Separating Fact From Fiction in The Gilded Age

Money isn’t everything in The Gilded Age, Julian Fellowes’s lavish costume drama depicting life among the upper crust—and their servants—in late-19th-century New York City. Yes, nouveau riche railroad magnate George Russell (Morgan Spector) and his social-climbing wife, Bertha (Carrie Coon), have scads of it—ostentatiously displayed in their new Stanford White–designed Fifth Avenue mansion filled with European heirlooms. But what Bertha, a potato digger’s daughter, really wants is status—to secure her family’s place among the city’s old money elite. Fellowes’s latest foray into historical fiction was originally intended to be a fact-based account of shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, he… Read Full Article