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The Real People Behind "The Gilded Age"
AI Overview
The Gilded Age, a term coined by Mark Twain, refers to a period in U.S. history from the 1870s to around 1900 characterized by enormous economic growth and industrial innovation, which created a visible layer of wealth and progress but also masked underlying issues of significant poverty, political corruption, and social injustice.
This era of rapid industrialization and wealth accumulation saw powerful industrialists, or "robber barons," amass fortunes while many workers faced harsh conditions, contributing to a widening gap between the rich and the poor.
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Key Characteristics of the Gilded Age
The era was defined by massive technological leaps, including the development of steel, electricity, new forms of energy, and communication technologies like the telegraph. These innovations fueled the growth of the factory system and the mass production of goods.
While some individuals built vast fortunes through new industries, the economic disparity between the wealthy and the working class grew dramatically.
This period was marked by widespread political corruption and a general distrust in the major political parties.
A wave of mass immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe led to significant changes in the country's ethnic and religious makeup, with many new immigrants settling in cities.
Workers responded to long hours, low wages, and unsafe conditions by forming labor unions and organizing strikes to fight for better treatment.
Powerful industrialists and financiers created monopolies and wielded immense influence, often using harsh methods to suppress labor movements.
The era created a distinct division between the affluent and the poor, with the newly rich flaunting their wealth in lavish mansions and social events.
Why the Term "Gilded Age"?
The term "gilded" means to cover something with a thin layer of gold. Mark Twain used it to describe a time where industrial advancements and a superficial display of wealth created an illusion of prosperity, while beneath the surface lay deep issues of corruption, poverty, and social decay.
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Additional References
Wikipedia - The Gilded Age
Recollections - What made The Gilded Age Gilded?
A Guide to the Real People Who
Inspired The Gilded Age Characters
by Emily Burack
August 03, 2025
From the Vanderbilts to the 9th Duke of Marlborough, meet the historical socialites, aristocrats, robber barons, and more that serve as the basis for the HBO drama.
As the third season of The Gilded Age winds down, there’s still so much to look forward to - the HBO drama was just renewed for a fourth outing. Many characters in the Julian Fellowes show are either real historical figures, or inspired by real people, so history can perhaps point towards the future plotlines in the series.
This season, in particular, expanded the world of The Gilded Age to include Black elite in Newport. “It’s a community rarely seen depicted in mainstream media. Very rarely do you see Black elite wealth depicted in this time period. So it’s very important for us to make that as big and beautiful as possible,” director and executive producer Salli Richardson-Whitfield told Town & Country. “I felt a responsibility to the historical accuracy so that no one could ever say, ‘Oh, but that's not really real.’ And I think that that is why our audience, particularly our Black audience, has loved the show so much because it's true that this is how these people lived during this time period. And the Black community who loved this show had really taken great pride in that.”
Here, a guide to the historical figures who directly or indirectly inspired The Gilded Age characters:
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| Alva Vanderbilt as Bertha Russell | Getty Images; HBO |
Bertha Russell, played by Carrie Coon, draws heavy inspiration from the life of Alva Vanderbilt (née Smith), later Alva Belmont. Alva was a wealthy socialite and a vocal advocate for women's suffrage, one of the co-founders of the National Women's Party.
In her lifetime, she married twice: to businessman William Vanderbilt and to banker and politician Oliver Belmont. With William, she had three children, Counselo, William Jr., and Harold.
The couple also built “Petit Chateau” on Fifth Avenue, located at 660 Fifth. Alva, like her fictional counterpart Bertha, was shunned by “old money” New York City until she threw an extravagant ball.
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| Consuelo Vanderbilt as Gladys Russell | Getty Images; HBO |
Alva forced her eldest daughter, Conseulo, to marry Charles Spencer-Churchill, the 9th Duke of Marlborough - a plotline that plays out in The Gilded Age as Bertha pushes Gladys (portrayed by Taissa Farmiga) to wed the Duke of Buckingham. Consuelo became the Duchess of Marlborough, but (possible spoiler alert!) they separated and divorced, and their marriage was annulled. She later married wealth French aviator and industrialist Jacques Balsan. Conseulo had two sons from her first marriage, John (the 10th Duke of Marlborough) and Ivor.
