"Scholars of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, along with graduate and undergraduate students, will fine A Companion to the Golded Age and Progressive Era, edited by Christopher McKnight Nichols and Nancy C. Unger, an essential resource. The thirty-four essays contained within it, arranged in eight thematic sections are authored by a combination of the field's leading scholars and its rising stars. These pieces range from good to excellent. Overall, this volume combines a profound appreiation for the historians who have long defined this period...with a commitment to moving beyond the belief in American exceptionalism that, consciously or not, guided their writings. Specifically, key essays in this Companion contextualize the GAPE within a global framework."REVIEWED BY JOHN P. ENYEART, Bucknell University in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (October 2018)
Notes on Contributors Introduction: Gilded Excesses, Multiple Progressivisms 1Christopher McKnight Nichols and Nancy C. UngerPart I Overview-Definitions, Precursors, and Geographies 51 Reconstructing the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 7Heather Cox Richardson2 Precursors to Gilded Age and Progressive Era Reforms 21James M. Beeby and Brian M. Ingrassia3 Urban America 31Michael B. Kahan4 The South 44Amy Louise Wood5 The Midwest and Far West during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 58Thomas J. Jablonsky6 Environment: Nature, Conservation, and the Progressive State 71Benjamin JohnsonPart II Sex, Race, and Gender 857 Gender 87imberly A. Hamlin8 Inventing Sexuality: Ideologies, Identities, and Practices in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 102Leigh Ann Wheeler9 African Americans 116Omar H. Ali10 From Dispossessed Wards to Citizen Activists: American Indians Survive the Assimilation Policy Era 124Alexandra Harmon11 Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity 137Julie GreenePart III Art, Thought, and Culture 14912 Art and Architecture 151Alan Lessoff13 Religion in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 165Matthew Bowman14 Journalism 178Bruce J. Evensen15 Popular Culture 190Julia GuarneriPart IV Economics, Science, and Technology 20316 American Capitalism: From the Atlantic Economy to Domestic Industrialization 205Noam Maggor Copyrighted Material17 Nonprofit Organizations, Philanthropy, and Civil Society 215David C. Hammack18 Labor and Class in the GAPE: Fruitful Opposition and the Specter of the Middle Class 229David Huyssen19 Science and Technology 243Alan I Marcus20 The Rise of a Modern Concept of "Health" 255David G. SchusterPart V Political Leadership 26921 Gilded Age Presidents 271Justus D. Doenecke22 Political Movers and Shakers 284Karen Pastorello23 Changing Interpretations of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era 296Kathleen Dalton24 Woodrow Wilson 308loyd E. AmbrosiusPart VI Government, Politics, and Law 32125 Pivotal Elections 323Anthony Sparacino26 Congress in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 339Mark Wahlgren Summers27 Revising Constitutional History 350Logan E. Sawyer III28 Radicalism and Conservatism 362Cristina V. GroegerPart VII The United States and the World 37929 Connections, Networks, and the Beginnings of a Global America in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 381Ian Tyrrell30 Empire, Expansion, and Its Consequences 399Allan E. S. Lumba31 The United States in the World during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 410Katherine UntermanPart VIII Major Works and Contemporary Relevance 42132 Decades of Upheaval and Reform 423Maureen A. Flanagan33 Influential Works about the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 437Robert D. Johnston34 Why the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Still Matter 450Michael KazinBibliography 454Index 507
Christopher McKnight Nichols is Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University. He is author of the award-winning book, Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age (2011), co-editor of Prophesies of Godlessness: Predictions of America's Imminent Secularization from the Puritans to the Present Day (2008), and Senior Editor of the two volume Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History (2013).Nancy C. Unger is Professor of History at Santa Clara University. She is the author of Beyond Nature's Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History (2012) and the award-winning biographies Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (2000), and Belle La Follette: Progressive Era Reformer (2016).