The real history behind The Gilded Age and how it recreated 1880s New York

The Gilded Age proves that the American aristocracy was just as dramatic as their European counterparts. Set in 1880s New York, it depicts a time of major change and why creator Julian Fellowes (the mastermind behind Downton Abbey), chose it as his next project. “I was always interested in the so-called ‘Gilded Age,’ that period after the Civil War in the 1870s and 1880s when enormous fortunes made from railway, shipping, copper, and coal were flooding into New York… It was all about the look of things, making the right appearance, creating the right image.”

Executive Producer Gareth Neame went as far as to say that many people aren’t even aware that New York had such a broad socialite scene. “This is a genre that Americans think of as typical British fare. I think it will be an eye-opener for some viewers that this world existed at all. It was such a fascinating place and time when America was overtaking Britain as a global superpower.”

The Gilded Age follows Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), who goes to New York to live with her affluent aunts, Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon). She’s thrown into power plays between the old money vs. new money residents of Fifth Avenue as she explores her new surroundings.

Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) is a prominent character from the new money branch, as her husband George (Morgan Spector) is a railroad tycoon. Many Americans at the time made their fortunes in this way as America became industrialized after the Civil War. But despite their newfound success, they were still considered outsiders, and that’s where real history truly makes a splash on the fictional tale.

Are any of the characters based on real people?

At the start of the season, it’s clear money alone doesn’t define your rank. People are known to generally be wary of change, so it’s no surprise the characters quaked in their boots as high status suddenly became more accessible. One such character is Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy), who is based on a real-life socialite Mrs. Caroline Astor. She was the ‘gatekeeper’ of the New York scene, and like in the HBO series, her goal was to uphold the old traditions and set the standard for etiquette, alongside the self-serving and power-hungry Ward McAllister (Nathan Lane). The New York Times even published a list in 1892 (provided by McAllister) of those considered to be a part of the New York high society, known as “The Four Hundred”.

Bertha’s goal is clearly to reach this status, as she goes as far as trying to replicate a luncheon modeled on British traditions to prove herself. Agnes is often the first to criticize her methods, and Baranski defended her “stringent” character, making the valid point that “what we see emerging is a world of rampant capitalism, people spending insane amounts of money to impress other people.”

The series also accurately shows how influential the Black community was at this time. Often, their contributions are entirely overlooked in period dramas, and so Peggy’s (Denée Benton) story of pursuing a writing career alongside dealing with real struggles that are still prevalent today is crucial.

Writer Sonja Warfield explained that “One thing we rarely see on screen is the Black middle class, the Black elites, of that time. I loved bringing these stories to light. That’s something I gravitate toward. We see stories about slavery, but we don’t know that Black professionals existed, that there was an influential Black press.”

Bringing The Gilded Age script to life

Dr. Erica Armstrong Dunbar worked as a historical consultant on the production to ensure the story was authentic. “I started by reviewing the scripts with Julian [Fellowes] and Sonja [Warfield] for historical accuracy and helped shape the worlds in which the characters live. After that, I would have calls with the actors to talk about their characters and the things they would have lived through. The Gilded Age is fiction, not a history lecture, but we get to see characters who represent the greatest changes of that time,” Dunbar explained.

This is especially true in the case of Agnes’ marriage; it is a very modern partnership, and it reflects a step in the right direction for more equality. Coon said: “They have a shockingly egalitarian marriage for the time they’re living in…They’re equally ambitious and supportive of each other. George recognizes in his wife a capacity that society doesn’t value, and I found that remarkable.”

As well as the writing reflecting people’s experiences, the series also had to visually present the time period. That’s where the sets, costumes, and props come in. Fellowes recalled that while the city changed in the last 100+ years, some remnants of the great houses still exist. “Ten years ago, I used to walk around New York City and think all the Gilded Age palaces had been demolished, but I discovered they hadn’t. If you go up Fifth Avenue, you can still find some of the Gilded Age houses in the cross streets. Seeing the houses where these people lived made it very vivid for me.”

So how was the remaining architecture used for the series?

Turns out, rebuilding was the key. Executive Producer David Crockett clarified that “Whereas hundreds of years of history might be around every corner in most European cities, we had to put together a team to blanket New York City and other parts of the Northeast to find the pieces of the 1880s that both still existed and worked for our story. And for things we couldn’t find, we built them – like the full city block of 1880s 61st Street,” he said.

Not everything could be made especially for the series though, and prop master Michael Jortner revealed: “The printing press in one scene came from a museum in California and we reassembled it on location to get it running. We acquired a lot [of props] but we also built from scratch. Some items we bought were in disrepair, so we used them as a reference point. The parasols and umbrellas were original, but we had to redo the canopies. All the copper cookware was re-coppered to make it look brand-new. We made all the police badges. Then we were repairing things as we went.”

As for the costumes, a team of 60 was involved. Costume Designer Kasia Maimone wanted to portray the liveliness of the clothing, as because of their wealth, the characters had to be noticed. She commented: “We did an enormous amount of research compiling a library of thousands of images…I created designs for all the main characters, keeping a perspective on what would feel modern at the time…There’s a certain level of modernity in Bertha’s world, and older classic values in Agnes’world. The principal costumes were made in New York, using different houses for each main character, and extraordinary makers in Italy, Portugal, and Hungary did the rest.”