Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 3
Scott Reynolds Nelson, College of William and Mary Alison M.
Parker, College at Brockport, State University of New York
Historians have long agreed that the late nineteenth century was
a transformative period in United States history. The rise of
corporate capitalism, hothouse economic grown,
proletarianization, mass immigration, white supremacy, and
tumultuous social movements were just some of the significant
developments in the Gilded Age, traditionally considered as 1877
to 1900. Yet in recent decades the Gilded Age has become a
vastly neglected period. This stimulating roundtable will
reassess and rethink the major themes, significance, and
periodization of America’s Gilded Age. In this session four
senior scholars whose intellectual careers have dwelled at
length in the late nineteenth century will raise provocative and
timely issues about the meaning and long-term significance of
the Gilded Age. In different ways they will challenge the rat