Millionaires of the Gilded Age looked to Europeans–or more specifically, the British–for cues on how to recreate the leisured life in America, copying them from the construction of country estates, to golf clubs, to social seasons, all the way down to the bottom of this lifestyle: domestic servants. Yet, save indentured servitude and slavery, American culture was built on the premise that there was no servant class. Perhaps one reason why Americans invented and/or took to labor-saving devices with alacrity can be traced to the difficulty of hiring and retaining large numbers of domestic servants: a banker’s wife in Chicago could not expect to find cheap and willing labor like a banker’s wife in London, so electric lights, central heating, vacuum cleaners, and up-to-date bathrooms were a must. However, immigration from the Old World provided a steady, if not completely reliable stream of would-be servants, and as testament to America’s geographical individuality, servant culture was not uniform or standard across the nation.

The first note of Americanism into the equation was the near absence of the word “servant”. Over the course of the late nineteenth century, advice columns and etiquette books wrangled over how to address the people who helped with the smooth running of one’s household, from “help” or “hand” to “staff”, to referring to a lady’s maid as “semptress” and a footman as “waiter”. William Randolph Hearst preferred to call his own maids, butler, chauffeur, etc his “staff” or “employees,” but ironically, the word “servant” was reintroduced into the homes of the wealthiest Americans by both their aggressive aping of English habits and the immigrants they employed (who were accustomed to being referred to as servants). These people, the very social elite, with their mansions in New York, their cottages in Newport, their 200 ft yachts, their country estates on Long Island or along the Hudson River, their camps in the Adirondacks, and their winter homes at Tuxedo Park or in the Berkshires, took the staffing of their residences to another level.

To facilitate the nouveau riche into their new setting, Mary Elizabeth Carter, a former housekeeper to the elite, published Millionaire Households and Their Domestic Economy, where she stressed:

The loud and prolonged outcry against servants as a class unquestionably is due to inefficiency of the average mistress, past and present, quite as much as to servants’ lack of training. The latter is an outcome of the former, because the ranks of housekeepers are constantly being augmented by women and girls untaught and inexperienced in the management of well-ordered homes. They know neither how to do nor how to direct the work of their houses, and are, in consequence, ignorant of what should be required as a fair day’s service from each servant.

To tackle the thorny issue of the “Servant Question”, American housewives found two solutions: improve the conditions of their servants, and lighten the burden of work. Servants quarters in an American mansion were generous and attractive, and unlike in English households, were furnished with new furniture and linens (perhaps not the exquisite items owned by the lady of the house, but new and comfortable, nonetheless). New homes, such as Clarence Mackay’s Harbor Hill on Long Island, were planned with the housing of the staff in mind.

The Mackays employed twenty-five indoor staff, and many more outdoor staff, who were housed in their own wing of bedrooms, upper servants’ and lower servants’ dining halls, a butler’s den, a housekeeper’s room, and a laundry room and sewing room set aside for their personal use. The construction of the American country house also lightened the workload for the staff, and the typical English country house feature of separate rooms for separate work was abolished (placing greater emphasis on the kitchen), as well as the long corridors separating the kitchen from the dining room (as the English abhorred the smell of cooking emanating from the kitchen).

Truly easing the life of household and staff were electrical appliances. The English were slow to adopt labor-saving apparatuses until the servant shortages and high wages of post-WWI, but Americans were–the words of Clarence Cook–a nation “in love with machines and contrivance.” Gas ranges eliminated the arduous and dirty work of laying a fire in the old coal-burning ranges, as well as the expense of coal, and they didn’t have to be lit all day. Then, with electricity came the toaster, the vacuum cleaner, the coffee percolator, and the electric fan, all of which–including the telephone–were considered the “New Answer to the Servant Problem”.

The other issue plaguing upper class Americans was whom to hire. American racial prejudices and the differing waves of immigration played a part in just who you might find working in the kitchens of a city mansion or country estate. In the South, the long history of slavery held firm in the ethnic make-up of domestic staff, though the migration of Northerners to vacation spots in Florida or Georgia or to Washington D.C., and the negative race relations, influenced the decline in African-American upper servants. In the North, Irish immigrants made up the majority of domestic staff in cities like New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, but they were considered “dirty” and “lazy”, and many mistresses didn’t bother learning their names, instead calling all Irish housemaids “Bridgets” or “Biddys”.

German servants were common in Mid-West cities like Chicago and Denver, though an article in the New York Times characterized them as “admirable, clean, obliging, and wonderfully hard working, but they lack the finish of good English servants.” In the West, particularly in coastal cities like San Francisco, Sacramento, and Seattle, Chinese servants were common, though their lives bore a similarity to African-American servants in the South. Other ethnic groups involved in domestic service were Norwegians, Poles, Italians, and Swedes, with the latter being considered at the top of the totem pole, so to speak, due to the commonly held assumptions about their cleanliness, cheerfulness, and hardiness.

Despite the racial coding of domestic service, the downstairs segment of the household were better treated, better paid, and better housed than their British and European counterparts, the precepts of the “American Dream” urged the servants into greater mobility than just life in service, and the unique situation caused by immigration to the New World gave each ethnic group a sense of identity outside the bounds of class or occupation. The wealthy in America could imitate the Old World in leisure activities, society, fashion, and housing, but up to a point, and after that point the notion that “all men are created equal” held fast.

