American History Tellers - The Gilded Age | How the Other Half Lives | 3

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

In the spring of 1883, Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt threw the grandest party New York had ever seen, claiming her spot at the top of the city’s social hierarchy. The Gilded Age drove feverish growth in America’s cities. Populations swelled. Skyscrapers and steel bridges soared above city skylines. And the new economic elite poured their outrageous fortunes into magnificent mansions and lavish balls.But there were two sides to Gilded Age cities. Less than a mile away from Manhattan’s elegant brownstones, the poor eked out a living in sooty factories and crowded slums. In the 1880s and 1890s, reformers rose up to challenge inequality—galvanizing workers and exposing the dark underbelly of urban growth.Listen ad-free on Wondery+ hereSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's May 30th, 1883, a balmy Memorial Day in New York City. You and your little sister are spending your Sunday afternoon walking along the Brooklyn Bridge. It opened to the public just a week ago, and today you're part of a massive throng of people strolling across. There are children fighting over candy, women carrying parasols to shield their eyes from the afternoon sun, and hundreds of veterans wearing old Union Army uniforms in honor of the holiday. Your sister's eyes light up as she takes in the crown. Oh, isn't this wonderful? I've never seen the city from so high up before. They're calling it the eighth wonder of the world.

So you keep reminding me, yes. I'm just saying it's an incredible feat of engineering. Yes, absolutely incredible. I just don't know why we had to come out today of all days. It's packed. Well, anyways, thanks for coming along. You say that as if I had a choice. No, you practically dragged me here. Your sister flashes you a mischievous grin. Come on, don't be such a spoiled sport. Oh, excuse me, sir. In your excitement, you've bumped into a man in a suit. He shoots you a dirty look and takes off. You turn back to your sister. In your excitement, you've bumped into a man in a suit. He shoots you a dirty look and takes off.

You turn back to your sister. I don't know what he's so mad about, but by the looks of his suit, he's probably one of the politicians who made money off this bridge. So many managed to line their pockets during construction. Oh, come on, you're always so cynical. No, it's true. Our father immigrated to this country to escape corruption. Oh, he'd say if he were alive now and knew that our tax dollars were enriching officials. What about the two dozen workers who died? Most of them were immigrants, I hear. Your sister's face darkens. I know. It's awful.

By now, you're walking toward the Manhattan side of the bridge. But as you look up ahead, you notice a bottleneck. People are growing panicky, shoving each other, pinned in on both sides by the rails. One woman near you trips and falls. The crowd closes in around her. Come on, come on. I don't like the look of this. Let's head back the other way. But as you try to turn, a wave of people pushes you forward from behind. Your sister grabs your hand. What's all this shouting? What's something about the bridge? Man is shouting, ranting about a collapse. Your eyes dart to the steel suspension cables.

But there's no sign of trouble. I don't get it. The bridge is fine. But you and your sister watch in horror as the celebrations descend into chaos and confusion. All around you, people are fighting and clawing to escape. Looking back at your sister, you see utter terror in her face. You search wildly for a way out, but there's nowhere to go. From the team behind American History Tellers comes a new book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the

fierce power struggles, intimate moments, and shocking scandals that shaped our nation. From the War of 1812 to Watergate. Available now wherever you get your books. I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the hosts of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. In May 1883, New Yorkers celebrated the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge.

It was the first suspension bridge to use steel cables and by far the largest in the world. It towered over America's proudest city as a gleaming monument to progress and urban development. But it was also tainted by tragedy. At least 20 workers, mostly poor immigrants, were killed in accidents during its construction. Then, just six days after the bridge opened, a rumor that the bridge was about to collapse triggered a deadly stampede. A dozen people died in the panic. The contrast of progress and tragedy that collided at the Brooklyn Bridge

was a defining feature of the Gilded Age. It was an era marked by tumult, growth, and vast inequality. And nowhere were those tensions starker than in America's cities. As urban populations swelled, wealth and splendor crashed against poverty and squalor. While the rich lived in ostentatious mansions, the poor endured crowded slums teeming with crime and disease. But a new group of reformers refused to accept the suffering of the working poor. They took their fight to newspapers, to the ballot box, and to the streets, building a movement to transform urban America.

