Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2010
For much of the twentieth century, scholars treated the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era as starkly contrasting phases in the unfolding of the American story: the post-Civil War dark ages followed by the bright light of the early twentieth century. More recently, historians have recognized the oversimplification if not downright wrongheadedness of that dichotomy. The past few decades have witnessed an explosion of studies on a variety of topics with coverage dates roughly from the 1870s to the 1920s. Most of these newer works underscore the continuities between the two periods and the relatively seamless evolution of forces and institutions.
1 See, for example, LaFeber, Walter, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860–1898 (Ithaca, 1963)Google Scholar; Campbell, Charles S., The Transformation of American Foreign Relations, 1865–1900 (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Beisner, Robert L., From the Old Diplomacy to the New, 1865–1900 (Arlington Heights, IL, 1986).Google Scholar
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37 The literature on the election of 1876–1877 and Hayes” southern policy is voluminous. The best brief account is Hoogenboom, , Presidency of Hayes, chs. 1–3.Google Scholar
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