Virtual Lecture: Inventing the Gilded Age: Chicago Goes Shopping

Virtual Lecture
Tuesday, January 25th
6:00-7:00 pm CST
$15 for General Public, $10 for Members

Register Here for Online Event  

“The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of great conflict between the old ways and brand new systems, and of huge fortunes made and lost...”

So reads the synopsis of HBO's new period drama, The Gilded Age, helmed by Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame and set in late 19th century New York City. Inspired by the HBO show, this winter we are featuring "Inventing the Gilded Age," a series of conversations that will dive into the era of the Nickerson Mansion and investigate the birth of the American city as we know it today. 
 

In "Chicago Goes Shopping,"  we welcome back Leslie Goddard, Ph.D.,  who will walk us down the State Street of the turn of the last century, to the palaces of retail...like The Fair, Marshall Field & Co., Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., and Wieboldt Stores Inc...that became one-stop shops for the working and leisure classes.  Using historical images, Goddard will explore how the department store became an urban phenomenon made possible by mass transportation, acted as a laboratory for the era's greatest architects, and functioned as a new social space for women.

Image: Detroit Publishing Co., Copyright Claimant, and Publisher Detroit Publishing Co. Madison and State Sts., Chicago, Ill. United States Illinois Chicago, ca. 1907. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016795886/.