Rapid advances in technology, a volatile economy, interventionist foreign policy, and the widening gap between rich and poor in the United States are among the trends that have prompted scholars and pundits to announce that currently we are living in the "new" Gilded Age. In this course about the first Gilded Age--defined here as the period from Appomattox (1865) to the Armory Show (1913)--we shall explore the role played by artists, writers, and other cultural arbiters (politicians, collectors, museum professionals, and critics) in defining and defending or critiquing the ideologies and institutions that embodied the contradictions of the era. |