The Gilded Age was by no means simply an East Coast phenomenon. Wealth, position and social structure evolved across the country as railroads and improved technology pushed the country west.

Denver, Colorado, grew from a "tavern town" at the foothills of the Rockies to an important Western center for commerce and society. Social Denver was largely ruled by the Southern-born Louise Sneed Hill whose very different and modern vision for how society could work paved a path for much more -- including new and more modern roles for women.

Author Shelby Carr Neuhauser joins Carl for the fascinating look into a true Western woman of the Gilded Age.

This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon.

The life of Frederick Douglass, the great 19th century statesman, orator, writer and abolitionist, is a triumphantly American story.

He was born into slavery in the early years of the 19th century and died at the very height of the Gilded Age. His tremendous talents as a leader brought him out of slavery and into the heart of the Gilded Age as a player in the political worlds of Lincoln, Grant and Hayes.

Joining Carl on this episode is scholar and author Connor Williams who traces Douglass's life from his early years in enslavement through his emancipation and travel in and outside America and his role as an abolitionist and supporter of women's suffrage.

This episode was edited and produced by Kieran Gannon.

Connor has also appeared on the Gilded Gentleman podcast The Adirondacks and Great Camp Sagamore: Retreating to Nature in the Gilded Age

Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Stephanie Herdrich joins Carl for an in-depth look at how the career and personal life of Gilded Age artist John Singer Sargent evolved over his ten-year period in Paris from the 1870's to the mid 1880's.

Sargent is the subject of a major new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that focuses on this period beginning in his late adolescent years and leading up to the creation of his masterpiece - the grand, imposing and scandalous portrait of Virginie Gautreau, known as "Madame X".

Stephanie discusses some of Sargent's greatest works during this period, as well as some of his most important professional and personal relationships, all of which contributed to a boundary breaking artistic vision.

This show was edted by Kieran Gannon.