HBO’S “THE GILDED AGE” ACTUALLY DEPICTS THE 19th-CENTURY BLACK ELITE WITH HISTORICAL ACCURACY

There's a scene in Season 1 of HBO's The Gilded Age, a period drama set in late 19th-century New York, where Marian Brook makes an unannounced visit to the Brooklyn home of her new friend, Peggy Scott, hoping to surprise her with a gift, of sorts: a bag of old, used shoes.

Historically, mainstream media hasn't exactly given viewers a varied picture of Black 19th century life. Characters are usually enslaved, impoverished, or otherwise suffering somewhere in the background. But the Scotts, who are Black, wealthy, and educated, represent a very different reality. Peggy's father, Arthur, is a successful pharmacist, while her mother, Dorothy, is a skilled pianist. They live in a gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone with a staff of their own, and they are most definitely not in need of Marian's old shoes.

While the show blurs the lines between historical fiction and reality, there's no denying that creator Julian Fellowes, Baron of West Stafford, does his homework. (The dude is a Baron, after all.) And one thing he absolutely nails is the world the Scotts move through and how that world moves around them. Here's how.

You will not say ‘can’t’ to me.

If you've never watched The Gilded Age, let me give you the rundown: The series follows New York's wealthiest families during the 1880s, particularly two households occupying neighboring Fifth Avenue mansions. On one side are the Old Money Van Rhijns, who proudly trace their family roots back to before the American Revolution and would very much like everyone to know it. Their newest houseguest is their orphaned niece, Marian Brook (played by Louisa Jacobson). On the other are the nouveau riche Russells, who have a railroad fortune, enormous social ambitions, and absolutely no intention of letting Manhattan's old guard keep them out.

Now, if you're a period drama enthusiast (like myself), you already know what to expect from Fellowes. Best known for Downton Abbey, his shows deliver corseted intrigue, silver service, and rich people treating dinner invitations like matters of national security. But from the moment The Gilded Age arrives on HBO, something unexpected happens. Right in the middle of all that New York high society, amid the marble staircases and diamond-studded soirées, is Peggy Scott (Broadway vet Denée Benton), a young, ambitious Black writer and secretary to the prickly Agnes Van Rhijn (played by the fabulous Christine Baranski), whose presence isn't just a narrative footnote, but a centerpiece. Through her, we enter an entire ecosystem of a prominent Black families thriving in Brooklyn and beyond.

And here's something you probably didn't learn in history class: New York actually did have a thriving Black elite during this period. Black men and women with successful careers, money, education, and serious social influence. And they weren't some historical anomaly. They were very much part of the city's social fabric... even if pop culture spent the better part of a century pretending otherwise.

To help get this history right, the production enlisted the help of historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar, whose work focuses specifically on Black American women of the 18th and 19th centuries. (She also co-executive produces the show!) Looking at how film and TV generally treat this era of Black history, Dunbar says, “There’s this huge gap between the Civil War and slavery and then, maybe, the Harlem Renaissance—as if nothing happened in between.”

Interestingly, Peggy wasn't originally supposed to be the ambitious young journalist we know today. Early plans for the character envision her as a domestic servant, until Dunbar and the creative team reimagined her as a writer. That one decision opened up a whole new set of possibilities. Instead of confining Peggy to the Van Rhijn household, the show can explore Black journalism, education, politics, and the people helping shape the future of Black America.

And that's exactly what happens over the seasons. Peggy goes from working as Agnes Van Rhijn's secretary to building a journalism career at the New York Globe. Along the way, we spend more time with her family, her friends, and the Black community she belongs to outside of Manhattan's white society.

By Season 3, the Scotts aren't even the only Black family with money and a reputation to maintain. When Peggy falls ill, the handsome Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica) comes to her rescue, and before long, she's enjoying a proper society romance. They enjoy romantic walks in Newport, a very public marriage proposal, and Peggy delights in the prospect of a husband who doesn't expect her to abandon her career ambitions. She's apparently the first woman in history to try to have it all and succeed.

William also introduces us to another corner of Black high society, this time in Newport, Rhode Island. His parents, the distinguished Reverend Frederick Kirkland (Brian Stokes Mitchell) and his formidable wife Elizabeth (welcome addition to the cast Phylicia Rashad), belong to a prominent family that's been part of Newport's Black social scene for generations. And their family dynamics offer a unique peak inside how privilege and generational wealth operate Black households of the time.

Of course, belonging to the same elite social circle doesn't mean everybody gets along. Just ask Dorothy Scott (queen, icon, and Tony Award winner Audra McDonald) and Elizabeth Kirkland.

When Peggy and William begin courting, Elizabeth makes it clear she doesn't consider the Scotts quite good enough for her son. The Kirklands have been free for generations, while Arthur Scott (John Douglas Thompson) was born into slavery and built his fortune after emancipation. Apparently, inheriting your money is more respectable than earning it.