Further Reading:
The American Country House by Clive Aslet
I Go to America: Swedish American Women and the Life of Mina Anderson by Joy K. Lintelman
Harbor Hill: Portrait of a House by Richard Guy Wilson
Biltmore Insider’s Tour
Servants in Gilded Age Newport
Chinese Servants in the North American West
Servants’ Room Virtual Tour – Flagler Museum
Hearst Castle
The Gilded Age Billionaires
Servants in Glessner House
Pittock Mansion
Nemours Mansion and Gardens

The earliest incarnation of the tournament, then known as the U.S. National Championships, began in Newport in 1881. Players competed on grass courts while musicians performed classical music in a decidedly genteel setting.

The tournament moved to New York, but Newport for years after continued to host some of the sport’s best and, in 1954, became home to the International Tennis Hall of Fame & Museum.

That history is chronicled in a new exhibit at the hall of fame, which focuses on the city’s early ties to tennis but also on the rich architectural history of the museum’s wooden-shingled headquarters, the Newport Casino.

The exhibit of photographs and artifacts, which coincides with the casino’s 130th anniversary, is intended to appeal to tennis buffs as well as to those more interested in the social lives of the wealthy industrialists in Newport.

“The Newport Casino is actually the biggest and most valuable collection item that the hall of fame has,” said Mark Stenning, the museum’s CEO.

“Anyone who has an interest in tennis would be interested in the nature of this exhibit,” he added.

The casino opened as a social and recreational club for the wealthy and never was a gambling establishment. It was founded by tennis fan and New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, who, according to the exhibit, became outraged with his rival Newport men’s club in 1879. Bennett didn’t like the club’s reaction after a guest of his brazenly rode his polo pony into the club rooms.

Furious after being chastised by the city’s elite, Bennett bought land on Bellevue Avenue — today home to opulent Gilded Age mansions — for what would become the Newport Casino.

The casino opened in 1880, designed by influential architect Stanford White, who created the Washington Square Arch in New York and in 1906 was famously killed in New York by [Evelyn Nesbit Thaw's] jealous husband.

The casino became an instant hotspot for tennis, still a relatively new sport in America. The casino in 1881 began hosting the U.S. National Championships — a 25-player competition played amid a string quartet’s music. But because Newport was a tough-to-reach destination, the tournament was moved to Queens after the 1914 championships.

Still, other tournaments — including the Davis Cup and a college competition — continued in Newport. Players competed during the day, attended soirees at night and were in some cases hosted by benefactors or a local hotel. Bill Tilden, Don Budge and Bobby Riggs were among those who played at Newport, the exhibit says.

The casino also was a recreational retreat for the affluent railroad and industrial magnates who spent summers in Newport.

Besides grass tennis courts, the casino also featured a 500-seat theater — which recently has been renovated — that offered ballroom dancing and recitals and hosted performers including Will Rogers and Vincent Price. Guests also enjoyed activities such as archery and bowling.

The Hall of Fame & Museum opened at the casino in 1954 and offers a decade-by-decade look at the sport and its top players. Past inductees include Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl, Chris Evert and Arthur Ashe.

The exhibit will be up through April. It was pulled together from “unearthed treasures” from the museum’s archives, including trophies, original casino club serving pieces, said Nicole Markham, the curator of collections. The exhibit’s emphasis on cultural history is a departure from the museum’s more tennis-oriented displays.

“It was a refreshing change to not have to be looking up tennis stats for every artifact,” said Markham, who designed the exhibit.

If nothing else, the exhibit may help dispel confusion among visitors puzzled by the Newport Casino name and trying in vain to find poker tables, Stenning said.

“We’ll get people who walk in and say, ‘Can you gamble here?’”

Article and photographs courtesy of The Associated Press, with the exception of the first, which is courtesy of New York Social Diary

Baltimore: the city’s proximity to Washington meant the elites of both cities mingled frequently, and society comprised natives of Baltimore and relations of Washington elites. Possessing one of the largest populations of African-Americans before and after the Civil War, by the late nineteenth century, Baltimore’s elite society emerged from the free families aligned with the city’s civic, educational, and religious life for generations. Tying the black elite together was the presence of George Murray, who was born free in 1773 and lived until 1890. Those living in Baltimore were rather affluent as well, with a black editor calculating the collective wealth of the elites at approximately $500,000, of which $75,000 was the worth of John Locke, the owner of a hack and funeral business. Others gained their wealth from catering, barbering, hod-carrying, brickmaking, and caulking. The wealth and relative leisure permitted vacations, and the most popular spots were Harper’s Ferry, Cape May, and Arundel-on-the-Bay, later called Highland Beach, which was founded by Frederick Douglass’ son Charles.

Charleston: this was the most aristocratic city of the South for blacks and whites, and most if not all, of the black elites in this city had deep (miscegenation) ties to the white aristocrats. During the antebellum era, they existed in a happy plane below whites but above slaves, and indeed, a number owned slaves themselves. They were the most exclusive of black elite circles, and most considered Charleston society superior to any other city.

New Orleans: As with Charleston, a substantial portion of the black elite traced their lineage to free people of color, but they developed on a completely separate line than Charleston due to New Orleans’ unique history. They “enjoyed more privileges and were more respected by their white neighbors than in any other city in the United States” and were considered, at best, quasi citizens. This situation created a “peculiar social system” wherein “men who elsewhere would be called ‘colored’ because of their known African origins, f[ound] their social business here as Creoles.” Though Jim Crow put a crimp in their antebellum status, they nonetheless prided themselves on their education, their breeding, and wealth.

