Top 10 Historical Figures That Should Be In The Gilded Age

MsMojo

We really hope they don't leave these people out! Welcome to MsMojo, and today we are your personal Ward McCallister, listing off some of the famous faces we’d love to see on “The Gilded Age”’s future guest list.

Transcript

00:00 "Mrs. Astor, thank you for coming. I'm delighted to see you."

00:03 "You have guests I wasn't expecting."

00:06 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we are your personal Ward McAllister,

00:10 listing off some of the famous faces we'd love to see on the Gilded Age's future guest list.

00:15 "I don't think we should be afraid of new things, or new people."

00:19 Number 10. Elsie DeWolf

00:22 "It's not too bad, but it's very, um, what's the word I'm looking for?"

00:28 "Drab?"

00:29 "Dreary?"

00:30 As we see in the Gilded Age, tastes are changing,

00:33 and New York is flooded with new money and their palatial new mansions.

00:38 Sounds like a good interior designer is desperately needed.

00:40 "The thing these rooms need is light. More light and more space. That's what we have to figure out."

00:47 Alas, Elsie DeWolf, the woman that the New Yorker credited as the inventor of that profession,

00:52 hadn't gotten to work yet. In the 1880s, she was making inroads as an actress.

00:57 However, her impeccable taste, society connections, and friendship with architect

01:02 Stanford White would eventually lead to a career transition and widespread renown.

01:06 White has already appeared on the show. It would be easy for him to introduce Elsie to Larry Russell,

01:12 who is at the start of his own architecture career,

01:14 laying the groundwork for a fruitful future collaboration.

01:17 "I should be honored, of course. I hope it's a success."

01:22 Number 9. Nellie Bly

01:24 When it comes to her writing career, Peggy Scott doesn't hide her lofty ambitions.

01:29 "Short stories, articles, and I hope one day to write a novel."

01:33 "How ambitious."

01:36 "Some may think it far-fetched. My father does."

01:40 While women had begun to carve out space for themselves in the field, there weren't many.

01:44 In the mid-1800s, a 21-year-old Pittsburgh journalist named Nellie Bly was investigating

01:49 a story on factory conditions when she was reassigned to cover society.

01:53 "I was far too impatient to work along at the usual duties assigned women at newspapers.

01:58 Despite my abilities, I was merely a girl doing what girls at newspapers were meant to do.

02:03 I wanted off the woman's page."

02:05 The frustrated Bly struck out on her own, first going to Mexico as a foreign correspondent,

02:10 and then to New York, where she accepted an undercover assignment to investigate

02:14 conditions in a mental health hospital. The resulting book, 10 Days in a Madhouse,

02:18 was published in 1887, rocketing Bly to fame. Though it'll take a couple seasons,

02:23 we would love to see Nellie and Peggy cross paths when the time comes.

02:27 "I'm a reporter. The facts matter to me. But facts alone can't change the world.

02:33 You need stories for that."

02:35 8. Frederick Douglass

02:37 The Gilded Age has already included seminal members of the civil rights movement,

02:41 with T. Thomas Fortune featuring from the first season.

02:44 "You're Mr. Fortune."

02:45 "I am."

02:47 "Oh, sorry."

02:49 Season 2 took us to Tuskegee, Alabama to meet Booker T. Washington, but we hope future episodes

02:55 might give us the preeminent figure of 19th century civil rights, Frederick Douglass.

02:59 "Douglass' life sort of stands across the expanse of the 19th century as a symbol of

03:06 the worst and the best in the American character."

03:10 As a young man, Douglass escaped slavery and would go on to become a national leader in

03:14 the abolitionist movement. A gifted writer and statesman, his influence was unmatched

03:19 during his lifetime. Douglass had published an autobiography in 1881 and was active as

03:24 a speaker throughout the decade. There would be plenty of opportunities for Fortune and

03:28 Peggy to seek him out, and for Douglass to steer the course of their own activism.

03:32 "He was a public intellectual, he was a statesman, he was an activist,

03:36 and his life and his political commitment were dedicated to human rights."

03:42 7. Walt Whitman

03:44 "If only we could transcend ourselves without perfection, like your poet Walt Whitman,

03:50 who rides up and down the streets of Broadway all day shouting poetry against the roar of the carts."

