The goal:

The aim of this assignment is to get you immersed in the Gilded Age mind by investigating and analyzing Gilded Age magazines. Magazines proliferated in this era, but in our own time, fewer and fewer of us read magazines at all, let alone with the anticipation and consistency that our Gilded Age forebears did. I hope it will be a fun task for you to turn the pages of these various magazines and to see what topics were covered and how, which products were advertised and how, and the ways in which magazines appealed to their different constituents.

The process:

If you know of a certain event, topic, or person you would like to investigate, begin there. Choose any topic in the Gilded Age that interests you–but be aware that the best choice for this paper will be both a very narrow topic and one that would be covered in magazines. You might consider a topic tied to a famous person, or an event of national concern, or perhaps the introduction of a new technology, specific changes in fashion, or a record that was just broken. Or for more specific examples: a presidential assassination (Garfield or McKinley), the erection of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the opening of the Home Insurance Building (first skyscraper), the Johnstown flood, the Pullman strike, the Homestead strike, Wounded Knee, the founding of Tuskegee Institute (university), Nellie Melba’s tour, the opening of Ellis Island, the World’s Columbian Exposition, the Paris Exposition, the advent of electric light, Consuelo Vanderbilt’s wedding.

Then dig deeply and locate four or more articles on that topic. Remain open to other ideas at this stage. You will probably need to look in several consecutive issues of the same magazine for follow-up articles.

The paper:

Write a paper–no fewer than four pages–on your topic based entirely upon your readings from a minimum of four articles from at least one Gilded Age magazine. In other words, you’ll be looking for a topic that one magazine will have covered in at least four articles (almost certainly across four different issues or volumes).

Your job is to identify and analyze what you have read. You will do this in two parts. Part One (please label it that way) should be no less than three pages (all the way to the bottom of page three) long. It should be a beautifully written essay identifying and explaining your topic clearly. Provide enough background information that an educated reader who knows nothing about your subject will understand it. Part Two (again, please label it as such) should be three to four paragraphs long–so not much more than a page–written in first person and explaining what you learned about the magazine or magazines that you used in this assignment. For example, what did they cover in general? Who do you think was the intended audience? What was striking or unusual or puzzling to you about the magazines?

Your paper must be footnoted or endnoted in Chicago style, and include a bibliography in Chicago style.

The goal:

The aim of this assignment is to get you immersed in the Gilded Age mind by investigating and analyzing Gilded Age magazines. Magazines proliferated in this era, but in our own time, fewer and fewer of us read magazines at all, let alone with the anticipation and consistency that our Gilded Age forebears did. I hope it will be a fun task for you to turn the pages of these various magazines and to see what topics were covered and how, which products were advertised and how, and the ways in which magazines appealed to their different constituents.

The process:

If you know of a certain event, topic, or person you would like to investigate, begin there. Choose any topic in the Gilded Age that interests you–but be aware that the best choice for this paper will be both a very narrow topic and one that would be covered in magazines. You might consider a topic tied to a famous person, or an event of national concern, or perhaps the introduction of a new technology, specific changes in fashion, or a record that was just broken. Or for more specific examples: a presidential assassination (Garfield or McKinley), the erection of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the opening of the Home Insurance Building (first skyscraper), the Johnstown flood, the Pullman strike, the Homestead strike, Wounded Knee, the founding of Tuskegee Institute (university), Nellie Melba’s tour, the opening of Ellis Island, the World’s Columbian Exposition, the Paris Exposition, the advent of electric light, Consuelo Vanderbilt’s wedding.

Then dig deeply and locate four or more articles on that topic. Remain open to other ideas at this stage. You will probably need to look in several consecutive issues of the same magazine for follow-up articles.

The paper:

Write a paper–no fewer than four pages–on your topic based entirely upon your readings from a minimum of four articles from at least one Gilded Age magazine. In other words, you’ll be looking for a topic that one magazine will have covered in at least four articles (almost certainly across four different issues or volumes).

Your job is to identify and analyze what you have read. You will do this in two parts. Part One (please label it that way) should be no less than three pages (all the way to the bottom of page three) long. It should be a beautifully written essay identifying and explaining your topic clearly. Provide enough background information that an educated reader who knows nothing about your subject will understand it. Part Two (again, please label it as such) should be three to four paragraphs long–so not much more than a page–written in first person and explaining what you learned about the magazine or magazines that you used in this assignment. For example, what did they cover in general? Who do you think was the intended audience? What was striking or unusual or puzzling to you about the magazines?

Your paper must be footnoted or endnoted in Chicago style, and include a bibliography in Chicago style.

The dates for your paper topic are 1877-1901–nothing will be accepted outside of those years. Make sure that your paper gets to the bottom of page four at a minimum. If you use footnotes, you will want to get to page five. Please use 12-point font, ideally Times or Times New Roman, and one-inch margins.

• Godey’s Ladies Book — found online here:
• The Economist — online through HathiTrust:
• The Century Magazine — online through HathiTrust:
• Scribner’s Magazine — online through HathiTrust:
• –>Try searching for Index to see if that will pull up an multi-volume index of articles that can help pique your interest or take you to articles you want to read.
• –> Remember that Caroline Astor is more likely to appear as Mrs. Astor. Women seldom went by their full names.
• –> If you search John Sherman instead of “John Sherman” you will often get every single time anyone named John or Sherman is mentioned. Quotes can be your best friend in on-line searching!
• –> Think about the era when you search. “Negro” is more likely to get to appear than “African American,” or even “Black.” The word “feminism” did not exist in the Gilded Age. If you have trouble finding what you think should be there, email me. I’ll help.
• Remember that newspaper and magazine titles are always, always italicized–everywhere you use them (paper, footnotes, bibliography), and that article titles are always, always put inside quotation marks.
• Last thing remember must have 5 different magazine. Also 5 pages