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Steve Parode
The United States Navy in the American Gilded Age (1878-1898): From Rotting Relic to Herald of Empire
Lately, much has been made of the American “Gilded Age.” Without doubt, it was a time of impressive personal wealth generation, technological and industrial experimentation, and sweeping social change. Most standards of society, and national power, experienced an unprecedented rate of evolution, and the American military was generally not immune to rapid shifts in technical and tactical capability and priority. Dependent as it was upon technological innovation, in fewer than twenty years the United States Navy transformed itself from a coastal defense force of laughable global concern to a far-ranging maritime force able to impose American political will on maritime empires that had sustained European influence around the world for four centuries. This presentation intends to clearly illuminate the specific character of Gilded Age politics and technology that re-engineered the United States Navy from a bygone relic of the American Civil War into the first herald of the American empire without which the modern character and form of our nation would be unrecognizable today.
We previously had discussions about the Gilded Age, including …
[Broadcast on September 24, 2026; recorded earlier.]
Steve Parode, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (Retired), BA, MA, retired from the United States Navy as a Rear Admiral in 2020. His career focused upon technical intelligence and defense acquisition, and by a happy coincidence, he was the last Flag Officer of the United States Navy to have served aboard the last commissioned Battleship of the United States Navy, USS Wisconsin (BB-64). In fact, he was the last Line Officer to transfer control of that storied ship to her temporary keepers at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1991. As his children are too eager to describe, Steve also features in the museum dedicated to that Last Battleship in Norfolk, Virginia. After Steve enjoyed the privilege of uniformed service for more than 34 years, he re-joined the Navy as a civilian executive in 2022 and remains in the service of the Chief of Naval Operations. A graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles and Georgetown University, and a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Naval War College, Steve has always had a deep interest in the relationship of American (and global) history to the present American condition, and he is eager to share his perspective on the role of maritime power in creating and sustaining the global vision of our United States.
