The Dark Story of the Gilded Age Castle That Tried to Outshine Biltmore скачать в хорошем качестве

The Dark Story of the Gilded Age Castle That Tried to Outshine Biltmore

In nineteen nineteen, Katharine Reynolds completed a sixty-four-room estate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The project took eight years and cost five million dollars - roughly one hundred forty million today. The estate employed three hundred workers and included a model dairy, greenhouse complex growing orchids, private power plant, and worker village with its own school. Katharine called it progressive. The worker housing had electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing - luxuries most American homes lacked. But the wage records tell a different story. White workers earned eight to twelve dollars weekly. Black workers doing identical work earned five to eight dollars. The school served only white children. Housing was racially segregated, with Black families living farther from central facilities. Construction records mention accidents without naming victims. Workers fell from roofs and scaffolding. Some died from infections after injuries. Work typically resumed the same day. No compensation went to families. R.J. Reynolds died in nineteen eighteen before the estate was finished. Katharine died in nineteen twenty-four at age forty-four. Their four children inherited the property but used it primarily during summers. In nineteen forty-six, they donated it to Wake Forest University. By the nineteen sixties, the university considered demolition - the building was deteriorating and served no clear purpose.