The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Edith Wharton ranks as one of the Gilded Age's most prolific and popular writers. In this episode, Professor Stacy Holden tells us about her research on Wharton's lesser known travelogue In Morocco, a revealing account of the author's travels to the French and Spanish colony. It tells us a great deal about American and European imperialism, and the Orientalism that pervaded her thinking.Essential Reading:Edith Wharton, In Morocco (1920).Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton (2007).Recommended Reading: Julie Olin-Ammentorp, Edith Wharton’s Writings from the Great War (2004). Alan Price, The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton and the First World War (1996). Andrew Patrick, America’s Forgotten Middle East Initiative: The King-Crane Commission of 1919 (2015). Andrew Priest, Designs on Empire (on the podcast in 2022).

Last year, we had Professor Thomas Ruys Smith with us to talk about his book Christmas Past. Keeping in the festive spirit, Tom has returned, and with co-conspirator Professor Hilary Emmett to do a special holiday reading of a Gilded Age classic Five Little Peppers. This was one of the biggest stories of its day and it launched Margaret Sidney's career into the stratosphere of best known authors. In this episode Hilary reads a chapter from the republished story.Margaret Sidney, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (UEA Publishing Project, 2022).

The newspapers called Mother Jones the most dangerous woman in America because her presence at a labor rally would stiffen the resolve of workers. As Professor Simon Cordery relates, she raised "Cain and Consciousness." Prof. Cordery joins me to talk about Jones and her influence on the labor movement in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.Essential Reading:Simon Cordery, Mother Jones: Raising Cain and Consciousness (2010).Recommended Reading:Philip S. Foner, ed., Mother Jones Speaks: Collected Speeches and Writings (1983).Edward M. Steel, ed., The Correspondence of Mother Jones (1985).Thomas G. Andrews, Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War (2010).Melvyn Dubofsky and Joseph A. McCartin, Labor in America: A History (2017).Elliott J. Gorn, Mother Jones (2001).