New York's Scoundrels, Scalawags, and Scrappers: The City in the Last Decade of the Gilded Age

The 1890s was the tail end of the Gilded Age. It was not a “Golden Age,” it was a veneer, and although the decade is specifically called “The Gay Nineties,” the gaiety was generally reserved for the top ten percenters. If you were a common working stiff—or worse, a common working “stiffette”—life was not so gay. Most New Yorkers played by the rules of the game, although some fudged a bit. Others, along with the managements of some businesses and some administrations of the municipality, pla...