New York: Art and Cultural Capital of the Gilded Age

Edited by Margaret R. Laster ’90, Chelsea Bruner. Fueled by a flourishing capitalist economy, undergirded by advancements in architectural design and urban infrastructure, and patronized by growing bourgeois and elite classes, New York’s built environment was dramatically transformed in the 1870s and 1880s. This book argues that this constituted the formative period of New York’s modernization and cosmopolitanism—the product of a vital self-consciousness and a deliberate intent on the part of its elite citizenry to create a world-class cultural metropolis reflecting the city’s economic and political preeminence.