Lexington in the Gilded Age

Abstract

Although Lexington and other towns and cities in Kentucky acquired some damage during the Civil War that also signified the end of Reconstruction as well as the military occupation of the South, Kentucky was generally secured as it did not experience the worst of the desolation and the physical destruction. However, that series of events led to political institutions, and the economy, infrastructure, and social structure being left in unfavorable conditions. While the white sentiment was usually perceived to have favored the South, the Confederacy's “Lost Cause” was honored in various monuments in Lexington and other places. This chapter illustrates Lexington during the Gilded Age—from 1870 to 1900— when “Victorian” practices and values proliferated.