03:55 One of America's greatest poets, the transcendentalist New Yorker Walt Whitman

03:59 reached the height of his fame several decades before the events of the Gilded Age. Though

04:03 he was living in New Jersey by the 1880s, he was still sought out by admirers, like Oscar Wilde,

04:09 who claimed that Whitman kissed him during an 1882 meeting.

04:12 "I don't know what you mean."

04:13 "Oh, should you? You're far too well brought up."

04:16 It is impossible to know Whitman's preferences for certain, but he had several passionate

04:21 friendships with other men throughout his life, which could allow Whitman to occupy

04:25 narrative space with Oscar Van Ryn, who himself prefers the company of gentlemen to ladies.

04:29 Oscar is willing to cultivate friendships outside of society, and it would be nice to see him

04:34 perhaps find some sympathetic wisdom from one of the era's great minds.

04:38 "I'm starting to think you may have a point."

04:41 "Meaning?" "I wonder if it isn't time I began to live a more grown-up life."

04:46 Number 6. Wild West Stars

04:48 "Did you know they shot Jesse James?" "He had his troubles, I have mine."

04:52 Bertha Russell notwithstanding, many couldn't get enough of the heroes and outlaws of the Wild West.

04:57 The 19th century saw U.S. expansion across North America, and larger-than-life figures

05:02 Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp, amongst others, captured popular imagination and became

05:06 celebrities in their own right. Thousands turned out to events like Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West

05:11 shows, which toured the world featuring megastars of the day, like sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

05:16 "She could shoot with her left hand, with her right hand."

05:20 "She like turns her gun upside down or sideways or sighting in the mirror."

05:25 Could they show up as the entertainment for a party? Mamie Fish was known to hire

05:29 elephants and acrobats for her dinners, so a Wild West show doesn't seem too far-fetched.

05:34 It would be a fun alternative to all the figurative ammo flying in the opera wars.

05:38 "I should scold you, Mrs. Fish, but I know that you're just playing with matches,

05:42 as you like to do."

05:43 Number 5. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

05:47 "We're clearly soldiers in petty coats, and dauntless crusaders for women's votes."

05:55 It was 1920 before the right of women to vote was enshrined in U.S. law,

06:00 following a long fight for suffrage that gained steam in the mid-19th century.

06:04 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were two of the most important leaders of the movement

06:08 for much of this time. The pair wrote and spoke tirelessly on the cause, while organizing other

06:13 women across all walks of life. Alva Vanderbilt, who serves as the inspiration for Bertha Russell,

06:19 would become one of the most active suffragists of the society set.

06:22 "If I were to just give money, that would just be like giving a dog a bone. What the cause needs

06:26 is a warrior, and she defined herself as a warrior." In season one, Bertha gave her support

06:31 to Clara Barton in order to build her social capital. But a future meeting with Anthony

06:35 and Stanton would show us what Bertha can do when her personal passion is really ignited.

06:40 "There is no challenge you are not equal to, my dear."

06:42 Number 4. Harriet Tubman

06:47 "I reasoned that there was one of two things I had a right to. Liberty or death.

06:56 If I couldn't have one, I'd have the other."

06:58 There are surprisingly few depictions of this American hero on film, but The Gilded Age could

07:03 help address that oversight. Best known for her courageous expeditions to lead enslaved people to

07:08 freedom, Harriet Tubman also served as a Civil War scout and spy before settling in rural New York.

07:14 No one had earned their rest more than this woman, but throughout the later years of her life,

07:18 she took up an activist role in the cause of women's suffrage.

07:21 "Don't ask her if she's a Republican."

07:24 "Well, why should I align myself with either party when I don't have the right to vote?"

07:27 Peggy hasn't really begun to explore this movement so far, but it is the sort of thing we could see

07:32 her becoming passionate about. Perhaps she'll have an opportunity to meet Tubman while covering

07:36 a story and become inspired. But then, who wouldn't be inspired by Harriet Tubman?

07:41 "Just the sheer determination of a woman to free people,

07:44 and to go up against all odds and risk her life over and over again."

07:49 Number 3. Theodore Roosevelt

07:52 "He comes storming in to the Red Bridge waving his walking stick like it's sword,

07:56 and he's leading this army of lawyers and cops."

07:58 "Who comes walking in?"

07:59 "You know, your friend. Him. Teddy Roosevelt."

08:04 Long before he was president, Theodore Roosevelt was making his name in New York politics.