This is Episode 3, How the Other Half Lives. During the Gilded Age, America's cities grew with dizzying speed. On the eve of the Civil War, only about 20% of the nation's population were city dwellers. By 1900, though, that rate had doubled as rural Americans and new immigrants flocked to the manufacturing centers of the Northeast and Midwest in search of work. Of all these cities, Chicago saw the most dramatic growth as its population increased tenfold. Rapidly growing cities hummed with energy and exhilarating potential. Electric light bathed city streets in incandescent glow. Steel-framed structures and improved elevators expanded the range of possibilities in urban architecture. In 1885, Chicago erected the

nation's first skyscraper, a granite and red brick building that reached 10 stories. Soon, skyscrapers burst upwards across urban America. But cities didn't just grow upwards. They spread outwards. Suspension bridges like the Brooklyn Bridge spanned rivers and expanded city boundaries. Electric trolleys pushed city limits, connecting new suburbs to downtown business districts. In New York, elevated railways carried commuters high above the streets and sparked the city's movement uptown. These innovations in transportation allowed the rich to distance themselves from dirty and congested downtown neighborhoods. As industrial tycoons amassed

spectacular fortunes, they spurred housing booms. Wealthy enclaves sprang up in major cities, including Boston's Beacon Hill and Back Bay, Chicago's Gold Coast, and San Francisco's Knob Hill. But no neighborhood symbolized urban prosperity more than New York's Fifth Avenue. In the 1860s and 70s, Madison Square, where Fifth Avenue and Broadway intersected with 23rd Street, was the home of brownstone houses and fashionable restaurants, hotels, and theaters. But over the years, the city's upper crust migrated further north. By the 1880s, Fifth Avenue above 50th Street was dubbed Millionaire's Row, and its inhabitants poured huge sums into erecting marble and granite palaces along the border of Central Park. But not all

of the rich who dwelled in these magnificent mansions came from identical backgrounds. In New York high society, old and new money battled it out for dominance. The old aristocracy lived off the investments of their ancestors, but the Gilded Age saw a class of nouveau riche emerge. These self-made millionaires had built their fortunes in railroads, manufacturing, and Wall Street investments. Mark Twain quipped that the old New York aristocracy was stunned to find themselves supplanted by upstart princes with unknown grandfathers. The old money families mocked the newcomers' lavish spending and crass taste. And as the new rich tried to elbow their way into high society, they found themselves shut out at every turn.

The undisputed queen bee of New York society was Carolyn Skirmerhorn Astor. The stout, snobby Mrs. Astor came from a wealthy family of colonial Dutch descent. She had married the grandson of John Jacob Astor, America's first millionaire, and taken up residence in an elegant yet understated brownstone. As the nouveau riche scrambled to climb the New York social ladder, first millionaire and taken up residence in an elegant yet understated brownstone. As the nouveau riche scrambled to climb the New York social ladder, it was Mrs. Astor who fiercely protected the dominance of the old regime. She teamed up with Ward McAllister, a portly Southern lawyer and self-proclaimed authority on all things high society. McAllister believed that because millionaires had become all too common,

admission to exclusive society demanded more selective criteria. He told a journalist that old connections, gentle breeding, elegant leisure, and an unstained private reputation count more than newly gotten riches. Together, Miss Disaster and Mr. McAllister decided who belonged in the upper class. They created the 400, a list of select names they deemed worthy of entry into the highest ranks of the social scene. McAllister explained the 400 to the New York Tribune in 1888. Why there are only 400 people in fashionable New York society. If you go outside that number, you strike people who are either not at ease in a ballroom or make other people not at ease.

See the point? Only members of the 400 received invitations to Mrs. Astor's famous annual ball, the highlight of the city's social calendar. Mrs. Astor presided over her balls from a red silk divan, where she sat like a queen on a throne, draped in rubies and pearls with a diamond tiara atop her jet black pompadour. Excluded from the 400 and Mrs. Astor's balls were the Vanderbilts, who had made their fortune in railroads. But the spirited and socially ambitious Alva Vanderbilt, wife of William K. Vanderbilt, would stop at nothing to gain acceptance among the upper crust.

She began by launching a war over New York's opera house. The Academy of Music was New York's opera house and cultural center. The wealthy flocked there on Monday and Friday evenings to see the opera and to be seen. The Academy had just 18 boxes that year after year were sold out to the most elite New Yorkers. With so few boxes available, the new rich had to sit down below in orchestra seats where they endured the mockery of the old guard from above. But soon the new money families had had enough. They decided if the old Academy of Music refused to accept them, they would just have to build a new opera house of their own,

