Overview
In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, during what has become known as the Gilded Age, the population of the United States doubled in the span of a single generation. As national wealth expanded, two classes rose simultaneously, separated by a gulf of experience and circumstance that was unprecedented in American life. These disparities sparked passionate and violent debate over questions still being asked in our own times: How is wealth best distributed, and by what process? Does government exist to protect private property or provide balm to the inevitable casualties of a churning industrial system? The outcome of these disputes was both uncertain and momentous, and marked by a passionate vitriol and level of violence that would shock the conscience of many Americans today.
Production
GBH · PBS American Experience
Cast & Characters
Oliver Platt
Self - Narrator (voice)
Directors & Crew
Helen Ryan Dobrowski
Producer
Mark Zwonitzer
Writer
Sarah Colt
Producer
Sarah Colt
Director
Screenshots & Stills