08:09 In 1882, at the tender age of 24, he won a seat in the State Assembly, where he immediately started

08:15 making noise with an anti-corporate corruption campaign. One of his biggest targets? Notorious

08:20 industrialist Jay Gould, who served as the inspiration for George Russell.

08:24 "Oh, I see how it is. You are Saint Michael with a flaming sword,

08:30 and I am just a greedy robber baron."

08:32 "You used the phrase, not I."

08:36 George's willingness to engage in shady business practices and union-busting measures would be in

08:41 direct opposition to Theodore Roosevelt's positions, having once stated, quote,

08:45 "I always believe in going hard at everything. We can only imagine how Roosevelt would come

08:50 at George." Meanwhile, George has proven to be clever and ruthless at getting his own way.

08:55 Sounds like a face-off we'd be dying to see.

08:57 "I'm afraid you must face the music. My secretary will see you out."

09:03 Number 2. Nikola Tesla

09:05 "This is the age of achievement, Mr. Russell. An age when anything is possible."

09:08 "I like that. And I will remember it."

09:10 In season one, we saw Thomas Edison's awe-inspiring 1882 Illumination of New York City recreated.

09:16 Less than two years later, his eventual rival Nikola Tesla arrived in New York.

09:21 Tesla briefly worked for Edison before abruptly quitting to pursue his own inventing.

09:25 And as of spring 1885, he was applying for patents, but he could use an assistant.

09:30 "What do we have here, John?"

09:32 "My broken alarm clock."

09:33 "Are you attempting to repair it?"

09:35 "Not exactly. I'd like to understand how it functions and why it failed."

09:41 Season two of The Gilded Age has shown the footman Jack to have a curiosity about inventing,

09:45 and some degree of innate talent. It seems like a natural fit to put these two smart,

09:50 ambitious young men together on screen. With Tesla's influence, Jack's skills could really

09:54 have a chance to develop, taking the character in an exciting new direction.

09:58 "Go, and make us proud."

10:01 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

10:05 Jacob Rees

10:06 The photojournalist began documenting New York slum conditions in the 1880s,

10:10 leading to much-needed reforms.

10:12 "So many people wanted to help. Once they saw Rees's photographs, they were moved to action.

10:18 His photographs started a political movement of social reform, and things changed from then on."

10:26 Jane Adams

10:27 This activist and reformer could give Marion the meaningful work she's been looking for.

10:32 "We're joining her in starting some charity classes for which we need teachers.

10:36 I would like you to help with this cause."

10:39 Thomas Burns

10:40 In the event of criminal activity, the formidable head of the NYPD would be an intimidating presence

10:45 on the show. "So, tell me what you want told about this society pervert." "Nothing. Good.

10:53 Just keep an eye on him."

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11:02 our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.

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11:12 Number 1. Edith Wharton

11:15 "Why did you write this?"

11:16 "I suppose because we talked things over yesterday."

11:21 Seriously, how could you not? With The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton would write the

11:26 definitive narrative spotlighting Gilded Age society. And she was able to capture it so

11:31 perfectly because she lived it. "May I tell you what most interests me about New York? Not

11:36 all the blind obeying of tradition, somebody else's tradition. It seems stupid to have

11:41 discovered America only to make it a copy of another country." Born Edith Newbold Jones in

11:46 1862, her family is allegedly the source of the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." In the world

11:52 of the show, Edith would be of an age to be friends with Carrie Astor, and by extension,

11:56 Gladys Russell. "The men and girls who will join in your quadrille, should I ask their parents if

12:00 they mind?" "Oh no, they'll all love Gladys and they're dying to see inside this house. Everyone

12:04 dies." Already known for her keen observation and willful individualism, Edith would likely

12:09 encourage Gladys' desire for more independence. Of course, this would probably lead to clashes

12:15 with Bertha. We're not sure how it would ultimately play out, but a showdown between Bertha and Edith

12:20 would definitely be one for the books. "She is tenacious." "I'll give her that." "Smile and take

12:26 it as a compliment." "It is a compliment." Who are you just dying to invite into the ballroom?

12:30 Let us know in the comments. "How very kind you are, Mrs. Fane, to let me throw off the chains

12:35 of the theater so that I may step into society as if I were not damaged cause." Do you agree with

12:40 our picks? Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo. And be sure to subscribe and

12:45 ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.

12:49 [Music]

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