Black Gilded Age: Millionaires, Oysters & Schooling, Oh My!

Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash

So let me get this straight... right after the Emancipation Proclamation, while America was busy congratulating itself, a Black aristocracy was quietly assembling in NYC, owning pharmacies and calling themselves an 'aristocracy,' as 'Ethiop' bravely noted. HBO’s The Gilded Age throws shade on classic rich-vs-rich drama but also spotlights figures like 'the New York Oyster King' Thomas Downing and Peggy Scott, whose family thrived despite a society that treated them like museum exhibits. As historian Carla Peterson said, 'The Black elite of the Gilded Age signaled that we, too, have taste.' Taste! In oysters that is—mic drop.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Oh, I’m sorry, did I miss the part where 'The Gilded Age' was a history book that only taught about white tycoons? Nah, turns out there was a Black oyster king, millionaire pharmacists, and authors schooling the elite way before Hulu caught on.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

So the Gilded Age was basically Monopoly, but with actual Black moguls flipping businesses and schooling everyone while the rest were busy decorating their gold-plated sadness with inherited diamonds? Mind blown.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Imagine realizing richer-than-your-wildest-dreams Black families were thriving post-Emancipation while we got handed potboilers about captains of industry. HBO pulled back the velvet curtain, and yeah, we were here too.

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