one that would rival the grandest concert halls of Europe. So in 1880, Alva Vanderbilt led the charge in convincing 70 new money New Yorkers to pony up between $15,000 and $20,000 each to fund their own opera house, about half a million dollars today. J.P. Morgan and Jay Gould were among the millionaires who joined the cause. They bought land in the fashionable New Theater District and hired a famous architect to bring their vision to life. Three years later, on the evening of October 22, 1883, the Metropolitan Opera House opened its doors, the same night that the Academy of Music was celebrating the start of its own season. The Metropolitan featured 36 private boxes, twice as many as the Academy, and its fan-shaped interior was draped in burgundy and gold. The combined wealth of guests at the Metropolitan that night was

estimated at more than $500 million. One society page poured scorn on the audience, though, sneering, the Goulds and the Vanderbilts and people of that ilk perfumed the air with the odor of crisp greenbacks. Even so, the gleaming new opera house was a death knell for the stuffy old Academy of Music. The Metropolitan's status as the preeminent opera venue was confirmed once Mrs. Astor purchased a box. Within three years, the Academy had canceled its opera season, its manager lamenting, I cannot fight Wall Street. But the opera house wasn't the Vanderbilt's only power play. Shortly after Alva's husband inherited the New York Central Railroad from his father, she commissioned another famous architect to design a spectacular French chateau-style mansion at Fifth Avenue and 52nd

Street. In the spring of 1883, the Vanderbilts moved in to their extravagant new home. The Petit Chateau, as it was known, overshadowed the dour brownstones that lined the avenue, announcing quite loudly the Vanderbilts' wealth and power to all who could see. But it was still Mrs. Astor who reigned over elite society, and Alva Vanderbilt, with her new opulent mansion, was determined to continue her challenge of the old order. It's January 1883. You're a seamstress, and today you're measuring Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt for a ball gown in her private parlor, a room paneled in French walnut and furnished in ivory white. You were born in Ireland and came to this country as a young girl. You've been honing your

dressmaking skills ever since, but netting Mrs. Vanderbilt as a client last year was your big break. You're determined to make her the best-dressed woman in New York. So, ma'am, which of these satins do you like best? You hold up samples of rich, jewel-toned fabric. Mrs. Vanderbilt lightly glides her fingers over them, studying intently. I'm partial to the emerald, but do you think it would wash out my skin? Oh, not at all. I think that's a perfect choice. Bring out your eyes. Mrs. Vanderbilt gives you a satisfied smile. I need this to be just right if I'm going to stand out at Mrs. Astor's ball. Oh, you'll be the talk of the town, I promise you. A footman sporting maroon livery and spotless white gloves appears, handing Mrs. Vanderbilt a letter, then quickly exiting. A shadow crosses your employer's

face as she reads the letter, though. What is it, madam? That's from Alice. She heard word that once again I'm not on Mrs. Astor's guest list. I thought this year would be different. The nerve. I'm so sorry, madam. What you're really sorry about, though, is your chance to design this dress. But you can see your client is forming an idea. There's new resolve in Mrs. Vanderbilt's face. Well, I believe I know how to handle this. That dreary old brownstone is nothing compared to our chateau. I'll throw a housewarming, more lavish than anything this city has ever seen. And not just any party. A costume ball. Won't that be exciting? A costume ball. Yes, and you'll design

my gown, of course. You beam at her with excitement, your mind bursting with ideas for her costume. Oh, what will you be? A medieval queen? A Grecian goddess? Whatever it is, it has to be unforgettable. And I'm not going to invite Mrs. Astor. But with all her friends coming, she'll be forced to come calling. And then everyone will know we are equals.

You smile. These ridiculous social rituals are too much for you to make sense of. You are just thrilled at the chance to design a show-stopping costume. Maybe when this is all over, it won't just be Mrs. Vanderbilt who's made a name for herself. 1,200 invitations went out for Alva Vanderbilt's Grand Costume Ball in early 1883, but the Astors weren't on the guest list. For weeks, Mrs. Astor's 22-year-old daughter, Carrie, had been preparing her costume

and practicing her dancing skills with friends. She was devastated to be snubbed. Alva claimed she couldn't invite Carrie because the rules of society forbid it. Mrs. Astor had never formally called on the Vanderbilt home, so Mrs. Astor had no choice but to drop her calling card at the Vanderbilt mansion. The Astors received their invitation the next day. With this one move, Alva Vanderbilt had cleverly manipulated New York's Grand Dame into formally acknowledging her as a social equal. As the ball approached, the city's best seamstresses and tailors went to work creating fabulous costumes for their clients. Young ladies practiced their

quadrilles, and Alva courted journalists to drum up excitement. The highly anticipated affair finally arrived on March 22, 1883. At 10 o'clock that evening, carriages began rolling up to the Vanderbilt Mansion as curious onlookers crowded behind police barricades, craning their necks to catch a glimpse. The guests were met with sumptuous Italian tapestries, bubbling fountains, and gilded vases bursting with long-stemmed roses. A decadent dinner was served at 2 a.m. in a lush forest of ferns, flowers, and palms. The guests were no less dazzling. Costumes ranged from Queen Elizabeth, Joan of Arc, and Louis XVI to a bejeweled peacock and a diamond-encrusted hornet. Alva presided over the festivities as a Venetian princess. But all were upstaged by Alva's sister-in-law,

