The Gilded Age is coming back for a fourth season this November! In anticipation, I put together some of my thoughts about what could happen in the next season of the show. I know that this podcast episode will get outdated quickly, but I thought it might be fun to chat about what I’m looking forward to (potentially) seeing in this next instalment of the series.

To guide the conversation, I chat about what actually happened in U.S. history in the years 1885 and 1886. (If season four of the Julian Fellowes’ American history-inspired streaming series follows the pattern of other seasons, we can expect this upcoming season to take place in 1885… though the show has taken some liberties with historic events, too.) From the inauguration of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor to a new president, suffrage, socialites and divorce, and more, we’ll see where the writers and creators of this gorgeous period drama could take us next.

// What inspired this episode? I'm excited for the next season of "The Gilded Age" to premiere (it starts on November 1, 2026 on HBO Max and Crave.)

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// Note: The Gilded Hour Podcast is an unofficial podcast for commentary, critique and education only, with the aim of teaching audiences about United States history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We are not sponsored or affiliated with any outside entity.

It's our final podcast episode of our first season, and we of course go into the famous Vanderbilt ball that very clearly inspired events in the finale episode of The Gilded Age's season 1. (This ball made such an impact in the 1880s, it was still being talked about 60 years later!) To wrap up our own first season of the podcast, we look into the prominent individuals and families of the Gilded Age who featured in the series, including the Vanderbilts, the Astors, Jay Gould, JP Morgan, and others. We also give our thoughts about what stood out to us while researching and recording this podcast season and whether we could learn anything that might apply to today from our foray into America's gilded past.

What inspired this episode?

The series finale of The Gilded Age season 1 revolves around the show's fictional wannabe socialite, Bertha Russell, and her attempt to get the queen bee of New York society, Lina Astor, to attend her daughter's debutante ball. Afraid of being snubbed again by the frigid Mrs. Astor, Bertha hatches a plan to get Lina's daughter, Carrie (who on the show is a friend of Bertha's daughter Gladys,) to convince her mother to attend the ball. This storyline parallels the real-life ball that social climber and "new money" Alva Vanderbilt threw, a party so anticipated, so talked-about, so grand that the "old money" Astors had no choice but to attend.

Thank you so much for joining us for this first season of the Gilded Hour Podcast. We really enjoyed making these episodes for you. Please follow us on our social media accounts as we will provide updates on when this podcast will continue!

In this week's podcast episode, we explore the real-life Newport homes and talk a bit about how the concept of summer came about in the first place. We also go over some of the popular architectural styles of Victorian era homes, and how the Newport cottages took some of the most popular architecture of the time period to the next level, and again, left a lasting impact that we can still see in cities and towns today.

What inspired this episode?

Activities like taking a summer holiday and hosting a laid-back, casual social event in the warmer months are part of the concept of leisure that grew out of the 19th century. Nowadays, we look upon summers of the past with a lot of nostalgia. The romanticism of retreating in summer didn't emerge from nothing, however: in the U.S., the idea of taking a summer vacation began with the habits of the wealthy (and trend-setting) elites in the Gilded Age.

As we saw in the series "The Gilded Age," the elites began to ritualize summer by traveling to resorts, camps, and hot springs to get some well-deserved rest and relaxation. The ultra-elite of New York also bought seasonal residences in the coastal town of Newport, Rhode Island. The size and extravagance of these summer "cottages" in Newport are unlike anything we saw before or, possibly, will ever see again in American history. Yet, the ritualization of summer that they started and the styles of the palatial vacation homes they built has really remained fashionable and has been a part of the nostalgia of our national consciousness ever since.