June 14, 2024: Ocean State Histories: The Gilded Age

[250 yearsago this week, Rhode Island banned theslave trade. That significant moment was just one of many in this littleststate’s story, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of Ocean Statehistories, leading up to a special post on works through which you can learnmore about Rhode Island!]

On twoways to think about Rhode Island’s famous role in Gilded Age America.

Once againI’ll begin this post by asking you to peruse prior writing of mine, in this casemy September2013 blog series on Newport stories (inspired by my first visit to the historichome TheBreakers). If five posts is too much of an ask, you ]can focus inparticular on theFriday culmination, a post on the question of whether we should preservesuch Gilded Age mansions.

Welcomeback! In that Friday post I quoted the famous “white elephants” line from HenryJames’ “TheSense of Newport” (1906), an essay that he originally published in Harper’s and then turned into a chapterin his interesting travel and autobiographical book TheAmerican Scene (1907). James uses that phrase as part of a concludingparagraph in which he absolutely lambasts both the mansions and the Gilded Ageculture of embarrassing excess they reflect, building to his banger of a finalsentence for the essay/chapter, “The answer to which,I think, can only be that there is absolutely nothing to be done; nothing butto let them stand there always, vast and blank, for reminder to those concernedof the prohibited degrees of witlessness, and of the peculiarly awkwardvengeances of affronted proportion and discretion.” In our own moment ofexcess and McMansions and an even more flagrantly rich 1% and so on, we couldstand to reread and learn from James on those Newport white elephants.

As much asthe Newport mansions reflected specific Gilded Age contexts, however, it’sequally (if not indeed more) important to link them to the historicalanniversary that is the reason for this week’s Rhode Island Studying series. Forone thing, there’s no doubt that a good bit of the wealth of places likeNewport was inherited and generational wealth tied to the fortunes built by andthrough the slave trade and slavery in the colony and state (which didn’tabolish slavery itself until its 1843 Constitution). And for another thing, while ofcourse much of the wealth that build Newport’s Gilded Age mansions came fromindividuals and families who were not part of Rhode Island history, that onlymeant that they were even more consistently linked to national legacies ofslavery—as exemplified by theVanderbilts, the family behind The Breakers. So on both those levels, as anextension of Rhode Island history and a reflection of American history, GildedAge Newport was not something new so much as an embarrassing reminder of theworst of our foundational stories.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other Ocean State stories you’d highlight?