“I wish I'd known her,” her great-granddaughter Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill told T&C of Consuelo “I did meet her, but I have very little recollection. I was around six when she died, and she was mainly living in the States and in France. I do remember her coming to the house. We used to live in Lee Place, which was the Georgian house, while my grandfather was still alive. I always say it, it is thanks to Consuelo that [Blenheim] is probably still very much a family home, which is true.”
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| Jay Gould as George Russell | Getty Images; HBO |
George Russell is not based on a Vanderbilt; rather, his character draws from the life of American railroad magnate Jason Gould, according to Gilded Age creator Julian Fellowes. “I had been told that he was a little bit based on Jay Gould and [Cornelius] Vanderbilt, so I read up on those people and their biographies, to some extent. I’ve found as much first-person writing by those robber barons,” actor Morgan Spector said. Gould was known as one of the famous “robber barons” of the Gilded Age. He was married to Helen Miller; they had six children.
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| The 9th Duke of Marlborough as the 5th Duke of Buckingham | Getty Images; HBO |
The Duke of Buckingham was a real person: George Villiers, a rumored lover of King James VI and I. The last holder of the dukedom, the 3rd Duke of Buckingham, died in 1889. However, The Gilded Age's Duke of Buckingham, played by Ben Lamb, is based on Charles Spencer-Churchill, the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Charles was a first cousin of Winston Churchill, a member of the Order of the Garter, and a Conservative politician. He married Consuelo Vanderbilt to save his near-bankrupt dukedom. Together, they restored Blenheim Palace.
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| Caroline Schermerhorn Astor | Getty Images; HBO |
Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astorn, known as “The Mrs. Astor,” is portrayed in the show by Donna Murphy. Mrs. Astor was a real socialite, who reigned over New York society. With husband William Astor Jr., they had five children, including John Jacob Astor IV, who died on the Titanic.
As Elizabeth Block wrote in T&C, “Caroline descended from the Schermerhorns and the Van Cortlandts, Dutch families that were among the earliest settlers in colonial North America. Considered ‘old money,’ they had earned their fortunes through mercantile businesses and real estate holdings. Nouveau-riche families strove to achieve their acceptance, and famously fueled the envy of such newcomers to New York society as Alva Smith Vanderbilt from Mobile, Alabama.”
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| Julia C. Collins as Peggy | Getty Images; HBO |
Denée Benton's Peggy is based on an amalgamation of famous Black women of the era. Fellows “was intentional about drawing from multiple women's lives in order to create a fictional character who embodies the spirit of the 1880s for young Black woman in the elite,” explained Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a history professor and consultant for the show. Notably, however, Peggy's storyline draws from the life and career of Julia C. Collins; Collins's 1865 novel, The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride, is widely believed to be the first novel by an African American woman.
Other inspirations for Peggy include Susan McKinney Steward, the first Black female doctor in New York; Sarah Mapps Douglass, an educator, writer, and abolitionist; and Ida B. Wells, the famous author and activist.
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| J.P. Morgan | Getty Images; HBO |
Banker J.P. Morgan (full name John Pierpont Morgan Sr.) appears in the third season, portrayed by Bill Camp. Morgan was a real financier and banker of the Gilded Age, a key figure of the era. His banking firm eventually became JP Morgan Chase, which still exists today.
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| Mamie Fish | Getty Images; HBO |
Mamie Fish, portrayed in The Gilded Age by Ashlie Atkinson, was the “wittiest” woman of Gilded Age New York. In 1899, The Baltimore Sun wrote, “Without being a great beauty, she is irresistible. Her friends say it is because, ‘Mamie Fish has a sharp tongue, but a heart of gold.’” The reporter continued, “her enemies believe she is a witch” but “everybody knows she is always ready to do or dare anything ‘just for fun.’” Fish was married to businessman Stuyvesant Fish, and they had four children.
Read more: Who was Mamie Fish?
