The paper is devoted to the study of the system of moral values of the Russian merchants, presented in the A.N. Ostrovskys play Unendowed Bride, and the fashionable New York society portrayed by E. Wharton in the novel The House of Mirth. The author presents the comparative analysis of the images of the main characters, who are representatives of the studied social groups. It allows us to conclude that the processes occurring in the United States and Russia by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century are similar, as well as their negative impact on the moral principles and moral standards of society.