Elizabeth is also deeply concerned with maintaining the family's lighter complexion, even warning the nanny about letting her grandchildren spend too much time in the sun. So now we're getting into the class divisions, the social prejudices that exist within Black communities, and there's colorism to contend with, too. And a romance between two wealthy Black families brings out the kind of old-money snobbery you'd expect more from the Fifth Avenue crowd. But I gotta admit, watching Audra McDonald and Phylicia Rashad go toe-to-toe as two society mothers who are absolutely not having it is pure drama and pure joy.

Revolutions are launched by people with strong views and excess energy.

While the Russells and Van Rhijns are busy waging war over opera boxes and dinner invitations, the real Gilded Age was a period of enormous social and economic change. Spanning roughly the 1870s through the 1890s, it saw the end of Reconstruction, the expansion of railroads, and the accumulation of staggering fortunes by a relatively small number of Americans. But while industrialists were getting obscenely rich, another wealthy class was also emerging.

Barely a generation after emancipation, Black professionals, entrepreneurs, and educators were building businesses, accumulating wealth, and establishing influential social circles of their own. This community became known by several names, including the “colored aristocracy,” the “Black 400,” the “upper tens,” and the “best society,” as historian Willard B. Gatewood documents in his book Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920.

And, as the show illustrates, money alone wasn't necessarily enough to earn your place in this crowd. Education, influence, family connections, and the right social affiliations were just as important.

Members of the Black elite attended schools like Oberlin, Fisk, Harvard, and Yale. They were doctors, teachers, business owners, and members of exclusive organizations like the Social Circle. Like their white counterparts, they maintained their own social hierarchies and rules about who belonged where.

Like the Kirkland's, some members of the Black elite were so hung up on pedigree that even whether your ancestors had been enslaved in the house or in the fields could affect your social standing.

But they also knew how to have a good time. In her book Black Gotham, historian Carla L. Peterson explores a community with literary societies, music clubs, seaside excursions to places like Sea Cliff, and elaborate balls where guests arrived dressed in their finest silks and diamonds. There were flowers and oysters and plenty of opportunities to see and be seen. These weren't people spending every waking moment working or fighting for a cause. They had social calendars to maintain, and, presumably, a little gossip to catch up on.

That woman has the resilience of a cockroach.

What makes all of this hit is our entry point, Peggy Scott. Peggy ain't your typical period drama side character. Played with quiet intensity by Denée Benton, she's smart, stylish, ambitious, and deeply principled. It would be easy for The Gilded Age to make her a convenient moral compass for its white characters, there to dispense wisdom whenever Marian needs a lesson in racial sensitivity. But Benton pushed from the beginning to give Peggy a life and personality beyond that. She's not perfect. She doesn't always do the right thing. She keeps painful secrets, dreams big, and occasionally gets in her own way. In other words, she's got plenty going on without having to spend every episode educating the white folks around her.

Through Peggy, the show explores Black ambition, intellectualism, and femininity in ways mainstream period dramas rarely bother with. Racism is obviously part of her story, but it isn't the only thing happening in her life. Even her friendship with Marian is more complicated than two young women becoming unlikely besties, as the unfortunate shoegate makes painfully clear.

Peggy's chosen profession is also particularly interesting. Writing is one of the few fields in which women manage to establish successful public careers, even if the literary establishment wasn't exactly throwing open its doors for them. But Black women were still writing novels, publishing poetry, reporting on politics, and making names for themselves long before Peggy Scott picked up a pen.

And while Peggy isn't based on one particular historical figure, her character draws inspiration from several real Black female trailblazers. There's Ida B. Wells, the journalist and activist whose fearless reporting exposed lynchings across the country and who later helps found the NAACP; Julia C. Collins, a Black teacher and writer whose unfinished The Curse of Caste; or, The Slave Bride is among the earliest novels serialized by a Black woman; and Susan McKinney Steward, the first Black female doctor in New York.

And as Peggy's career develops, the show introduces more of the actual women doing this work. Season 2 brings Sarah J. Garnet, the first Black woman to become a principal in New York City's public school system and a pioneering suffragist, into the story through the fight to save New York's Black public schools. In Season 3, Peggy interviews Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (LisaGay Hamilton), a celebrated poet, novelist, abolitionist, and leading advocate for Black women's voting rights. These women aren't just historical names tossed into the script for credibility. They were educators, writers, and political organizers who were making things happen rather than waiting for the world to change.

But whoever achieved great things without taking chances?

Marian initially arrives at the Scotts' door knowing exactly what they need and almost nothing about how they live. And for years, period dramas have approached Black life in much the same way. But what The Gilded Age gets right is its willingness to explore this world on its own terms, with all the complexities, contradictions, and true-to-life winks and nods that make for a great period drama. And what makes this story feel so fresh is it's not about exceptionalism. We're not watching Peggy, the Scotts, or even the Kirklands prove themselves. We're watching them be themselves in a world that might not be ready for them, but it certainly can't look away. And frankly, it's about time.