They decided to make Peggy a writer, because it is “one area where women have been pretty successful for quite a long time,” said Fellowes. The goal was to see “a Black woman who was educated after the Civil War and creating opportunities for herself.” We learn that Peggy attended the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, a real school that later became Cheyney University, one of the country’s first HBCUs. “That has been our big balancing act on the show: how do we keep the dignity of these characters but not make it so you’re going, ‘That would absolutely never happen.’” “Our biggest dilemma in the beginning was how to get Peggy in house working, so it made sense for the time period but also gave her character dignity, so that she wasn’t just a maid,” said Richardson-Whitfield. ![]() Here’s a look at the real history - and many creative conversations - that led to the Peggy we see in “The Gilded Age.” Peggy is inspired by several trailblazers, not a specific person Our show was a really cool example of what can happen when you do.” ![]() “I always say that the behind-the-scenes story of ‘The Gilded Age’ is just as interesting as the show,” said Denée Benton, who plays Peggy, “especially because of all the conversations we were having as a country around who holds power and how we share it. ![]() “I’m not American, and I need someone who can read what I’ve written and say, ‘Uh, no,’” said Fellowes. They offered their perspectives as Black women and also as Americans on a show with a quintessentially English creator. And to do a show on the Gilded Age on this time period and to not include Black New Yorkers would be more than than problematic.”ĭunbar started to work with Fellowes, Warfield and director/executive producer Salli Richardson-Whitfield on revising and expanding the Scott family storyline, which now includes a fascinating subplot about the 19th century Black press. “It was very important for Julian Fellowes to have a world that was emblematic of what existed in the 1880s. I thought, ‘These are stories that haven’t been told.’ That’s what really piqued my interest.”Įrica Armstrong Dunbar, a professor of history at Rutgers University whose work focuses on Black American women of the 18th and 19th centuries, was enlisted as a historical consultant and co-executive producer to help ensure authenticity and “do a sensitivity read as well,” she said. “I have my own family stories, of great-grandparents who had some money, one of whom started a school. “I think the depiction of Black people in television and film, especially in that time period, is usually relegated to those stories about slavery,” said Warfield, who is Black. He decided it would be interesting to explore a Black family “who are established and prosperous and have a stake in this society.” Peggy, who strikes up an unlikely friendship with the Van Rhijns’ niece, Marian (Louisa Jacobson), clashes with her parents over her professional ambitions.įellowes typically writes his shows on his own, but for “The Gilded Age,” he shared duties with Sonja Warfield, a writer whose credits include “Will & Grace.” ![]() “And these were affluent people with status and businesses and families.” “I had no idea, really, that there was a prosperous, upper-middle-class Black community in New York towards the end of the 19th century, based not in Harlem, but in Brooklyn,” Fellowes said. Several years earlier, Fellowes had read “Black Gotham,” in which author Carla Peterson traces her family history to the Black elite of 19th century New York. “And I didn’t believe I could do that without having a Black narrative and a Black family alongside the others. “I wanted very much to make ‘The Gilded Age’ distinctively American,” Fellowes said. Taking a page or two from Edith Wharton, it centers on two wealthy families who live in neighboring mansions on Fifth Avenue and represent opposing forces in New York society: the Old Money Van Rhijns, who proudly tout their pre-Revolutionary roots, and the nouveau riche Russells, who are determined to use their railroad fortune to conquer Manhattan.īut in an unusual twist for this kind of society tale, “The Gilded Age” also follows the Scotts, a prominent Black family from Brooklyn that includes Peggy, an aspiring writer who works as a secretary to the prickly Agnes Van Rhijn (Christine Baranski). The lavish HBO series, which premiered last month, is set in 1882 New York City. NEW YORK - Julian Fellowes may be TV’s preeminent chronicler of the British aristocracy, but his latest series, “The Gilded Age,” finds the writer in uncharted terrain: America.
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