By Maxim Bulanov, PhD student in American Studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis & Teaching Assistant at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

About This Series

Cinema naturally gravitates toward conflict and drama. That’s why films about wealth and giving so often highlight problems rather than solutions. In my course Introduction to Philanthropic Studies, I use film to help students feel the cultural contexts that shaped American philanthropy.

This series of posts brings that classroom experiment to a broader audience. Each entry focuses on a historical era, pairing context with a curated list of films and documentaries. These works don’t offer definitive judgments about the value of philanthropy, but spark a discussion about how Americans have imagined giving, justice, and social responsibility.

This post explores the history of American philanthropy in the Gilded Age (1860s–1890s) through film. From Scorsese’s Gangs of New York to PBS’s The Civil War, these movies reveal how wealth, inequality, and charity shaped the birth of organized giving.

The Gilded Age and the Birth of Philanthropy

Historical Context: The late 19th century was a time of unchecked industrialization, extreme wealth disparity, and urban poverty. This was the period when organized charity and early “scientific philanthropy” began to emerge, laying the groundwork for the great foundations of the 20th century.

Movies About Philanthropy and Inequality

Gangs of New York (2002) — Dir. Martin Scorsese
Set in 1860s New York, this epic follows Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon as he seeks revenge against anti-immigrant gang leader William Cutting in the violent Five Points district. The film powerfully depicts the urban poverty, ethnic tensions, and civic chaos that motivated wealthy elites to establish organized charitable institutions and reform movements.
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Questions for Reflection:

• How does the film illustrate the link between urban poverty and the rise of charitable institutions?
• In what ways might philanthropy be seen here as both a genuine response to suffering and a tool of social control?

There Will Be Blood (2007) — Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
Daniel Day-Lewis stars as ruthless oil prospector Daniel Plainview, who cons landowners out of valuable properties while projecting a trustworthy family-man image in early 1900s California. The film explores the brutal capitalism and resource extraction that created the massive fortunes, later channeled into major philanthropic foundations by industrialists like Rockefeller and Carnegie.
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Questions for Reflection:

• How does the character of Daniel Plainview reflect the contradictions of wealth creation and public image?
• What does this film suggest about the moral ambiguities of fortunes that later became the backbone of modern philanthropy?

The Age of Innocence (1993) — Dir. Martin Scorsese
Based on Edith Wharton’s novel, this elegant period drama examines New York high society in the 1870s through a forbidden love affair. The film reveals the rigid social hierarchies and moral codes of the wealthy elite class that would later establish norms around charitable giving and social responsibility.
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Questions for Reflection:

• How did elite social norms shape ideas of “acceptable” philanthropy in the late 19th century?
• In what ways does the film show charity as a means of reinforcing class boundaries?

The Civil War (1990) — Dir. Ken Burns
This landmark 11-hour PBS documentary series includes extensive coverage of Clara Barton’s battlefield nursing and her founding of the American Red Cross. Burns’ film demonstrates how wartime trauma catalyzed the creation of America’s first major humanitarian organizations and professional charitable institutions.
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Questions for Reflection:

• How did war create both immediate needs for relief and long-term institutions like the Red Cross?
• In what ways does Barton’s story highlight the professionalization of philanthropy?

The Gilded Age (2022–) — Created by Julian Fellowes
This HBO series illustrates how charitable activities and cultural patronage became weapons in status wars among the wealthy elite in 1880s New York.
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Questions for Reflection:

• How does the show portray philanthropy as part of social competition?
• What parallels might exist between this kind of “status giving” and contemporary elite philanthropy?

The Gilded Age (2018) — Dir. Sarah Colt, PBS American Experience
This documentary examines the era’s unprecedented inequality and the reform movements it sparked, connecting social problems to the emergence of systematic philanthropy.
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Questions for Reflection:

• How does the documentary connect inequality with the rise of philanthropy?
• What lessons from the Gilded Age might apply to today’s debates about wealth and giving?

Looking Ahead

These films remind us that American philanthropy was born in an age of contradictions: staggering fortunes alongside desperate poverty, lofty ideals alongside ruthless business practices.

In the next post, we’ll step into the Progressive Era and the birth of modern foundations — a time when Carnegie and Rockefeller redefined what philanthropy could mean.

This post was designed for educational use in exploring the intersection of cinema, history, and philanthropic development in American society. It was formatted with the support of Anthropic’s Claude AI to enhance readability and accessibility.