The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford History of the United States)

by Richard White

A decade later the Astors, Stewarts, and Vanderbilts were no longer alone. The railroads, the rise of manufacturing, and the financial market created vast new fortunes. The consolidation of industries into larger holdings added lesser fortunes as those whom men like Rockefeller or Carnegie bought out found themselves with more than sufficient money on which to live and no further need to labor. This was no longer a mere competence. They could afford considerable extravagance. These arrivistes peopled the novels of Howells and later Edith Wharton. They also became the subjects of Frederick Townsend Martin’s The Passing of the Idle Rich, a book he wrote in the early twentieth century looking back at the invasion of New York society by the nouveau riche.