Alice Vanderbilt, who went as an electric light. Alice's dress was threaded with tinsel and contained hidden batteries so she could light up at the flip of a switch. Newspapers covered the evening in rapturous detail, and the next time Mrs. Astor threw her own ball, Alva Vanderbilt was on her guest list. Alva's triumphant ball and the success of the Metropolitan Opera House marked a changing of the guard in New York society. But the battles waged between old and new money were not just fodder for sneering society pages. To many, they revealed the emptiness and crass materialism at the core

of the Gilded Age. Critics watched in horror as the wealthy outfitted their servants in livery modeled after the footmen of European monarchs. These aspirations to royal splendor seemed incongruous in a country born out of revolution against monarchy. The day after the Vanderbilt Costume Ball, the New York Sun attacked the excesses of the evening, the outrageous sums spent on spilled champagne and soiled laces, velvets, and satins, all funded by the wealth flowing out of Wall Street and American industry. The newspaper declared, The festivity represents nothing but the accumulation of immense masses of money by the few out of the labor of the many. industry. The newspaper declared, The working poor struggled just to get by. But soon they would find strength in numbers in the city's factories and tenements,

and mount a fight against urban poverty and injustice. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror, so when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities.

From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast, The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker raided ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science, and religion, and how even today we remain enthralled to his strange creatures of the night. You can binge all episodes of The Real History of Dracula exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus and The Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Are you in trouble with the law? Need a lawyer who will fight like hell to keep you out of jail?

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Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. The dazzling riches and feverish growth of America's cities in the late 19th century hid a dark reality. In New York, less than a mile away from where wealthy elites thrived in their multi-million dollar mansions, city residents struggled to feed their families on just two to three dollars a day.

For the vast majority of urban dwellers, glamorous nights at the theater and costume balls were well out of reach. Instead, crime, pollution, and disease were everyday realities for millions of Americans. And even the dramatic developments in architecture and mass transit that defined urban progress had negative side effects for the poor. Soaring skyscrapers darkened the streets for people who lived down below, and the noise and smoke of elevated trains made life miserable for those with homes near the rattling tracks. Additionally, cities were being reshaped by a steady stream of immigrants pouring

in from Europe. In the 1870s, more than 2 million new arrivals landed on U.S. shores. Immigration spiked over the next decade, with more than 5 million new arrivals pouring in. Until that time, most Americans were Protestant and came from Britain, Germany, and Ireland. But by the 1880s, the majority of new arrivals on the East Coast were Jewish or Orthodox Christian immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Many were fleeing famine, poverty, and religious persecution in countries with no history of democratic government. They braved an arduous journey across the Atlantic in search of job opportunities and a better life. These immigrants were largely poor, illiterate, and unskilled. Many took up work in

America's industrial centers, in New York's sweatshops, Philadelphia's factories, or Chicago's stockyards and slaughterhouses. Immigrants carved out tightly bound communities, and little Italy's and little Poland sprang up across urban America. These enclaves became vibrant communities filled with sidewalk vendors, dance halls, churches, synagogues, and street festivals. In New York, the endless stream of immigrants changed the face of the city, transforming it into an ethnic patchwork. During the Gilded Age, the portion of native-born New Yorkers shrank to one in four. Many of them, especially unskilled laborers who competed with immigrants for jobs, resented the newcomers. Some anti-immigrant business leaders

and politicians claimed the new arrivals were unfit for American democracy, that they threatened America's moral and religious character. Immigrants also faced discrimination from employers and landlords, and at times, violence from local mobs who stepped in to enforce neighborhood borders. And with the massive influx of new arrivals came a housing shortage. New immigrants crowded together in slums, often several families sharing grimy, rat-infested, airless apartments. In the 1880s then, New York adopted a new design for improved mass housing, the Dumbbell Tenement, named for its unusual floor plan. Each five- or six-story building held a couple dozen apartments. The buildings narrowed in the middle to provide each apartment with access to two central air shafts for light and

