A richly illustrated romp with America\'s Gilded Age leisure class--and those angling to join it Mark Twain called it the Gilded Age.
A richly illustrated romp with America\'s Gilded Age leisu.
Astor Do? presents a vivid portrait of this remarkable time of social metamorphosis, starring Caroline Astor, the ultimate gatekeeper.
A colorful tapestry of fun facts and true tales, What Would Mrs.
Ceceilia Tichi invites us on a beautifully illustrated tour of the Gilded Age, transporting readers to New York at its most fashionable.
Channeling the queen of the Gilded Age herself, Cecelia Tichi paints a portrait of New York\'s social elite, from the schools to which they sent their children, to their lavish mansions and even their reactions to the political and personal scandals of the day.
Astor\'s personal diary and address book, showing everything from the perfect table setting to the array of outfits the elite wore at the time.
This work serves as a Guide to Manners as well as an insight to Mrs.
And an invitation to her annual ball was a golden ticket into the ranks of New York\'s upper crust.
Astor do? became the question every social climber sought to answer.
What Would Mrs.
The ladies and gentlemen of high society took note.
Astor made her judgments, dictating proper behavior and demeanor, men\'s and women\'s codes of dress, acceptable patterns of speech and movements of the body, and What and when to eat and drink.
Wherever she went, Mrs.
Astor, an Old Money heiress of the first order, became convinced that she was uniquely qualified to uphold the Manners and Mores of Gilded Age America.
Mrs.
Into this morass of money and desire stepped Caroline Astor.
The Old Money titans found themselves besieged by a vanguard of New Money interlopers eager to gain entr e into their world of formal balls, debutante parties, opera boxes, sailing regattas, and summer gatherings at Newport.
It was a time of abundance, but also bitter rivalries, in work and play.
Morgan, Edith Wharton, the Vanderbilts, Andrew Carnegie, and more--became icons, whose comings and goings were breathlessly reported in the papers of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.
P.
There, the richest and most influential--Thomas Edison, J.
America was the foremost nation of the world, and New York City was its beating heart.
Between 1870 and 1900, the United States\' population doubled, accompanied by an unparalleled industrial expansion, and an explosion of wealth unlike any the world had ever seen.
A richly illustrated romp with America\'s Gilded Age leisure class--and those angling to join it Mark Twain called it the Gilded Age