Philadelphia: The old families of this city contained three distinct components: native Philadelphians, the West-Indian group, and fair-complexion, free-born Southerners who migrated there in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Much of the wealth came from catering, and the most renowned and successful cater was Robert Bogle, whose patrons were esteemed white Philadelphians. Black elites here were closely identified with the abolitionist movement, several benevolent societies, various civic and religious enterprises, and especially the prestigious Banneker Institute. Unlike the cities of the South (as you will see with other Northern cities), the old elite quickly adapted to the influx of educated and skilled blacks who migrated north after Reconstruction, retaining their social prominence by entering the fields of law, medicine, education and business.

New York: the black population in the city was small but elegant. They, like the old Philadelphia aristocracy, were made up of native New Yorkers (many of whom traced their lineage to the days of Dutch settlement), migrants to the city, and West Indian emigres. This elite group was divided in two, with the New York and Brooklyn factions battling for exclusiveness. Brooklyn won out, however, especially after the harsh racial climate after the Draft Riots and the influx of black Southerners after the Civil War. In 1895, the New York Times was moved to note that as soon as black New Yorkers “amass a comfortable fortune, they move across the East River [to Brooklyn]“. Most were of the professional class; caterers, physicians, druggists, and so on, with much of their wealth derived from real estate holdings. On the subject of Harlem, blacks did not begin to move to this area until the late 1900s, and most of the wealthy residents were not of the black elite.

Boston: elite black Bostonians were even more tied to abolitionist circles than in Philadelphia. Though they made up only 2% of the black population of the city, they counted attorneys, physicians, salaried employees, business proprietors, and literary and musical people a part of their small, exclusive circle. Their vocations brought them in contact with upper-class whites more often than lower-class blacks, with many taking part in the city’s civic life (for example, George L. Ruffin, a Harvard-educated lawyer, served as a legislator and city judge). Their circle was difficult to pierce, and Boston’s black elite tended to associate with their white neighbors, they employed white servants, attended a few select churches, and vacationed together at Saratoga and Oak Bluff (Martha’s Vineyard). Unlike any other city, black Brahmins were privileged enough to attend public events such as performances at the Boston Symphony, the opera, celebrations at Harvard, and races at Mystic Park, where a few of their horses won cups.

Chicago: the city was first settled by a black sable trader from Santo Domingo, but the black population didn’t become identifiable until the 1840s, and was made up of escaped slaves and free blacks from the North and the South. Though Chicago had a reputation as a “sinkhole of abolition,” this was not the case for black Chicagoans, who lived beneath a yoke of legal and extralegal discrimination. After the Civil War, blacks in Chicago battled discrimination in housing, employment, and the use of public conveyances, but a black elite nevertheless thrived. A unique feature of black Chicago was its professional tone: society was led by physicians, dentists, druggists, and attorneys. Fannie Barrier Williams was certain that the black aristocracy in Chicago was “better dressed, better housed, and better mannered than almost anywhere in the wide west.” Though education was paramount, wealthy black businessmen were able to join society by the 1920s.

The West: black communities on the West coast remained small until WWI, where in 1900, the combined population of blacks in San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, and Los Angeles numbered but 7,191–less than 1/8th of Philadelphia and less than 1/4th of Chicago. San Francisco was the hub of black elites in the West, and the keyword for telling who was who was the use of the word “pioneer.” Los Angeles’ black population surpassed that of San Francisco’s after 1900, and was marked by the city’s founding by blacks and mulattoes, as well as the vast numbers of professional blacks who migrate to Los Angeles after 1890. Seattle’s black population was very small–406 in 1900–but the wealthy residents were considerably well-to-do, the most comfortable being the Caytons, publishers and editors of the Seattle Republican, who lived in spacious house on Capital Hill, the city’s most exclusive neighborhood, and existed between the black and white worlds. Denver’s population grew from 23 in 1866 to 4000 in 1900, more than one wealthy black family gained prominence after the gold rush.

Further Reading:

Aristocrats of Color by Willard B. Gatewood

To stem the influx of peoples seeking asylum and citizenship, the U.S. Federal Government built Ellis Island Immigrant Station in 1892, about half a mile from the Statue of Liberty, to replace the state-run Castle Garden Immigration Depot (1855–1890) in Manhattan. The first immigrant to pass through the gates of Ellis Island was Annie Moore, a 15 year old from Cork County, Ireland. During that first day, 700 immigrants were processed, and in its first year, Ellis Island processed almost 450,000 immigrants. Disaster struck soon after, for on June 13, 1897, the original wooden structure burned to the ground, destroying all administrative records for Castle Garden, and most of the records for the Barge Office and Ellis facilities. Fortunately, copies of the passenger lists were held by the Customs Collector and abstracts were held in Washington, DC. The station reopened in 1900 and was built of red brick and more importantly, was fireproof. This new building was also much larger in order to accommodate the 5000+ immigrations streaming through the island daily. Immigration peaked in the years leading up to WWI–1907 processed a record of 1,004,756 peoples, and April 17th of 1907 witnessed and all-time daily high of 11,747 immigrants.