ventilation. But in practice, these shafts were often filled with garbage, and they helped fire spread more easily. A typical tenement apartment consisted of just three small rooms, allowing landlords to maximize their profits. And though the apartments were designed to house individual families, many took in boarders and lodgers to make ends meet. The most crowded tenements provided only about 18 square feet of floor space per resident. As late as 1893, just half of New York families had indoor plumbing. This overcrowding, lack of ventilation, and poor sanitation fueled outbreaks of tuberculosis, typhoid, and dysentery. But

these problems weren't just confined to New York. All across urban America, low-skilled workers were laboring 12 or more hours a day, six days a week, often in dangerous jobs that barely covered their rent or put food on their tables, only to come home to squalid conditions. The widening gap between extreme wealth and devastating poverty troubled a growing number of writers, politicians, and social reformers. One charismatic economist, a reformer named Henry George, would make fighting it his life's work. Henry George had been born in Philadelphia to a lower-middle-class family. At age 14, he'd left school to sail to India and Australia. In 1858, he landed in San Francisco, where he became a newspaper editor.

But when his newspaper sales plummeted, George was reduced to begging on the streets. George became obsessed with solving what he considered the central mystery of the Gilded Age, the connection between progress and poverty. Everywhere he looked, he saw widening inequality, what he called a shocking contrast between monstrous wealth and debasing want. George wondered why, as the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. George concluded that society's problems were rooted in the rising cost of land, which prevented the poor from acquiring property. He pointed to the fact that a handful of speculators got rich off land

they neither worked nor improved, while the people whose labor actually produced wealth fell further and further behind. George's proposal was to abolish all taxes on labor in favor of a single tax on land. The money raised would then be reinvested back into the community. In his mind, this approach would be the best way to spread the benefits of economic growth. Over the next decade, George went to work on his book Progress and Poverty, making the case for how his proposal would close the gap between the rich and the poor. He ended his book with a stirring call of action. With a single tax on land, George promised,

we shall remove inequality in the distribution of wealth and power. We shall abolish poverty, tame the ruthless passions of greed, and dry up the springs of vice and misery. But George's single tax idea was so controversial that his manuscript for Progress and Poverty was rejected by many publishers. Finally, in 1879, a publisher agreed to produce the book, but only after George set the type himself and paid for the plates. But when Progress and Poverty finally went public, it quickly became a bestseller. It was the most influential economic treatise of the era, translated into multiple languages and selling more than 3 million copies. George quickly became a highly sought-after writer and speaker. He soon moved to New York,

a city where worker unrest was on the rise. 1886 was a time of massive labor upheaval across the country, but that year in New York, there were 1,200 strikes in that city alone. Membership in the city's central labor union swelled to 180,000 workers, representing some 200 separate labor unions. And that was up from just a few dozen two years earlier. Workers were recognizing their own power. And as the election for New York mayor loomed, they sought solutions for their frustrations in politics.

The central labor union tapped Henry George as their standard bearer, nominating him as a third-party candidate for mayor. His campaign would electrify the city's working class. Imagine it's October 1886. You're headed home after a long day, doing piecemeal work in a tenement sweatshop. The drizzle has turned to a steady pour, and you pull your old threadbare coat close to your chest as you cross up the street. Up ahead, a man is standing under an awning, speaking below a banner that reads, United Labor Party. A handful of people are gathered around him, but with the rain coming

down, he's having a hard time getting most passersby to linger. Henry George for mayor, support the workers of this city. He's talking to anyone who will listen, but you quickly avert your eyes. You just worked 16 hours. You're in no mood to talk politics. But it's too late. He picked you out of the crowd.

You, you there. Sorry, I must get home. Hold on, who are you voting for in the election? The Democrat. I always vote Democrat. Haven't you heard the Democrats have nominated Abram Hewitt? He's a millionaire businessman. What has a millionaire ever done for people like you and me? Well, now he's got your attention, so you stop walking. A millionaire, you say? That's right. People like him think that poverty will just work itself out.

