Speakers Bureau

The Gilded Age in the United States was a period of quick population growth from immigration, extreme industrial expansion that created great wealth, and lavish displays of that wealth. Nationwide it lasted from about 1877 to 1890. But it did not reach Palm Beach until 1894, when the rest of America was still suffering through the Depression of 1893.

This lecture looks at the Flagler Era, when Henry Flagler brought the Gilded Age to Palm Beach County on his Florida East Coast Railway–wealthy guests of his Royal Poinciana Hotel and Palm Beach Inn (The Breakers) and new, wealthy residents. 

This lecture is a summary of the Johnson History Museum’s temporary exhibit by the same name, created to celebrate the city’s 125th anniversary. It explores how West Palm Beach expanded with the diversity of its people, businesses, and amusements. 

Author Pat Yost will discuss her book based on the memoirs of her late husband, Robert Yost. His father was a successful New York businessman who, in 1925, dove headlong into the peak of Florida’s raging land boom. Pat captures the essence of the madness that blazed through the state, rising fast and falling fast, victim to nature’s massive fury and man’s blind greed. Through period photographs, she will shine a spotlight on the beginnings of the boom, from the ambitious land speculation in Miami and on to Boca Raton and the Palm Beaches. It was an exciting yet tragic time, built on unreasoned dreams of newfound wealth in that tropical paradise called Florida.