Book Description

"Before the Gilded Age is the first modern and thorough biography of William Wilson Corcoran (1798-1888), one of the nation's earliest and most successful political insiders, financiers, philanthropists, and shapers of the emerging cultural elite during the era before the Gilded Age. He was a college dropout (Georgetown College) who became one of the richest men in Washington. A controversial figure in his own time and ours, Corcoran was a masterful political "shapeshifter" whose chameleonlike ability to work both sides of the Mason-Dixon line during and after the Civil War enabled him to thrive seamlessly between sitting out the war in Europe while rumors of treason swirled around him and then returning to the capital after the Union victory. He was friendly with Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman; Jefferson Davis and Daniel Webster. He owned at least two individuals and worked to end Home Rule, disenfranchising the voters of Washington, DC, and ending Reconstruction in the District. He was one of the earliest consistent practitioners of the much-reviled activity of lobbying. And he devised the strategy to leverage public debt to finance the US prosecution of the Mexican-American War. Yet he also played a key role in stabilizing and merchandizing US financial securities at home and abroad, created a bank that remained independent for 175 years (Riggs Bank), and founded the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Corcoran's failings are examined along with his contributions to some of the major developments in finance and philanthropy of his era"--