Our candidate, Henry George, he knows it's going to take sweeping change. All politicians talk change, but things always stay the same. You turn away. Your wife and daughter are waiting for you to return home, hopefully with a hot dinner on the table. Your apartment is just a few blocks away, and you haven't eaten since breakfast. Now hold on, hold on. Let me tell you about George's proposal. How's your rent these days? Oh God, my rent? Well, it's a lot more than the place is worth, I'll tell you that. George is. How's your rent these days? Oh, God, my rent? Well, it's a lot more

than the place is worth, I'll tell you that. George is proposing a tax on land. Half the city crowds into tiny tenements while miles and miles of land bought off by speculators lays empty, completely unused. He's going to tax that empty land and punish the speculators who are driving up rents. Okay, well, what's he going to do with the taxes? What's he going to do with the money that the tax raises? Invest it in the people, of course. We're talking public works, public ownership of the transit systems. You mean trains, streetcars? The speaker nods and hands you a leaflet. Yes, trains, streetcars. We're planning a parade to support George on October 30th. I'd like to count on you to come. Bring everyone you know. You take the

pamphlet with a nod. As you head home, you think about how unusual it is for a politician to consider what life is really like for workers like you. Real change, you know, is not going to come from a slogan or another millionaire. Real change can only come from real people. Maybe this guy George is on to something. By the fall of 1886, Henry George was 47 years old. He was short and his red hair was thinning, but he nevertheless thrilled audiences with his passionate speeches about the haves and the have-nots. His argument that rent was an injustice amounting to robbery resonated among New Yorkers, who were already fed up with their landlords.

On October 5, 1886, George stood before a cheering crowd at the Cooper Union to accept the nomination of the United Labor Party. He railed against economic injustice in New York, declaring, most of us, 99% at least, must pay the other 1% for the privilege of staying here and working like slaves. But George was a third-party candidate, and he faced formidable opponents. The Democrats nominated Abram Hewitt, a millionaire businessman and seasoned congressman. The Republicans threw their weight behind a 28-year-old up-and-comer named Theodore Roosevelt. Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party machine, offered George a deal to get out of the race, pledging to guarantee his election to Congress. But George rejected the offer and accused Hewitt of being in Tammany's pocket.

In response, Hewitt painted George and his supporters as dangerous radicals. But by 1886, progress and poverty had been translated into multiple languages, including German, Hebrew, and Chinese. The book's success had already made George famous among immigrant workers, and now he capitalized's success had already made George famous among immigrant workers, and now he capitalized on that appeal with tireless campaigning. George spoke to labor unions and churches across the city, stitching together a broad coalition of workers from all backgrounds and classes of life. Along with his single tax on land that would solve the problem of New York's exorbitant rents, George supported a wide range of working-class issues. He championed shorter working hours, higher pay, and public ownership of transit and the telegraph.

He also vowed to ban police from suppressing peaceful protest. On October 30th, with the election just days away, 30,000 New Yorkers poured into the streets of lower Manhattan, marching through a rainstorm in support of George's candidacy. Fireworks and Chinese lanterns rose above the crowds, who brandished signs declaring, The spirit of 76 still lives, and honest labor against thieving landlords and politicians. New Yorkers of all different races, religions, and ethnicities joined in the rousing chants, shouting, Hi-ho, the leeches must go. But when election day finally came, the hopes of tens of thousands of workers were dashed. Hewitt and the Democrats,

helped by the Catholic Church's effort to mobilize Irish immigrant supporters, won with 90,000 votes. George got 68,000 and Roosevelt just over 60,000. Still, New Yorkers were stunned by George's campaign, which seemed to point to the growing political power of the working class. The New York world declared it an extraordinary thing for a man without political backing, without a machine, without money or a newspaper support,

to have garnered as many votes as he did. George spoke openly about working people challenging the rich and powerful, claiming a stake in the profits they created and having a voice in the direction of their city. He inspired workers to fight for economic change through political action. The night he lost the election, George spoke to his disappointed supporters, urging them to continue the fight. He declared, The future is ours. We have lit a fire that will never go out. Indeed, his candidacy would galvanize a growing movement of working people sweeping

the nation. But Henry George was not the only one waging war against poverty and injustice. In an era when many Americans were turning a blind eye to the city slums, a new group of reformers stepped into the fray, determined to expose the bleak conditions. They hoped to force middle and upper class Americans to grapple with the depths of urban inequality and force a transformation on society and the lives of the urban poor. I'm Tristan Redmond, and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up, I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened in my childhood bedroom. When I tried to find out more, I discovered that someone who slept in my room after me, someone I'd never met, was visited by the ghost of a faceless woman.

So I started digging into the murder in my wife's family, and I unearthed family secrets nobody could have imagined. Ghost Story won Best Documentary Podcast at the 2024 Ambees and is a Best True Crime nominee at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Ghost Story won Best Documentary Podcast at the 2024 Ambies and is a Best True Crime Nominee at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Ghost Story is now the first ever Apple Podcast Series Essential. Each month, Apple Podcast editors spotlight one series that has captivated listeners with masterful storytelling, creative excellence, and a unique creative voice and vision. To recognize Ghost Story being chosen as the first series essential, Wondery has made it ad-free for a limited time, only on Apple Podcasts. If you haven't listened yet, head over to Apple Podcasts to hear for yourself.

