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“The central character is a white man named Clarence King who was born to wealth and privilege. He was one of the famous figures of the Gilded Age, an explorer, a scientist, and a bestselling author. He knew everybody from the top of society to the bottom. King was known among his friends as a bachelor who had romantic liaisons with a wide range of women. What almost no one knows is that King married Ada Copeland, a Black woman who was born into slavery in Georgia. Ada believed Clarence to be an African American Pullman porter named James Todd, whose frequent absences were explained by his railroad work. So King, a patrician white public figure, privately passed as Black and has five mixed race children. The book revolves around their incredibly complicated life together. The story is fascinating, the characters are fascinating” Read more...
The best books on The Gilded Age
Richard White, Historian