The great number of immigrants of the “new immigration” era–that is, emigrants from southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, as opposed to “old immigration” from Western Europe–caused many native-born Americans to grumble that the United States had become a “dumping ground” rather than a “melting pot.” To make matters worse, these immigrants appeared to bring the fears of native-born Americans to fruition: they were dirty, foreign, prone to crime, refused to learn English, practiced weird customs, sent good American money back home rather than spending it in the US, and otherwise wreaked havoc on the sedate, Anglo-Saxon lives of “true Americans.” To combat this, Congress passed a series of immigration laws which at various times excluded, restricted, or refused emigrants from particular countries. In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, and in 1907, the Dillingham Commission tightened the medical requirements for admission, dividing physically and mentally “defective” immigrants into three classes: idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, the feeble-minded, the insane, and those subject to tuberculosis or a dangerous disease. The average wait on Ellis Island was about two to five hours, but for those health inspectors held back, the island became “The Island of Tears” or “Heartbreak Island,” with many spending months in quarantine or held in the detention quarters before the immigration officials rejected their application for entry and deported them back to their homeland.

Medical examination centered on the “line,” which became shorthand for the set of techniques and procedures that medical officers used to examine thousands of immigrants quickly:

After an arriving ship passed the quarantine inspection in New York Harbor, Immigration Service (IS) and United States Public Health Service (PHS) examiners boarded and examined all first- and second-class passengers as the ship proceeded up the harbor. Upon docking, PHS officers transferred steerage or third-class passengers to Ellis Island by barge. Proceeding one after the other and lugging heavy baggage, prospective immigrants entered the station and moved slowly through a series of gated passageways resembling cattle pens. As they reached the end of the line, they slowly filed past one or more PHS officers who, at a glance, surveyed them for a variety of serious and minor diseases and conditions, finally turning back their eyelids with their fingers or a buttonhook to check for trachoma. PHS regulations encouraged officers to place a chalk mark indicating the suspected disease or defect on the clothing of immigrants as they passed through the line: the letters “EX” on the lapel of a coat indicated that the individual should merely be further examined; the letter “C,” that the PHS officer suspected an eye condition; “S” indicated senility; and “X,” insanity.

The procedure was intimidating, and, indeed, between 1891 and 1930 nearly 80,000 immigrants were barred at the nation’s doors for diseases or defects. Yet the vast majority were allowed to enter the country—on average, fewer than 1 percent were ever turned back for medical reasons. Of those who were denied entry, most were certified, not with “loathsome and dangerous contagious diseases,” but with conditions that limited their capacity to perform unskilled labor. Senility (old age), varicose veins, hernias, poor vision, and deformities of the limbs or spine were among the primary causes for exclusion. That so few of the more than 25 million arriving immigrants inspected by the PHS were excluded sets into bold relief the country’s almost insatiable industrial demand for cheap labor.

Immigration through Ellis Island slowly trickled to a halt during World War One, but there was a post-war boom that Congress severely curtailed through a series of immigration acts: the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. The latter act placed a quota on European immigration, allowing no more than 2% of the 1890 immigrant stocks into America. In addition, Congress had already passed a literacy act in 1917 to curb the influx of low-skilled immigrants from entering the country.

Despite the laws, the conflict, the harassment and the disappointments many immigrants faced when attempting to enter America, they nonetheless continued to journey to the shores of Ellis Island, weary but rejoicing eyes turned towards the Statue of Liberty and after the installation of the plaque in 1903, its sonnet by Emma Lazarus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Further Reading:
American Passage: The History of Ellis Island by Vincent J. Cannato
Island Of Hope: The Journey To America And The Ellis Island Experience by Martin Sandler
Forgotten Ellis Island: The Extraordinary Story of America’s Immigrant Hospital by Lorie Conway
On the Trail of the Immigrant‎ by Edward Alfred Steiner
“Immigration and the Public Health,” Popular Science Monthly, October 1913 by Dr Alfred C. Reed
“Going Through Ellis Island,” Popular Science Monthly, October 1913 by Dr Alfred C. Reed

Further Viewing:
Emigrants landing at Ellis Island – 1903
Arrival of Emigrants at Ellis Island – 1906

Prior to the early 1880s, Newport was a sleepy town whose charm lay largely in its agreeable climate and quaint Georgian air. Prior to the Civil War, Southerners journeyed north to Newport to escape the sweltering heat of their summers and did not disturb the genial air blanketing the city. A small but recognizable number of wealthy elites from other cities began to arrive in Newport, also attracted by the weather, and built the first mansions–but these were simple and modest, as native Newporters frowned on ostentatious display. Mrs August Belmont, a member of the Four Hundred, attempted to recreate the social milleu of New York but it wasn’t until Mrs. Astor, at the urging of Ward MacAllister, summered there that Newport officially arrived for the Four Hundred. The Astors purchased Beechwood in 1881 and promptly spent $2 million renovating it to their standards. Following in their steps was Alva Vanderbilt who in 1888 was given carte blanche to design and build a Newport estate by her husband as a birthday present. She hired Richard Morris Hunt and mischievously erected a tall wall around the construction site to keep away prying eyes. Marble House cost $11 million to build and furnish and Alva threw a ball to celebrate the completion of her “cottage” in 1892.