In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands. But it wasn't just his body that would come to the surface in the days that followed. It soon emerged that Robert's business was on the brink of collapse, and behind his facade of wealth and success was a litany of bad investments, mounting debt, and multi-million dollar fraud. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show Business Movers. We tell the true stories of business leaders who risked it all, the critical moments that defined their journey, and the ideas that transformed the way we live our lives. In our latest series,

a young refugee fleeing the Nazis arrives in Britain determined to make something of his life. Taking the name Robert Maxwell, he builds a publishing and newspaper empire that spans the globe. But ambition eventually curdles into desperation and Robert's determination to succeed turns into a willingness to do anything

to get ahead. Follow Business Movers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. During the Gilded Age, poor city dwellers had few avenues to a better life. Government-run social services were virtually non-existent, and anti-immigrant sentiment was firmly entrenched. But in the 1880s and 90s, a new breed of reformers took matters into their own hands. These enterprising journalists and volunteers forced middle- and upper-class Americans to reckon with urban poverty. Jacob Rees was the era's most famous journalist crusader. With his camera and pen,

he documented New York's grim living and working conditions in harrowing detail. Rees was born in Denmark, the third of 15 children. In 1870, at age 21, he boarded a steamship for America, arriving in New York without a friend or a dime. Still, Rees was hopeful about his future in America. As his ship cast anchor in lower Manhattan, he took in the beautiful spring morning and felt certain that somewhere in this teeming city, there would be a place for him. But Reese soon wound up traveling down to Pittsburgh to work in a steel mill. He then tried his hand at coal mining, bricklaying, farm labor. After a few years, he returned to New York, but he was still struggling to find steady work.

Soon, Reese was pawning all that he owned to get by, and then found himself homeless. By day, he wandered the streets fighting a gnawing hunger. At night, he slept in tenement doorways, shivering from the cold. But in 1874, Reese's luck changed when he got a shot to train as a reporter with the South Brooklyn News. Three years later, he was on the police beat for the New York Tribune. His work covering crime and corruption took him into the city's most destitute neighborhoods. He exposed the desperate conditions he encountered on a daily basis there, the tragedy, disease, and despair that afflicted New York's poorest residents. Reese wrote about bodies pulled from New York's rivers, babies abandoned on the streets,

and countless beggars and homeless people. He was careful to depict the poor as victims, laying blame on the squalid tenements that helped illness and crime fester. But he didn't just describe the conditions. He photographed them. His stark pictures exposed the horrors of tenement life in unflinching detail. Then in 1889, Reese published an article entitled How the Other Half Lives in Scribner's Magazine. The following year, he turned it into a book of the same name. Reading it, upper- and middle-class New Yorkers were shocked to learn of the bleak conditions the poor faced.

Reese's work led to new calls for reform over the next decade. The city conducted investigations into the conditions of tenement buildings. In 1901, New York passed the Tenement House Law, which increased lot sizes, improved access to light and fresh air, and mandated toilets and running water in all units. And then in the following 15 years, the city updated existing tenement buildings and constructed more than 200,000 apartments according to the new standards. But Rees was not the only advocate promoting the idea that society had a shared responsibility

to alleviate poverty and suffering. In the 1880s, a growing number of Protestant ministers preached what they called the Social Gospel, urging people to apply the lessons of Christianity by helping the poor and needy. The Social Gospel helped inspire a new movement of reformers to take bold action. In 1884, a group of well-to-do Oxford and Cambridge students in London moved into the city's impoverished East End to close the gap between the rich and poor. They established a settlement house, a place where wealthy, college-educated people would live and work to improve the lives of their poor neighbors. Two years later, a 29-year-old American graduate student named Stanton Coit decided to

bring the settlement house movement to New York. Coit was attending graduate school at Columbia University when he moved into a tenement building on New York's Lower East Side. He invited workers groups to hold meetings in his apartment. Soon, he was organizing lectures, plays, and clubs, and he opened a kindergarten in the building's basement. These meetings evolved into the Neighborhood Guild, America's first settlement house. The Neighborhood Guild brought social services to the slums, but it was also designed to give middle and upper-class people

first-hand insight into the plight of the urban poor. Soon, more settlement houses sprang up in New York and other cities, eventually numbering more than 400 in total. The most famous was Hull House, founded by Jane Addams in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods, the 19th Ward. In September 1889, Hull House opened its doors, and Addams stepped forward with a bold experiment to change the lives of her immigrant neighbors. Imagine it's September 1889 in Chicago. You're rushing home from your factory job, thinking about what you'll scrape together for tonight's dinner.

