I had the chance to sit down with Douglas Sackman, a history professor at the University of Puget Sound, for a conversation that feels especially timely.
Professor Sackman joined me to talk about the Gilded Age — that turbulent period of rapid industrialization, staggering wealth inequality, labor unrest, and political corruption that reshaped the US in the late 19th century. It’s a chapter of American history often reduced to robber barons and railroads, but as we discuss, it’s also a story about workers organizing, democracy straining, and ordinary people pushing back against concentrated power.
As we look around today at our tech oligarchs, monopolistic consolidation,, and battles over the meaning of democracy, it’s hard not to hear echoes of that era.
Going Further & Related Episodes
- Professor Sackman – Faculty Page
- Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden by Professor Sackman
- Careless People – NF Reads Bookclub
- Halley’s Cancer Journey Newsletter
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