The Politics of the Gilded Age

Yesterday we looked at the politics of the Gilded Age, an age of political deadlock in some ways not unlike our own. While politicians concentrated on getting out the vote and "waving the bloody shirt of the rebellion," they feared most of all antagonizing voters by addressing the real issues of the time. We talked about the role of the "politics of the past" in derailing the possibilities of federal regulation of the economy -- at the very moment when the Supreme Court was immobilizing the states from representing the interests of the farmers, workers and non-corporate interests.

Click on this link for the vodcast of the lecture in the iPod video format