Just as the Vanderbilt mansions on upper Fifth Avenue sparked a rush to build magnificent mansions to replace the declasse brownstones of yesteryear, Alva’s Newport cottage was a gauntlet thrown to others, including her own brother-in-law, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who commissioned Richard Morris Hunt to build a mansion even greater than Marble House. This was The Breakers. The ground was broken in 1893 and two years and seven million dollars later, Cornelius threw open the doors to this seventy room mansion to the awe of everyone. The Breakers stood on 13 acres of land at Ochre Point and faced the ocean, whose spray and crashing surf provided a dramatic backdrop to this impressive “cottage.” Joining Beechwood, Marble House, and The Breakers were other magnificent cottages such as Chateau-sur-Mer, The Elms, Rosecliff, Belcourt Caste, Ochre Court and Rough Point. These mansions and the accompanying wealth surrounding them completely changed the tone of Newport. Now, the city was all about the very, very rich.

Though the only hotels in Newport were for the lodging of salesmen from Tiffany, Mumms and other purveyors of luxury items, it was quite easy to “crash” the city, and the year-round inhabitants kept the Four Hundred from total exclusivity. To mitigate unwanted persons from mingling with them, a number of financial hurdles were erected, such the rather steep fee of keeping up appearances. For example, one could buy membership to the Newport Casino for $500, but keeping up appearances afterward was a pill for it was not unknown for an average “cottager” to spend $25,000-$40,000 on staff and maintenance of their residence alone. Women were expected to have on hand 80-90 new dresses, as no one ever wore a dress twice, and an entertaining budget of at least $150,000! And gentlemen weren’t exempt for Newport was one of the principle yachting centers in America, as the America’s Cup sailed annually in the vicinity, and the costs of buying and outfitting a yacht could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, minus the cost of keeping the boat in tip-top shape.

Stamina was also a requirement for the schedule was grueling and tightly regulated:

8-9 am: Breakfast. Change into riding habit
9-10 am: Morning ride. Change into day dress and drive in a phaeton behind a matched pair to the Casino, or to shop.
11-noon: Swimming at Bailey’s Beach.

According to Elizabeth Drexel Lehr, “Only the elite could bathe at Bailey’s Beach. It was Newport’s most exclusive club. The watchman in his gold-laced uniform protected its sanctity from all interlopers. He knew every carriage on sight, fixed newcomers with an eagle eye, swooped down upon them and demanded their names. Unless they were accompanied by one of the members, or bore an introduction from an unimpeachable hostess, no power on earth could gain them admission. If they wanted to bathe, they could only go to Easton’s Beach—’The Common Beach’ as the habitues were wont to call it. There they would have the indignity of sharing the sea with the Newport townspeople, referred to by Harry Lehr [her husband], who was fond of quoting the sayings of Louis XIV, as ‘Our Footstools.’”

Noon-2 pm: Luncheon on yacht or picnic on a local farm
2-3 pm: Drive to Polo Field to watch a polo match from carriage
3-5 pm: Promenade in carriage down Bellevue Avenue. Cards are left.
5-8 pm: Tea on lawn or terrace. Change for dinner
8-10 pm: Dinner on yacht, or supper before the weekly Casino dance, to which tickets are sold for $1 to spectators
10 pm-early morning: Dances, cultural offerings, theme balls with second supper at midnight and breakfast as dawn breaks over Sakonnet Point

With such tightly-restrained gaiety, it’s a given someone would break out to lessen the monotony, and for the staid Newport schedule, Harry Lehr and his Triumvirate, of whom Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish was his prime cohort, were at their service. Horseback dinners and Little Egypt scandals aside, it was in Newport that many of the Four Hundred’s grossest indulgences were, well, indulged in. Mamie Fish treated Gilded Age society as a plaything, establishing her modus operandi early on by declaring “I’m so tired of being hypocritically polite,” and was known for kicking her guests out of her home when she grew tired of them (accordingly, her invitations were highly sought after). With Harry Lehr at her side, the two terrorized Newport society, throwing dogs dinners, servant suppers and monkey fetes. So notorious were their antics, the more conservative members snubbed them–but that didn’t stop Mamie or Harry one bit. A particular antic that survives in the annals of history involves Grand Duke Boris of Russia who came to America at the invitation of Mary Goelet. Mamie announced a ball at Crossways in honor of the Grand Duke and purposely excluded a favorite of Mrs Goelet’s from the guest list. Mary retaliated by letting it be known none of her friends would attend. Mamie refused to be checkmated and turned to Harry for advice. When guests arrived at the Fish residence they were informed that Mamie’s guest of honor was Tsar Nicholas II! The eager guests bowed low when the doors were thrown open to announce the entrance of His Imperial Majesty–Harry Lehr dressed as a Tsar! Everyone had a great laugh over this, including the Grand Duke who met Harry the next day to crown him King Lehr.

When the summer ended so did the season, though after the turn of the century a few socialites stayed on into the early fall, and the Four Hundred moved on to its next social enclave. This jewel in the crown of New York society began its slow descent by the outbreak of WWI and though it retained prominence as the social resort, the new generation of idle rich found the Gilded Age mansions rather cumbersome and outmoded. Thankfully many of these outstanding mansions remain standing and available for tours to retain an appreciation for American social and architectural history.

