians were forced to move onto reservations or face extinction, for all but the wealthy and the powerful, the dream was a lie. For the labor unions and minor communist organizations that grew out of the working conditions of the urban and rural workers, the dream was a joke. However, this era set the stage in many ways for the 20th century, from the building of the American economy into a global player in industry and commerce to the radical social changes concerning race and gender. Most importantly, it began the still alive ideal of the American dream but as shown by Twain it was a dream based more in greed than pride.