Preface: an age of extremes. Feature: a nation of practical idealists -- Carnegie. Feature: how do you make steel? -- A bookkeeper named Rockefeller -- Mr. Storyteller -- Powerful Pierpont -- Monopoly--not always a game. Feature: let's talk business -- Builders and dreamers -- Lady L -- Presidents again -- The People's Party -- Making money -- Hard times -- Gold and silver. Feature: cheese sandwiches in the Klondike -- A cross of gold -- Some bad ideas -- Producing goods -- Harvest at Haymarket -- Workers, labor (and a triangle). Feature: leaving Sicily -- Rolling the leaf in Florida -- Telling it like it is. Feature: inferno in Chicago -- Bread and roses, too -- The fourth estate -- Ida, Sam, and the Muckrakers -- A boon to the writer -- In wilderness is preservation. Feature: parks for a nation -- The Gilded Age turns Progressive -- Teedie -- From dude to cowboy -- The Spanish-American War. Feature: some political theory: a discussion -- Teddy Bear President -- Jane Addams, reformer -- Henry Ford -- The Birdmen -- William Howard Taft -- A schoolteacher President -- War -- Chronology of events -- More books to read -- A note from the author -- Picture credits -- Index.