Further Reading:
A Season of Splendor: The Court of Mrs Astor in Gilded Age New York by Greg King
Newport Villas: The Revival Styles 1885-1935 by Michael C. Kathrens
Wicked Newport: Sordid Stories from the City by the Sea by Larry Stanford and J. Bailey
The Golden Summers: An Ancient History of Newport by Richard O’Connor
The ultra-fashionable peerage of America by Charles Wilbur de Lyon Nicholls
This Fabulous Century: 1900-1910 by The Editors of Time Life
To Marry An English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace
Baedeker’s United States, 1909 by Karl Baedeker
Class and Leisure at America’s First Resort
The Newport Postcard Museum

At this time the industry was in a state of flux and readership was split amongst such disparate tastes as readers of popular novelists Marie Corelli, Elinor Glyn and Ouida, adventure novelists H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling, and the Ruritanian genre, and readers of a more serious vein of fiction–G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, or the Webbs–though Dickens, Eliot and Thackeray remained perinneal favorites. The quantity of books published during the 1900s advanced considerably, with the number of new publications doubling between 1901 and 1913 from 6,044 in the former year to 12,379 in the latter. This trend lay in the improvement in family incomes and the ever-increasing interest in education, which accelerated with the decline in illiteracy. Aligning with this increase were the sudden growth of public libraries, whose public expenditure jumped from 286,000 pounds in 1896 to 805,000 pounds in 1911. Also, during this time, publishers made an attempt to make the classics more accessible to the reading public, and Collins’ Classics and the Everyman’s Library, each sold at modest prices in relatively durable editions, did much to extend an interest in classic English novelists and essayists.

For the aspiring novelist hoping to break into this seemingly impenetrable market, a score of books nestled on the shelves, some written by popular authors of the day and others by publishers themselves, full of advice on not only how to submit a novel but on the actual publishing process itself. The typical course to publication was detailed as following:

1. First, the aspirant should see that the typewritten copy was accurate, fastened together securely, and most importantly, clean. Their name and address, the title and description of the manuscript, and the length of the manuscript in words, should be prominent on the first page. A letter offering a view to publication and a request for return should the manuscript be rejected accompanied the manuscript in the mail.

2. When the manuscript arrived at the publishers’ offices, a clerk enters the particulars of the book into a ledger and it was shoved aside with other manuscripts to await the casual inspection of a partner or manager. The book is then taken from the pile and handed to a reader. It was their job to sift through the chaff to get to the wheat, and authors were advised to remember that “Publishing firms flourish by making profits; and profits are made out of books that sell; and it is in the business of the reader to recommend not good books merely, but good books that will sell.” Even if the reader enjoyed the book, there was a chance for rejection from the publisher if the lists were full or the reader’s remarks weren’t eye-catching enough. However, should the publisher accept the novel, to the trembling author went a contract.

3. The author was advised that under no circumstances should they bear the whole or part of the expenses of publication–that was to be born entirely by the publisher–nor should he agree to be remunerated on the half-profit system. The newly acquired author would then be remunerated in one of three ways: the publisher buys the entire copyright of the book for a lump sum down, (b) the publisher buys the copyright for a term of years, at the expiry of which it reverts to the author, and (c) the publisher may acquire the right to publish during the whole term of copyright, or for a shorter term, by agreeing to pay the author a royalty on every copy of the book sold (generally 10%, though well-established authors could revieve 25-33%). However, unlike today, this latter system did not guarantee an advance, and first-time authors were advised against insisting on an advance until they made a reputation.

4. The proofs were sent to the author, which were either in long “slips” or in page form, according to arrangement. After the proofs were returned, the next time the author saw their book was when a parcel of six free copies arrived on the day of publication. The author was advised to subscribe to a press-cutting agency for cuttings of reviews. If the first book achieved a sale of a thousand copies it was considered to have done very well, as the average circulation of first books was nearer to five hundred or less. After this first book, the author was further advised to have books published on a moderate, but regular schedule to build their reputation, stating that “even mediocre talent, when combined with fixity of purpose and regular industry, will infalliably result in a gratifying success.”

5. The literary agent was someone to aspire for, as the more successful agents were loathe to take on unknown authors who could prove unprofitable. According to advice, when the aspirant has made a name for himself and has the ability to his work on his own, then was the time to go to an agent as now the popular author–via their newly acquired agent–could demand a higher advance, more publicity and better placement in the lists. The agents’ percentage hovered around 10%, though once the author’s income exceeded two thousand a year, the agent should be willing to accept 5% on all sums over that amount.

The author with a little success would be tempted to publish their books in other countries, and while first-time authors were advised against worrying over foreign copyrights, then as today, a book that was a smash hit in England frequently fizzled in the United States, and vice versa. But in the end, the aspiring novelist turned published, had as equal a chance for success as authors today. Worries over advances, publishing profits, and so on preoccupied everyone, but thankfully, not enough to mitigate such wonderful novelists whose works have remained timeless classics in our age.

Further Reading:
Edwardian England, 1901-1914, ed by Simon Nowell-Smith
1001 Places to Sell Manuscripts: A Complete Guide for All Writers by James Knapp Reeve
Authors and Publishers: A Manual of Suggestions for Beginners in Literature by George Haven Putnam & John Bishop Putnam
Practical authorship‎ by James Knapp Reeve
The Author’s Desk Book by William Dana Orcutt

The meaning of the dance was lost on white minstrel performers, who added the exaggerated, over-the-top dance to their repertoire to portray the bumbling attempts of poor blacks to mimic the manners of whites. No longer was the Cakewalk a dance of satire; minstrels and their audience genuinely thought it signified blacks wanting to be like whites. By the turn of the century, the Cakewalk was used by both black and white minstrel performers far from its original intentions, and when the musical comedy gained prominence in theatre, the Cakewalk was transferred from the circuit theatre to Broadway.

