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Under the Gold-Plating: Everyday Americans in the Gilded Age

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Under the Gold-Plating: Everyday Americans in the Gilded Age at The Breakers has closed.

Who were the everyday Americans in this great period of industrialization and urbanization? Where did they come from? What did they do for work? For fun? What were their struggles and triumphs? This richly illustrated presentation examines the lives of the men, women and children whose labor helped make possible this period of astonishing transition and innovation, and who contributed to the nation’s wealth of diversity.

Event thumbnail photo credit: Mulberry Street, New York,” Detroit Publishing Company, ca. 1900. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.

Nancy C. Unger, Professor of History at Santa Clara University and Past President of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Nancy C. Unger is Professor of History at Santa Clara University. She has served as President of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and three of her four books focus on that historical period. Her op-eds applying the lessons of the past to the present have appeared in dozens of publications and websites, including The Washington Post, CNN and TIME. Additional appearances include Public Radio International, National Public Radio, PBS and C-SPAN.

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