The Gilded Age All Around Us: History Course Turns Campus and Region into a Classroom

When history teacher Marisa Hedges wanted her students to understand the meaning of the “Gilded Age,” she didn’t start with a lecture. She handed them spray paint.

The exercise — coating worthless objects in a layer of gold — introduced the central idea of her new Lawrenceville elective, Mystery, Majesty, and Modernity: The Gilded Age and The Chicago World’s Fair, that the glittering achievements of the late 19th century often concealed deeper social tensions beneath the surface.

“The idea for this class has been dancing around in my head since I started at Lawrenceville in 2017,” said Hedges, who also serves as Head of McPherson House. “I wanted to use a specific, pivotal event like the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 to investigate the larger tensions of the turn of the century —wealth vs. poverty, big business vs. labor, immigration vs. nativism, and social Darwinism vs. social reform.”

To introduce the concept of a “Gilded” era, Hedges asked the class’s 14 students to bring in objects of no value.

“We took them outside and spray-painted them,” Hedges said. “It helped them understand that if we call an era ‘Gilded,’ it means there is something bright and shiny on the outside — industrialization, grand architecture — but on the inside, perhaps not so much.”

The course extends far beyond the classroom. Hedges partnered with Sarah Mezzino, Lawrenceville’s Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, to use the campus and surrounding region as primary sources for studying the period.

For many visitors, Lawrenceville’s Circle section of campus appears simply as a beautiful green space. Students in Hedges’ class now see it differently.

Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted — the landscape architect behind the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair — the campus provides a direct connection to the era the class explores.

“I don’t think many students realized before this class that they are living in a National Historic Landmark,” Mezzino said.

Through guided campus explorations, students identified architectural styles uniquely combining the School’s buildings, including Beaux-Arts, Arts and Crafts, Richardsonian Romanesque, Queen Anne, and English Picturesque — styles blended by renowned architects Peabody & Stearns (who also worked on the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair) to shape Lawrenceville’s distinctive look.

For Leo Soffer ’26, the connections were striking.

“Some of the same people that helped build the Chicago World's Fair, America's entry onto the world stage, also helped build Lawrenceville’s central campus,” Soffer said.

Students also uncovered stories in the School’s Stephan Archives, looking through Lawrentian scrapbooks from the turn of the century in order to get an understanding of what it was like to be a student at the Lawrenceville School during that time. They also viewed a gold-plated portrait of John Cleve Green that was hidden inside a wall of the School’s original barn/gymnasium during the Great Depression and rediscovered decades later.

For Sussa Sarante ’26 and Annabelle Yao ’26, the class changed how they see their everyday surroundings.

Sarante pointed to the “door to education” carvings on Memorial Hall, while Yao focused on the vistas designed for each House on the Circle.

“They are an architectural design feature that elevates the viewer above the normal ground, allowing an unobstructed view of every other House around the Circle and of Memorial Hall,” Yao said. “Another interesting feature is the faces of the virtues and vices  into the walls of Memorial Hall.”

The class also ventured beyond campus, to both New York City’s Central Park, where they took a guided tour of what is perhaps Olmsted’s most famous designed space, and Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark founded in 1838.

During a trip to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, students explored how burial spaces reflected the social hierarchy of the Gilded Age. The Cemetery was a precursor to both Central Park and Lawrenceville.

“We took the kids into the catacombs,” Mezzino said. “Seeing the light bulb go on when they realize, ‘There are people in the walls,’ or seeing how the narrow carriage lanes were designed with soft curves so a hearse wouldn't topple — that’s when history becomes real.”

The class also visited Ralston Castle in Hopewell, N.J. built by Albert Webster Edgerly, who created the pseudoscientific Ralstonian movement.

“Hearing the perspectives of people who had lived in Ralston Heights really bolstered my understanding of Ralstonian beliefs,” Yao said. “It was eye-opening to see the elevated terrace that Edgerly would speak from to his listeners, and to understand the Eyes of Horus lining the windowsills, which prevented external evil from entering the house.”

For Linley Fletcher ’26, the regional access deepened the experience.

“If Lawrenceville wasn't located close enough [to New York City and Hopewell], I would've missed out on that opportunity to learn about some of the context,” Fletcher said.

Students paired their travels with a reading of Erik Larson’s “The Devil in the White City,” which chronicles the Chicago World’s Fair and the darker realities of the era.

For Sarante, the format transformed how she experienced the subject.

“What I considered most impactful, while also being enjoyable, was how much history I was able to learn through different teaching environments,” she said. “History class felt genuinely fun, and I was always excited to attend.”

Fletcher, a Chicago native, also appreciated the deeper look at her hometown’s history.

“I came into this class thinking that I was going to know a lot more than I actually did, which was very refreshing,” she said.

As the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, Hedges and Mezzino hope students see the Gilded Age not as a distant chapter, but as a lens for understanding that the tensions the U.S. grappled with at the turn of the century are still omnipresent.

“I want them to learn that Lawrenceville is unique,” Mezzino said. “There was so much philosophy and thought put into this place to mitigate the ‘coarseness’ of the era and create a community.”

“When I say this should be one of the most popular and requested classes, I am not kidding,” Sarante said. “For anyone who isn’t a fan of history, I would invite you to experience this incredible Chicago journey.”

For more information, contact Lisa M. Gillard H'17, director of public relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.