You jump at the sound of glass shattering and search for the source. A young woman is peering out of the window of the old Hull Mansion. You catch her eye. Excuse me, are you all right? Yes, thank you. But hold on just one moment. The woman disappears from the window, so you start walking again. But soon the woman is walking towards you, beaming with excitement.

Hello, good morning. As she approaches, you notice her elegant dress. She's clearly not from around here. You quickly adjust the folds in your old tattered shawl to conceal a hole in the fabric. Good morning, miss. Apologies for the commotion. My friends and I are new to the neighborhood. We're just fixing the house up.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Why would anyone live in this part of town if they didn't have to? Well, that's just it. We're here to help our neighbors. Help your neighbors? How's that? We're going to have classes and lectures, everything from art to literature. Anyone in the neighborhood can attend, and there's going to be a theater in the ballroom. A theater in the ballroom? What could we possibly need that for? You've had enough of this, so you turn to head home.

But the woman stops you. Excuse me, do you have any children? Yes, I have two girls and I'm trying to get home to them. They're five and seven. The woman smiles at you. Those are wonderful ages. May I ask, who takes care of them when you're at work? No one takes care of them. They take care of themselves.

I leave them at home. They manage okay. I mean, what else can I do? I have to work. Of course you do. Of course you do. But if you don't want to attend classes or any theater, at least let us help care for your children. We're starting a child care program. They'll get to read and draw pictures. That's awful kind of you, but I couldn't afford anything like that. No, no, no, no. There's no catch.

Just promise me you'll think about it. We'll be here. You nod and walk away, unsure if you can really trust this woman. She says she's your away, unsure if you can really trust this woman. She says she's your neighbor, but all you can see is an outsider. Jane Addams was born into a wealthy family, and she was part of the first generation of college-educated women. Addams was soft-spoken, but fiercely ambitious. After graduating from college, she visited London's first settlement house and was inspired to open her own in Chicago. So in 1889, she rented a decaying mansion in the city's 19th ward and opened Hull House.

At first, her neighbors were skeptical, wondering why wealthy women would live in such a poor neighborhood. One man told Adams it was the strangest thing he had ever encountered. Neighborhood kids threw rocks at the mansion and broke windows. But slowly, local residents were drawn in by the child care services Adams and her friends provided. Eventually, Hull House offered classical music concerts and classes on Shakespeare and Greek art. Suffragist Susan B. Anthony, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and philosopher John Dewey all gave lectures. Adams admitted that the middle-class women who staffed Hull House would gain much,

if not more, than the poor did. She sought to uplift her poor neighbors, but even more so, she hoped to create an outlet for educated women of her class to channel their talents and abilities. And so Hull House became a center of feminist activism. In 1893, the women of Hull House successfully lobbied the Illinois government to pass the state's first anti-sweatshop law, protecting female workers and outlawing child labor. The pioneering work of reformers like Adams and muckraking journalists like Jacob Reese set the stage for the progressive era. From the 1890s to the 1920s, progressive activists would tackle the stage for the Progressive Era. From the 1890s to the 1920s, progressive activists would tackle the extremes of the Gilded Age and fight for a more just society.

The era brought tremendous riches to some and crippling poverty to others. But it was the intense, violent racism sweeping America that more than anything else revealed the depths of Gilded Age inequality. In the South, racial and economic divides widened as white politicians strove to undo the political and economic gains blacks had made since the Civil War. And in the West, anti-immigrant hysteria and brutal prejudice would cast a dark cloud over America. Next on American History Tellers, civil rights leaders Booker T. Washington and Ida B. Wells

fight discrimination and lynching in the post-Reconstruction South. And in Wyoming, Seattle, and San Francisco, Chinese immigrants face violence from labor leaders. From Wondery, this is Episode 3 of The Gilded Age for American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton, edited by Doreen Marina. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman and Marshall Louis, created by Hernán Ló Lopez for Wondery. We'll see you next time. idea about. From the Levi's 501 jeans to Legos. Come for the products you're obsessed with. Stay for the

business insights that are going to blow up your group chat. Jack, Nintendo, Super Mario Brothers. Best selling video game of all time. How'd they do it? Nintendo never fires anyone. Ever. Follow the best idea yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to the best idea yet early and ad free

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