1890’s Mansion Turned Museum Holds Tour Connecting Local History To HBO’s Gilded Age
By Jake Harris
In a time where wealth inequality has reached historic highs in this country, there seems to be a newly budding popular interest in the late nineteenth century and the unimaginably rich American aristocracy that developed from it.
The Hudson Valley was one of the ideal locations for Gilded Age aristocratic families to develop. New York City is a train ride away and it is the global center of trade and commerce throughout the world. The Hudson Valley has enough open land and nature spots to become secluded residences for the very rich and powerful.
The Mills family was one of these extremely wealthy families that built a fortune off the newly booming railroad industry and banking industry in a post-Civil War, Modernizing America.
Ruth Livingston Mills, the wife of Ogden Mills inherited the Staatsburgh Estate with her and Ogden renovating it into the form we still find it in today. “Ruth came from old money and wanted people to know that”, said tour guide Faith Ray as she showed guests the stunning rooms of the mansion, many of which included pictures of Livingston family ancestors.
These family ancestors included Robert Livingston, a great-grandfather of Ruth who signed the Declaration of Independence alongside George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Livingston was proud of her heritage and seemed to have went out of her way to make that known to all who visited.
Today, we see a rising interest in pop culture related to this time of extreme extravagance and wealth with popular TV shows about the time such as HBO’s Gilded Age, and the British drama Downton Abbey causing many visitors to Staatsburgh to make connections on their visits.
“So initially we started doing a themed tour related to Downton Abbey, which I created many years ago because people kept coming here and saying, Oh, it’s just like Downton Abbey”, said museum worker Maria Reynolds.
Reynolds also explained the origins of the Gilded Age-themed tour. “When they came out with an American version, we had the idea to do a themed tour for that because it takes place in the early 1880s, earlier than Downton Abbey and before families started to move away from lifestyle houses like this one”.
The tour is led by a costumed interpreter and showcases what a typical weekend of high society living was like and compares this life to the pop culture connections that many guests are now making in their heads. Gilded Age represents an accurate contemporary comparison to the Mills family and the trials and tribulations of the aristocratic lifestyle in late nineteenth-century America.
