 The 20th century saw no revival for Garfield . Thomas Wolfe deemed the presidents of the Gilded Age , including Garfield , " lost Americans " whose " gravely vacant and bewhiskered faces mixed , melted , swam together " . The politicians of the Gilded Age faded from the public eye , their luster eclipsed by those who had influenced America outside of political office during that time : the robber barons , the inventors , those who had sought social reform , and others who had lived as America rapidly changed . Current events and more recent figures occupied America 's attention : according to Ackerman , " the busy Twentieth Century has made Garfield 's era seem remote and irrelevant , its leaders ridiculed for their very obscurity . " 
