The Gilded Age saw this week's episode as an opportunity to dramatize the factual but often ignored Black elite of the era

The New York Times

“What does the average person know about the Black elite in New York in the 1880s? The answer is very little if anything," says Erica Armstrong Dunbar, the HBO drama's historical consultant. Monday's episode showed Louisa Jacobson's Marian, who is white, discovering that her new friend Peggy Scott, a Black woman played by Denée Benton, is from a wealthy and educated Black family. There was indeed the existence of a Black elite during this period in New York City, but it is not often explored in pop-culture. “There’s this huge gap between the Civil War and slavery and then, maybe, the Harlem Renaissance — as if nothing happened in between," says Dunbar. The Gilded Age creator Julian Fellowes says the Black Lives Matter protests of summer of 2020 -- coinciding with COVID production shutdown -- allowed for this story to be added to the series. Fellowes told The New York Times via email that “it seemed dishonest to set a show in 1882,” less than two decades after the abolition of slavery in the United States, “and not have characters who have been affected by this directly.” He added that it “also allowed us to make some points about the challenges of being African American, even successful and affluent African American, in New York at that time.”

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• Denée Benton on what scenes she and her co-stars fought for: “That shoe scene always existed,” Benton told TheWrap. “But (co-star Louisa Jacobson and I collaborated on) really leaning into the friction of it, leaning into the boundary crossing, leaning into Marian having like the defensive white fragility response instead of immediately understanding and being this sort of white heroine who just isn’t touched by racism.” Benton added: “Another big part that we fought for was making sure that the recovery wasn’t too smooth in the following episodes. If they are truly going to be friends, you can’t sell some fairy tale. We have to honor the time and the boundaries that it would actually take for them to develop that trust and we can’t undermine Peggy’s dignity in the process or elevate Marian on some pedestal that undermines the truth of even today what it’s like for Black and white friendship to have true trust.”
• Brown wanted to make sure Peggy wasn't a token: "For me, it was always really interesting because yes, it’s critical race theory, but it’s also just American history," she told Indiewire. "Anything other than that is just propaganda. And if you are against telling the truth that these people actually just existed, then what is your ulterior motive? I think it was really important to me that Peggy not only be a token, but that if we are going to represent Black people in the show, then they need to be living and breathing and nuanced. Otherwise, I’m like, leave us out of it. If you want to tell a White fantasy, then tell a White fantasy. But if you want to include us, include my face in any way, then make an attempt to get to (the truth) of that life." Benton added: “I just want Black viewers to know you get to claim what’s yours, every layer and texture that you can imagine for life has existed for Black people and will always exist. And so, don’t let the narratives of erasure make you forget who you are,” said Benton.
• How accurate is The Gilded Age’s history of New York’s Black elite?