"Phases of Empire: Late Nineteenth-Century U.S. Foreign Relations." In The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origins of Modern America, Charles W. Calhoun, ed., 261-88

Controversy over the expansion of pound netting in the largest US fisheries of the late nineteenth century marked an early conflict between those who considered fisheries a commons and those who sought to establish property rights in a fishery. Pound-netters physically staked out a specific part of the sea for their exclusive use, and their conception of their property rights resulted in significant overfishing of important food – and oil – fish species. Here, just as with the commons that many economists argue inevitably result in over-exploitation of a resource, regulation was rebuffed and the fisheries collapsed.

Get full-text (via PubEx)

Porfirian Commercial Propaganda: Mexico in the World Industrial Expositions

The Americas A Quarterly Review of Latin American History ◽

10.2307/981355 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 230-243 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Gene Yeager

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Latin American ◽

World Trade ◽

Gilded Age ◽

The United States ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

The World ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Latin American Countries ◽

Trade And Investment

Students of late nineteenth century history have long dismissed the world industrial expositions as glittering, but not highly significant reflections of the gilded age. What emerges from the literature of the period, however, is a sense of the overriding commercial importance of these exhibitions. Nineteenth-century observers consistently linked the fairs to the general growth of world trade and to the expanding commercial hegemony of the United States. More specifically, contemporaries agreed that the expositions served to develop trade and investment ties with Latin America. Among the Latin American countries represented in the expositions, Mexico was the most important and consistent participant.

Get full-text (via PubEx)

Politics, Social Movements, and the Periodization of U.S. History

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era ◽

10.1017/s1537781400001432 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 461-473 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Rebecca Edwards

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Nineteenth Century ◽

Progressive Era ◽

Gilded Age ◽

Recent Literature ◽

Mark Twain ◽

The United States ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Considerable Doubt

It may be perilous for a member of the Society of Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era to propose, in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, that we cease using the term “Gilded Age” as a label for the late nineteenth century. Since I admire Mark Twain, who famously coined the term in a novel that he cowrote with Charles Dudley Warner, such a suggestion feels disloyal if not downright un-American. But in struggling recently to write a synthesis of the United States between 1865 and 1905 (cutoff dates that I chose with considerable doubt), it became apparent to me that “Gilded Age” is not a very useful or accurate term. Intended as an indictment of the elite, it captures none of the era's grassroots ferment and little of its social and intellectual complexity. A review of recent literature suggests that periodizing schemes are now in flux, and a reconsideration may be in order.

Get full-text (via PubEx)