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| T. Thomas Fortune | Getty Images; HBO |
American journalist T. Thomas Fortune, portrayed by Sullivan Jones in The Gilded Age, was the editor of The New York Age, a prominent Black newspaper of the time. He was also a close friend of Booker T. Washington. Born into slavery, after the Civil War, Fortune attended Edwin M. Stanton School then Howard University. He left school after two semesters, however, to start working as a journalist and an activist. Fortune mainly focused on the rights of Black Americans in the south. He married Carrie C. Smiley, and they had five children.
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| John Singer Sargent | HBO; Getty Images |
At the start of season three, Bertha hires artist John Singer Sargent (Bobby Steggert) to paint her daughter Gladys. “There’s a moment when a young girl turns into a woman. It doesn’t last long, and I’d like it caught on canvas,” Bertha says.
John Singer Sargent was a real American painter, who spent much of his life and career in Europe, and was known for his portraits including “Portrait of Madame X” and “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.”
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| Ward McAllister | Getty Images; HBO |
Another real Gilded Age figure who appears in The Gilded Age is Ward McAllister, portrayed by Nathan Lane in the drama. “He was a former lawyer who was a distant relative of Mrs. Astor and together they decided that society in this country desperately needed some direction, and so with her help he became this self-appointed social arbiter, the gatekeeper, if you will, to elite society, whereas he said, 'You must have the three Bs - Birth, Background and Breeding,'” Lane explained to T&C. “He sounded like a condescending twit obsessed with money and power, and I’m not saying he wasn’t, but according to those who knew him well, he was also a very charming and flamboyant Southerner who was known as the life of the party. And he could throw a mean picnic in Newport.”
McAllister famously coined the phrase “The Four Hundred,” referencing how there were only 400 people in New York society who really mattered, and just as he did on-screen the real life McAllister wrote a tell-all book, Society as I Have Found It, spilling the secrets of his well-heeled friends. He was married to heiress Sarah Taintor Gibbons, and they had three children, Louise, Ward Jr., and Heyward, but eventually he was shunned from the society he chronicled. They didn't take kindly to his expose.
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| Philip A. White as Arthur Scott | Public Domain; HBO |
Peggy's father, Arthur Scott (John Douglas Thompson) is inspired by Philip Augustus White. Philip, who was born a free man, who opened his own drug store in 1847. In the show, Arthur is a formerly enslaved man who is also a successful pharmacist. He is the subject of Black Gotham, about Black elite in 19th century New York City, which Fellowes read before working on The Gilded Age.
“I had no idea, really, that there was a prosperous, upper-middle-class Black community in New York towards the end of the 19th century, based not in Harlem, but in Brooklyn,” Fellowes told the Los Angeles Times. “And these were affluent people with status and businesses and families.”
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| Mahlon Van Horne as Frederick Kirkland | New York Public Library; Audra McDonald/Instagram |
Mahlon Van Horne was a Newport pastor who served in the Rhode Island General Assembly. He inspired the character of Frederick Kirland (Brian Stokes Mitchell). “He's the forerunner of Martin Luther King and the 20th century black ministers who are blending religion and social justice together in advancing equal rights,” Keith Stokes, Rhode Island’s historian laureate, told Time. “He's one of the most significant African-American leaders in America here at that time.”
In addition, Horne's son, Mathias, attended Howard and became Rhode Island's first Black dentist, similar to the character of Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica) on The Gilded Age.
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| Oscar Wilde | Getty Images; HBO |
Oscar Wilde, an Irish writer and playwright, appears briefly in the second season of The Gilded Age season two, portrayed by Jordan Waller. Wilde is best known for The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890, and other works including The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband.
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| Clara Barton | Getty Images; HBO |
Clara Barton, a nurse who founded the American Red Cross, appears in season one The Gilded Age, played by Linda Emond. Per the National Women's History Museum, “Barton remained with the Red Cross until 1904, attending national and international meetings, aiding with disasters, helping the people experiencing homelessness and poverty, and writing about her life and the Red Cross. She was also an ardent supporter of women’s suffrage. In 1904, she established the National First Aid Association of America, an [early FEMA-like] organization that emphasized emergency preparedness and developed first aid kits.”
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Senior News Editor
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.
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