The Gilded Age

The novel concerns the efforts of a poor rural family to become affluent by selling in a timely manner the 75,000 acres of unimproved land acquired by their patriarch, Silas "Si" Hawkins. After several adventures in Tennessee, the family fails to sell the land and Si Hawkins dies. The rest of the Hawkins story line focuses on their beautiful adopted daughter Laura. In the early 1870s, she travels to Washington, D. C. to become a lobbyist. With a senator's help, she enters society and attempts to persuade congressmen to require the federal government to purchase the land. A parallel story written by Warner concerns two young upperclass men, Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly, who seek their fortunes in land in a novel way. They make a journey with a group intent on surveying land in Tennessee in order to acquire it for speculation. Philip is good natured but plodding. He is in love with Ruth Bolton, an aspiring physician and feminist. Henry is a born salesman, charming but superficial.