Looking for...

[raenshadoe]

... information on the Gilded Age. Reading material. Movies. Etc. Specifically, I'm interested in high society and their servant class, as well as gender roles of the era.

Thanks in advance for help. *smiles*

Raen.

Comments

[arielstarshadow]

It's a fairly large time period (end of Civil War to the turn of the century) - can you narrow it down a bit because there's a huge difference between the late 1860s - mid 1880s and then the mid 1880s to the turn of the century.

[raenshadoe]

End of the century in specific. However, all good sources on the era are welcome. Generalities are a great place to start looking for specifics.

[ashtoreth]

Archie and Ameile: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age, by Donna Lucey

Ordinary People: In and Out of Poverty in the Gilded Age, by David Wagner

It's worth looking up Gilded Age under gay/lesbian headers since gender studies often wind up being lumped in. There is also a ton of information about the Astors, although very little of it I've personally read. Because I spend my weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas engaged in victorian ballroom dancing for the Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco, I have a great deal more information about Victorian customs than American ones.

[raenshadoe]

Awesome. Thank you, sweetness. That'll be very useful.

[writer_lynn]

Depends on the where. America? England? etc.

This is an area of research for me in my graduate work, but it is all focused in London mostly, though I have sources from elsewhere too.

[raenshadoe]

I'm looking more specifically at America. England and London at the time seem to be more specifically refered to as 'Victorian'... whereas I'm looking for the American new money aristocracy... whole different horse from the established traditional English, I would think... at least intuitively. *smiles*

[chapel_of_words]

Foreign or Domestic?

Not a book - but there was at least two reality TV series set in that period (or just thereafter) in England to recreate the societal class and gender roles (they divided up volunteers into rich/servants and their appropriate gender roles). Wouldn't call them academic or scholarly by any stretch, but if this is for what I think it is, might be a place to start.

http://www.pbs.org/manorhouse/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1900_House

Tim C.