When Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, often called the “Black Sherlock Holmes,” was born in 1874, the United States was entering a period of enormous change. For White America, the decades spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by dazzling displays of wealth, technological breakthroughs, mass immigration, and ambitious social reforms. Yet this was also an age of contradictions—while White society celebrated progress and prosperity, it largely ignored or actively suppressed the history and achievements of Black Americans, the very gap Schomburg dedicated his life to filling.
This article explores what White America looked like during Schomburg’s lifetime, from the Gilded Age through the Great Depression, showing how the mainstream culture shaped and sometimes conflicted with the experiences of African Americans
The Gilded Age (1870s–1900): A Nation of Millionaires and Laborers
The late 19th century was dubbed the Gilded Age, a term coined by Mark Twain to capture the glittering wealth that concealed deep social problems. Industrial titans like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan dominated the economy, building vast fortunes from steel, oil, and finance. Their philanthropy often made headlines, but so too did their ruthless business practices.
For White America, this was a time of grand mansions, opulent lifestyles, and the rise of the so-called “robber barons.” At the same time, millions of working-class families—many of them new immigrants from Europe—struggled to survive in cramped urban tenements and dangerous factories. Strikes, protests, and clashes between labor unions and industrialists became defining features of the era.
While Schomburg’s interest lay in uncovering the overlooked contributions of Black people to global history, mainstream White America often celebrated stories of White industrialists and inventors as symbols of American greatness.
Immigration and the Changing Face of White America
Between 1880 and 1920, more than 20 million immigrants arrived in the United States, most of them from Southern and Eastern Europe. Italian, Polish, Jewish, and Irish families poured into cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago.
White America wrestled with questions of identity:
- Were these newcomers truly “American”?
- How should they assimilate into Protestant, Anglo-Saxon cultural norms?
- Could they share in the promise of the American Dream?
Nativist movements rose, pushing for restrictions on immigration and favoring the dominance of “old-stock” White Americans. This debate over who counted as “fully American” foreshadowed later discussions of race, ethnicity, and belonging—though mainstream White discourse excluded African Americans and other people of color almost entirely.
Segregation and Race Relations
Even as White reformers campaigned for better working conditions and women’s suffrage, racial segregation deepened. The Jim Crow system spread across the South after the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decision upheld “separate but equal” policies. Lynching and racial violence scarred Black communities, while White America largely looked the other way.
This silence and neglect were exactly what Arturo Schomburg sought to counter. While White America filled its libraries with European classics and American patriotic tales, Schomburg collected the works, manuscripts, and stories that proved the global contributions of African people. The contrast was striking: White America was writing its own history of wealth and reform, while Schomburg fought to ensure Black voices were not erased from the record.
The Progressive Era (1900–1920s): Reform and Contradiction
The turn of the century ushered in the Progressive Era, when White reformers pushed for sweeping changes to curb the excesses of the Gilded Age. Journalists like Upton Sinclair exposed unsafe working conditions in meatpacking plants. Women activists like Jane Addams founded settlement houses to aid poor immigrant families. President Theodore Roosevelt led antitrust campaigns to rein in monopolies.
White America embraced reforms such as:
- Child labor laws to protect young workers.
- Women’s suffrage, culminating in the 19th Amendment in 1920.
- Prohibition, banning alcohol in hopes of improving morality.
Yet, the reforms were uneven. While many White reformers worked tirelessly for justice, they rarely extended their efforts to racial equality. The early 20th century also saw a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, this time spreading beyond the South and targeting immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and African Americans alike. White America was a patchwork of progress and prejudice, modern ideals and old hatreds.
Cultural Growth: White Society and the Arts
The same decades that witnessed Schomburg’s collecting also saw an explosion of White-led cultural growth. Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway shaped modern American literature. White-dominated institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, and Ivy League universities grew in influence.
At the same time, the Harlem Renaissance emerged within Black America, often ignored by mainstream White society. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and other artists brought new life to American culture, while Schomburg preserved the historical foundations of Black achievement. In parallel worlds, White and Black cultural movements thrived—but they rarely intersected.
The Great Depression (1930s): A Shattered Dream
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By the time Schomburg died in 1938, the United States was still reeling from the Great Depression. The economic collapse had devastated both White and Black communities, though the pain was not equal—Black unemployment often ran double that of Whites.
For White America, the Depression was a moment of reckoning. The old certainties of wealth and prosperity crumbled. The New Deal under Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced sweeping reforms, welfare programs, and job initiatives that reshaped the federal government’s role in society.
In this climate of struggle and rebuilding, Schomburg’s work at the New York Public Library’s Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints gained recognition as a cornerstone of preserving Black heritage. While White America focused on economic survival and political reform, Schomburg ensured that the voices of African descendants would not be forgotten.
Conclusion: Parallel Histories
The America in which Arturo Alfonso Schomburg lived was a nation of extremes. For White America, it was a time of dazzling fortunes, powerful reform movements, and cultural breakthroughs—but also of prejudice, exclusion, and denial of racial realities.
Schomburg’s mission was shaped by this backdrop. While White America celebrated its own stories of progress, he uncovered the hidden truths of Black achievement, proving that African descendants had always been central to the world’s history. His work stood in stark contrast to the selective memory of the White mainstream.
In examining White America of Schomburg’s era, we see not only the ambitions and contradictions of a nation in transition but also the powerful reminder that history is richer, more complex, and more inclusive when voices from all communities are preserved.