Dora Dean and her husband Charles E. Johnson brought the dance to the Great White Way in the 1893 production of The Creole Show. Their performance was a sensation. Not only did Dean, Johnson and the entirely black cast dispense with blackface, but the partner dancing on stage was a novelty. This success was followed by the musical comedy Clorindy The Origin of the Cakewalk (1898), an hour-long sketch that was the first all-black show to play in a prestigious Broadway house, Casino Theatre’s Roof Garden, whose ragtime music was scored by Will Marion Cook and whose cast of black dancers and white actors became the first instance of integration on stage in New York. The comedy also introduced the actors most associated with the dance, George Walker and Bert Williams.

Walker and Williams teamed up in the early 1890s after meeting in San Francisco. They performed the typical song-and-dance numbers, comic dialogues, skits and humorous songs of the vaudeville oeuvre, but found fame when they discovered, after portraying the stereotypical vaudevillian roles of con-man and victim (Williams and Walker, respectively), that they got a better reaction by switching roles. The slender Walker eventually developed a persona as a strutting dandy, while the stocky Williams played the languorous oaf. Their performance in the musical farce The Gold Bug electrified audiences when the duo’s performance of the cakewalk so captured the audience’s attention, they soon became so closely associated with this dance that many people still think of them as its originators.

This success was followed by a booking at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York. Playing this well-known venue was a step up for them, and many doors opened as a result. Joining them was Walker’s wife, Ada (or Aida) Overton, whom George met in 1898 after they posed for a cigarette advertisement. They married the following year and she became the leading lady and soubrette in the Williams and Walker Company, soon after becoming famous in her own right as a performer of the Cakewalk.

She dazzled early-twentieth-century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. Her interpretation of the Cakewalk was to rewrite the bodily gestures of the dance in ways that appealed to white elites and black Americans, and make the dance “respectable.” Her elegant cakewalking opened the door for the Four Hundred to pick up the dance and Ada was hired frequently by New York’s renowned hostesses to teach guests how to Cakewalk at fancy balls and tableaux.

This success was fine, but the ultimate goal the Williams and Walker Company of was to produce and star in their own Broadway musical. From their original meeting, the men wanted to introduce African themes on Broadway and rid the theatre of the limitations placed on black actors. In 1902, the duo teamed with Will Marion Cook, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Jesse Shipp to produce In Dahomey, the first musical to open on Broadway written and performed entirely by African-Americans.

The musical was a resounding smash hit, and the company took In Dahomey to England the following year. Initially met with tepid response, the play picked up after the Royal Family requested a special performance at Buckingham Palace, where King Edward sent a courtier to inquire whether the cakewalk just performed was the most absolute form of the dance, and of course, the company said it was. In Dahomey ran for four years, and broke all records: it helped make its composer, lyricist and leading performers house-hold names, and its score was the first black musical that had its score published (in England, not America).

The Cakewalk became the first black dance to be accepted by white society, which paved the way for the acceptance of other dances of African-American origin, such as the turkey trot or bunny hug, and later, the Black Bottom, the Charleston, all the way to the Electric Slide. As for the Walkers and Bert Williams, the trio continued their success despite George dying of syphilis in 1908, and Ada succumbing to kidney failure in 1914. Bert Williams continued as a solo artist, become a star performer with Ziegfeld’s Follies, and recording songs to much acclaim. He died in 1922. Despite their early deaths, George and Ada Walker, and Bert Williams proved the talent and dedication of black actors, and their successes pushed a recalcitrant Broadway (and society) to accept the presence of a black performer, or a black star, on the stage.

“Booker T. Washington, the well known negro educator and President of the Tuskegee, Ala. institute , was a guest of President Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt at dinner at the white house tonight.”

It was a day like any other when the White House Social Calendar, a regular column in the newspapers of Washington D.C, inserted a tiny line stating that on October 16, 1901, Booker T. Washington had been a guest of President Roosevelt at dinner. overnight the dinner became a sensation. Southern newspapers who had previously held Washington as an example of a “good negro” after his infamous Atlanta Compromise address in 1895, now felt betrayed, and turned to attack both Washington and President Roosevelt with a rabid fervor. Men who had never supported Roosevelt swore to never vote for him again, and many whites revoked their trust in Washington.

In the ensuing silence from both the White House and Tuskegee, it fell to the nation’s newspapers to publicize the opinions of Americans. One southerner sent the President a possum with a card around its neck bearing the name “Booker Washington.” To one of his callers the next day, a friend of the President reported him as saying “I do not need to give you an explanation of the Booker Washington affair, do I?” President Roosevelt went on to say that he was amazed that he could be so misunderstood by those who had criticized him. Maryland Democrats seized upon this to ridicule the President and the Republican Party, and many claimed that the Booker Washington incident would usher in a Democratic victory.

What made this dinner so remarkable?

