Stay ConnectedThe Gilded Gentleman history podcast takes listeners on a cultural and social journey into the mansions, salons, dining rooms, libraries and theatres including the worlds above as well as below stairs of America’s Gilded Age, France’s Belle Epoque and late Victorian and Edwardian England.
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Venice by the end of the 19th century had lost much of the glory it once had known. Crumbling palazzi, a bad economy and an overall sense of decay permeated the city.
New writings published on the long-forgotten Venetian Renaissance painters and artists brought a new stream of visitors to the city including Henry James, John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler among others. American expatriate art connoisseurs such as Daniel and Ariana Curtis and the great Isabella Stewart Gardner all made Venice home for a time.
Much of the activity centered around the majestic Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal which the Curtises bought, becoming the scene of much entertaining and socializing among artists.
This episode takes a look at what the city meant to James on his many visits since his first in 1869 to his last in 1907. In addition, the show considers what it meant to other artists and how they interpreted it amidst a fascinating, eccentric, educated community of people flowing into the city.
We will also take a look at the two great works in which James captured the city and this community, The Aspern Papers (1888) and The Wings of the Dove (1902).
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As we continue our visit to the Riviera in the Belle Epoque, The Gilded Gentleman revisits the little-known story of an American-born European princess.
Many people think that Grace Kelly became the first American princess of Monaco when she married Prince Rainier in 1956. The truth however is that decades before in the glittering years of the Belle Epoque, another American-born woman married a Monegasque prince and claimed that honor.
Alice Heine was born in New Orleans to a French father and a mother with European as well as Southern roots. Moving to Europe with her family when she was a child, she married a French duke at a young age. His untimely death left her a widow, but she caught the eye of Prince Albert I of Monaco who despite his family's objections married her in 1889 making her his princess.
The story of Alice's life as Princess of Monaco is a fascinating one which includes many famous names of the era such as the Prince of Wales the future King Edward VII.
Among other efforts to modernize the principality, Alice devoted much of her time to raising the cultural prestige of Monaco and Monte Carlo. Her marriage faltered due to infidelity on both sides and following a dramatic incident discussed in the show, Alice abruptly left Monaco in 1901 never to return.
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A glittering, glamorous look at the history of the French Riviera and its height in the years of the Belle Epoque - where not everything was always quite as it seemed.
Originally popular as a warm weather destination for convalescing British aristocrats, the rocky, dramatically beautiful eastern coastline of southern France, the Riviera and its resorts of Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo, have been populated with the rich and the royal.
It was also a good place if one just wanted to hide out. In many ways, it was a place where anyone could be anyone they wanted to be - as long as they looked the part. Queen Victoria discovered Nice and its neighboring region beginning in 1882 and made it her winter home for many years.
Wealthy aristocratic families such as the great Rothschild banking family found it too and in this episode we spend time with two unique Rothschild ladies.
For many movie fans, the Riviera will always remain as it appeared in Hitchcock's 1955 film To Catch a Thief and indeed this episode includes the story of one particular real-life jewel thief with a surprising identity who preyed upon the wealthy in the Belle Epoque.
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As New York continued its march up the island of Manhattan, there were few places where people that couldn't escape to Newport could find somewhere to relax, play, stroll and find some shade.
The development of Central Park provided some much needed relief but it took some time for it to become a place that was accessible and viable for all of New York's social classes.
Out on the far coast of Brooklyn, the resort of Coney Island developed rapidly and became a truly great escape with its famous amusement parks where one could find adventure and perhaps a bit of romance. In this episode, returning guest Esther Crain, author and creator of Ephemeral New York, takes us on a journey to visit these spots and spaces where Gilded Age New Yorkers could cool off, forget the realities of life for just a bit, and have a really good time.
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As a special summer bonus, join Carl for an encore of this classic Gilded Gentleman episode. Be sure to wear your best hat and dust off your gold topped cane for this very gilded shopping trip.
Carl is joined by Emma Guest-Consales, PhD art historian and master New York City tour guide. for this special look at the evolution of shopping in 19th century New York and just how revolutionary some retailers were in the Gilded Age.
