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The authors of “Moving Beyond Stereotypes of the Gilded Age” and the “Introduction” from The Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A Student Companion approach discussing the Gilded Age in two distinct ways. Calhoun provides readers with an outline for an argument calling for a reevaluation of the stereotypes associated with the Gilded Age, while the author(s) of the “Introduction” briefly summarizes key events and issues of the period, presumably in order to contextualize arguments he will make later in the book. Because the authors have different reasons for writing, they present different types of central questions. I find the picture a reader gets when studying these two texts together interesting.
Calhoun implicitly poses several questions about the stereotypes surrounding the Gilded Age: what are the stereotypes, why do they exist, to what extent are they accurate, and why should the nuances matter? These are all historiographical questions, although in order to understand the answers to them, Calhoun provides readers with some information about the period itself. In this sense, information about the Gilded Age is provided as a vehicle for furthering an argument, and not for the sake of defining the term. For example, in Calhoun’s account of the creation of the term “Gilded Age,” he explains that the authors of the book by the same name caricaturized the corruption of the age, and we should therefore distinguish the Gilded Age from its negative connotation. Here Calhoun draws a line between how authors of the time saw their contemporaries, and how we as historians should see them. What frustrates me about this reading is Calhoun’s failure to explain why the nuances surrounding the stereotypes of the Gilded Age matter. He argues that historians and students lose something if we understand the Gilded Age as gilded, but does not do more than generalize about why that is.
The author of the “Introduction” presents a number of pervading issues of the Gilded Age: what is the government’s role in regulating the economy, how do expansion and imperialism affect international relations, how can we maintain democracy in unstable times, etc. Although he does proffer a few historiographical questions like “how can we define a period of time?” he does so only to provide his own answer to the question and not to explore the topic in any detail. However, I enjoyed reading this text because the pervading questions of the age reveal an advanced public consciousness that refutes my notions about the corruption of the period, and as a result answers Calhoun’s question about why the Gilded Age should be studied without any preconceived notions.
I enjoyed Nate’s post about interdisciplinary studies, and agree that it is impossible to study any event without considering it from several points of view. I would add that it is also impossible to read a text without regard to others we read, as putting texts in conversation can provide us with answers to questions we would not even have if we read each text in a vacuum.