Firstly, because it was a private, family affair. Washington had previously dined with a president (McKinley), and President Cleveland had invited Frederick Douglass to the White House, but both were in official, public capacity. By inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner as though he were just another honored guest was shocking, repulsive, outrageous, offensive. Secondly, because it implied that President Roosevelt was opposed to racism and the ever-expanding Jim Crow laws. And lastly, because it implied, for W.E.B. DuBois-supporters, that Washington’s socio-political stance had been granted sanction by the highest in the land.

President Roosevelt’s invitation to Dr. Washington was provocative. Though Roosevelt, like most Anglo-Saxon Americans of that time period, still held to certain assumptions of and prejudices against blacks, the fact that he was willing to break bread with a black man–and that his family were present as well–was astounding in a time period where the advances and tentative healing made during Reconstruction were receding to the point of memory.

Further Reading:

“The First President to Entertain a Negro, Booker T Washington Dined”
Roosevelt, the Happy Warrior By Bradley Gilman
Booker T. Washington By Louis R. Harlan

The social world of the Capital was divided into three classes:

1. The Official Class, embracing all three branches of the Government, Presidential appointees to administrative departments, and includes officers of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps on duty permanently or temporary at the Capital, and civil officers of the Government whose places of employment are in the different states of the Union or officers of the Diplomatic or Consular services of the US and visiting the city.

2. The Quasi-Official Class, which embraces the Foreign Diplomatic and Consular Corps, Officers of Foreign Governments, and Officers of State or Municipal Governments in the US, in the city.

3. The Unofficial Class, which includes residents from other localities, sojourners or visitors to the city who are entitled by social status at home to recognition in good society, and permanent residents of independent means or engaged in professional or mercantile affairs.

The social and domestic routine of Washington is regulated and controlled entirely by official duties. The day was divided into two parts, socially speaking; all that portion before the dinner hour which is after the close of official hours, being regarded as morning [3-5 PM, no later than 6 PM], and that portion of time thereafter as evening [8-9 PM]. Hence, in afternoon receptions, it was generally customary to say good morning, although it was really afternoon (applied only in conversation. In notes and invitations, the usual divisions of time were used). Informal calls between friends and acquaintances, or those doing business, were generally held between 10 AM and 12 PM.

The strictest piece of etiquette it was fatal to fail was that of paying calls. The routine was rather different from that of society in other cities, and could put a newcomer into quite a tangle! For example, everyone in official life was required to call upon the President and his wife, but they never returned them unless the caller was a Sovereign, Ruler, or fellow President. A stranger of distinction visiting the Capital was required to make their first call upon a resident official of equal rank, while a newly appointed official, of whatever rank, made the first call of office to the branch of the service or department to which the official belonged. For the stranger arriving in Washington, a simple call–that is, leaving cards for people one wished to know, or tell you were in the city–was sufficient. Amusingly, unlike any other city in America–perhaps even the world–men called on one another more than women were required to!

The Official, or Fashionable Season at the Capital began with the general receptions at the Executive Mansion and by the Cabinet Ministers on New Year’s Day, and it terminated with the beginning of Lent. During Lent, as a rule, there were no important public dinners, though quiet dinners and less conspicuous social gatherings were indulged in by some. The Congressional Season, when entertainments and amusements peaked, began regularly on the first Monday in December, and usually ended with the session, or earlier, when the session protracted into the summer. From June to September, owing to the heat of summer, prominent members of the Government and residents generally left the city on their vacations.

The formal social demands led to the creation of Receptions. As a rule, these began and ended with the Season, and comprised of two classes, and certain days were set apart for the “At Homes” of the female relations of Washington’s officials. The first class was the Afternoon Receptions, or Drawing Rooms. These required no invitations and were held between three and five P.M., to which all persons of reputable character and becoming dress were admitted. Excluding the President’s Levee, Evening Receptions required an invitation, unless otherwise announced in the newspapers. As a rule, these were given by the Vice-President, Senators, the Speaker, Representatives and Members of the Cabinet who entertained, and sometimes were hosted by distinguished private citizens. An evening reception lasted three hours, from eight to eleven P.M., and the gentleman of the house was always present, and received with his wife (or designated hostess) and any other whom she invited to assist her.

Due to the transient nature of Washington D.C., it was a natural battleground for social climbers to receive the social recognition denied them by their hometowns. Rather akin to popping over to Europe to mingle with the aristocracy, nouveaux riche could meet the titled and well-born without leaving the States–and a few international matches were made in Washington D.C., the most well-known being that of Belle Wilson (of the “Marrying Wilsons”) and Sir Michael Herbert (“Mungo”), while famous residents who moved to the Capital after being snubbed in their cities included Mary Leiter of Chicago, who married George Curzon and became Vicereine of India, and Evalyn Walsh McLean (left) of Colorado, the last private owner of the unlucky Hope Diamond.

Since next year brings a new interest in Washington D.C. and the inner workings of the American government, I thought it best to deviate from my emphasis on Edwardian Britain and swing the focus to Washington D.C. of the 1880s to 1910s. Regardless of personal views on the outgoing President, or the President-Elect, not only do I believe that no one can possibly be immune to the excitement and emotional charge of witnessing yet another process of America’s democracy. Stay tuned for posts about the White House, our past Presidents, famous Congressmen, social and etiquette proceedings, D.C. society, and so on!

Check out Scandalous Women for witty and erudite musings on those women, famous and infamous, who have characterized the history of Washington D.C.