The Gilded Age | Carnival of Corruption | 1

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1869, America connected its vast, sprawling territory with its most ambitious project to date: the transcontinental railroad. The country had just emerged from the ashes of the Civil War, and the railroad galvanized people from coast to coast, offering opportunity and promise. But corruption soon cast a pall over the nation.

Scandal after scandal tainted the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. A pair of unscrupulous investors schemed to drive up the price of gold, unleashing chaos from Wall Street to the nation’s farms. Prominent congressmen funneled public money into a sham corporation to profit off the railroad. And government agents conspired with whiskey distillers to defraud the Treasury of millions.

It was the dawn of the Gilded Age—an era of dramatic material progress and sordid greed and corruption.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:07.0	Imagine it's August 1868.
0:23.6	You're a Republican Congressman, traveling south from your home state from Massachusetts
0:28.2	back to Washington.
0:29.8	As the train lurches into motion, you scan the landscape.
0:33.2	Small shops and homes slowly give way to farmland.
0:36.0	You turn to face your colleagues, sitting across from you.
0:38.9	You know, I can't wait till this whole country is connected by rail.
0:41.7	We're getting there, but there's still so much to do.
0:44.6	You heard the latest reports from the Union Pacific?
0:46.8	Hmm, yeah, here construction is fully behind.
0:49.3	There's short on cash.
0:50.3	That's true.
0:51.3	That's why I want to talk to you about a little proposal of mine.
0:54.3	Your colleague, Chuckles.
0:55.9	Oh, he's a proposal of your sleeve, isn't there?
0:58.3	All right, what is it?
0:59.3	Well, you might have heard that a select handful of our colleagues have already signed
1:02.5	on to this venture.
1:03.5	I'm prepared to get you a piece of the action.
1:06.4	Your colleague narrows his case.
	...

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