The desire to recreate the Gilded Age is fueled by Trump’s fondness for tariffs. It’s also why he praises the nation’s 25th president, William McKinley, a Republican who was in office from 1897 until being assassinated in 1901.

McKinley, Garfield point the way for the 47th president. President Trump foresees “a period of transition” before his tariffs replicate the Gilded Age economic boom. With opponents warning about that “pain,” he can look to predecessors of that era for guidance on America’s nerves.

In President Donald Trump's idealized framing, the United States was at its zenith in the 1890s, when top hats and shirtwaists were fashionable and typhoid fever often killed more soldiers than combat.

It was the Gilded Age, a time of rapid population growth and transformation from an agricultural economy toward a sprawling industrial system, when poverty was widespread while barons of phenomenal wealth, like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, held tremendous sway over politicians who often helped boost their financial empires.