By Skip Moskey Terrace Garden, Rome by John Elliott. ca. 1897. Oil on canvas. Private Collection. On January 31st, 1896, Larz Anderson, then serving as first secretary of the American Embassy in Rome, wrote to his mother that he had dined the night before at the home of Maud and John Elliott. There were two other […]
A compendium of short, illustrated essays about the people, buildings, gardens, art, books and more that define the long 19th-century in the U.S.
Gardens & Horticulture | The Gilded Age in America | Page 6
Though Larz Anderson never knew his great-grandfather, the Cincinnati wine merchant Nicholas Longworth (1783-1863), he was very familiar with his imposing mansion in downtown Cincinnati. Longworth’s Greek Revival mansion and famous formal garden distinguished it from all other properties in the city. Larz visited the property often. His grandparents, Larz and Catherine Longworth Anderson, lived […]
Biography | The Gilded Age in America | Page 4
On Easter Monday, March 28, 1910, Larz and Isabel Anderson attended a field day for children at Randle Highlands in the District of Columbia. Known now as Washington Highlands, the area was first developed by Col. Arthur E. Randle (1859-1829), a prominent Washingtonian. The children of Randle Highlands petitioned Isabel to attend their festivities and help give […]
My Afternoons with Mark Twain
![2002_Fall_marktwain[1]](https://listenupaudiobooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2002_Fall_marktwain1-474x270.jpg "2002_Fall_marktwain[1]")
By Skip Moskey Mark Twain’s house (view from the rear), Hartford, Connecticut (Photo by Skip Moskey) Since the publication of my biography of Isabel and Larz Anderson in 2016, people have asked me where my fascination (or some might say – my obsession) with the Gilded Age came from. I blame it all on Mark […]
A compendium of short, illustrated essays about the people, buildings, gardens, art, books and more that define the long 19th-century in the U.S.
As someone who researches a wide variety of topics related to the intersection of art, architecture, and society during America’s Gilded Age, I have come across something that has confused and perplexed the small community of people who read, write, and think about such things. And that is whether the Bar Harbor “cottage” of George […]
Books | The Gilded Age in America | Page 8
Isabel Anderson started her career as an author with the publication in 1909 of The Great Sea Horse, a large and complex project that took several years to complete. The 25 short stories in Sea Horse are populated with mermaids and “merboys,” seashells, fairies, flowers, gnomes, and human-like creatures called “brownies and pinkies.” The stories […]
Books | The Gilded Age in America | Page 2
By Skip Moskey People often ask me what books I’ve most enjoyed reading about the Gilded Age. Here are three favorites from my biography shelf. Click on the book image for more information; these are all available as very low-cost used copies on Amazon.com. Happy reading! Henry James: A Life, by Leon Edel. This […]
Isabel Anderson | The Gilded Age in America
Antonio Scali, 1931 The cultural and political connections between Italy and the United States during the Gilded Age emerged as a constant theme in the research for my book, Larz and Isabel Anderson: Wealth and Celebrity in the Gilded Age. In the 1890s, Larz served as first secretary and later chargé d’affaires of the American Embassy […]
Art & Architecture | The Gilded Age in America
As someone who researches a wide variety of topics related to the intersection of art, architecture, and society during America’s Gilded Age, I have come across something that has confused and perplexed the small community of people who read, write, and think about such things. And that is whether the Bar Harbor “cottage” of George […]
Art & Architecture | The Gilded Age in America | Page 2
Anderson House, 2118 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC., 1905, designed by the Boston architectural firm of Arthur Little & Herbert Brown. (Photo by Skip Moskey.) Did you know that, like people, buildings have their own “genealogy”? I’m not talking about the style of a house (such as Gothic Revival, Art Deco, or International), nor am […]
Art & Architecture | The Gilded Age in America | Page 18
A brownstone house at the southwest corner of Arlington and Beacon Streets across from Boston Garden contains a poignant memorial to two of Isabel Anderson’s maternal aunts who died young. Designed by Boston architects Gridley J.F. Bryant and Arthur D. Gilman, and built around 1860, the large town house at No. 1 Arlington Street was first purchased […]
The Search for Kilgour Place | The Gilded Age in America
Old Madison Pike in East Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati (2012) Though born in Paris, Larz Anderson spent most of his childhood and early teen years in Cincinnati, Ohio. Until 1878, the Col. Nicholas Longworth Anderson family lived in downtown Cincinnati in a simple red brick town house at 120 East Fourth Street that had been built […]
Isabel’s Morning with Lillian Gish | The Gilded Age in America
After Larz Anderson’s death in 1937, Isabel Anderson simplified her life, divesting herself of real estate and other assets that she no longer wanted, and focusing her life on her home in Massachusetts and her simple camp in New Hampshire. In Boston, she took an active part in the cultural life of the city, not […]
The Man Behind the Portrait | The Gilded Age in America
Larz Anderson’s “Field Marshall” Portrait, by DeWitt Lockman (1914). Anderson House, Washington, DC When we think of Larz Anderson, our mental image of him is one that has in large measure been defined by the portraiture in oils, photographs, and sculpture that he commissioned during his lifetime. In these artistic works, he memorialized his sense of himself […]