Emma takes us on a virtual visit to Ladies MIle, the elegant shopping thoroughfare along Broadway as well as for a look at several of the great cast iron shopping emporiums such as Siegel Cooper and Stern Brothers. Many of the standard elements of a retail experience such as end of season sales, good customer service, merchandise displays and even everyone's favorite pastime, window shopping were revelations in the 19th century and this episode will delve into just how it all came to be.
For more information, you can also listen to the Bowery Boys Podcast episode on Ladies Mile.
More on this week's guest Emma Guest-Consales. You can book her Gilded Age tours here.
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There is nothing like a finely crafted cocktail to celebrate a special occasion (even if it's just a typical Tuesday). While many think that classic cocktail history began during the Jazz Age and the 1920s (even though America was in the middle of Prohibition), the truth is that much happened about fifty years before -- in the Gilded Age.
Vintage beverage specialist Don Spiro takes listeners through the history that includes the moment mixed drinks began to be called "cocktails", what the very first cocktail actually was, and most importantly, how great Gilded Age hotels like New York's Waldorf Hotel and the Hoffman House contributed to cocktail history.
Don shares some of his favorite vintage cocktails, cocktail books and stories of some of the most famous and influential celebrity bartenders. You'll hear the histories of the Manhattan, the Martini, the Daiquiri and - as a special bonus - Don even has created a brand new cocktail - The Gilded Gentleman. Join us to find out just what's in it and how you can make it at home!
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When Oscar Wilde arrived in New York in January 1882, one of his most important intentions was to meet the great Walt Whitman, who was more than 30 years older than Wilde, and whom he had idolized since his youth. The two poets met, and in this show, we expand on what that meeting would have been like, how each writer influenced the other, and what perhaps did and didn't happen at their encounter.
But the story is larger than that. This special show, with noted Wilde scholar and expert John Cooper, takes a look at the New York Wilde met upon his arrival and just why and how this 27 year-old Irish poet charmed them and began to develop his own unique brand of celebrity.
In today's show, John guides listeners on a journey to discover just who Oscar Wilde was at this point in his life and career, how he and the city of New York interacted with each other, and just how Oscar would likely have defined and described his own much debated sexual identity.
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The New York world that Walt Whitman knew as a young man in the 1850's was really two cities - that of New York (which was only today's Manhattan) and the growing city of Brooklyn across the East River. These two cities in the midst of pre-Civil War and pre-Gilded Age development inspired the young Whitman to give voice to a new America and new experience.
In this first episode of a two-part series, writer and historian Hugh Ryan ("When Brooklyn Was Queer") talks about just how revolutionary Whtman's "Leaves of Grass" was, and just how Whitman would have defined his same-sex attractions, which had not yet evolved into the concepts of sexuality and gender identification that we know today.
This unique episode includes a look at the New York and Brooklyn that Whitman knew. Hugh contributes his own perspective and insight into just what that famous meeting between the older Whitman and the younger Oscar Wilde years later might have been like.
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A special bonus episode from the Bowery Boys archives! Join Tom and Greg for an in-depth look at the architect that, as some have said, gave the Gilded Age its look.
In the years before the great firm of McKim, Mead and White with its star architect Stanford White, another American born and Paris trained architect was translating European style with uniquely American taste. Richard Morris Hunt was one of the very first to establish architecture as an art form and his work included such iconic structures as the base of the Statue of Liberty, the grand facade and entrance hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as mansions for Mrs. Astor and the Vanderbilts.
Join Tom and Greg for this uniquely fascinating look at Hunt's life and influence and how he brought a refinement and sense of art into American architecture.
For more images, visit the Bowery Boys website.
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A look at New York's theater scene during the Gilded Age. Tim Dolan, theater historian and theater district tour guide (owner of Broadway UpClose) helps us take a look at the era's theater, including its shows, stars and theaters, some of which are still around.
Through most of the 19th century New Yorkers thought of "Broadway" as a street, not a term that meant great theater or even a theater district. This episode takes a look at what theater was like in the late 1800's and early 1900s just as Times Square was developing.
This was the era of shows like Floradora and the Ziegfeld Follies. Tim discusses some famous performers, like the star Lillian Russell and the fascinating Julian Eltinge. We look at a few theaters still playing to full houses from that time - the Hudson, the Lyceum, the New Amsterdam and the Belasco. (And a couple of those may contain a few ghosts that continue to wander their halls!)
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