Gilded Age America saw not only a boom in millionaires, but a boom in immigration. During this era, approximately 10 million immigrants entered the United States, hungry for religious freedom and greater prosperity. The most striking of these immigrants were Eastern European Jews fleeing the bruta[...]
Archive for the ‘New York City’ Category
The Armory Show, 1913
Modern and avant-garde art introduced itself to 1913 New York much against the latter’s will. Since the emergence of Impressionism, many other shocking developments in artistic expression set the world afire. However, these movements were smaller, grounded by one or two artists, and usually re[...]
The Edwardian Publishing Industry
Much as today, the publishing industry of the Edwardian era wrestled with such familiar issues as distribution, declining interest in reading, literary fiction versus “trash” for the masses, competition for bookstores from cheap editions & used book sales, and the eternal assumption [...]
April 27th, 2009 - 6:00 am § in New York City
The Waldorf-Astoria
The Waldorf-Astoria was born from a feud. As we explored in the discussion of New York’s Four Hundred, after the death of her father-in-law, Mrs. William B. Astor Jr (Caroline) declared herself “Mrs. Astor”, to the fury of her nephew William Waldorf Astor who felt that his wife sho[...]
April 13th, 2009 - 6:00 am § in New York City
The New York Social Season
During the 1870s and 1880s, the social season was divided into two: winter and summer. The winter season stretched from mid-November until the onset of Lent, and was marked by the opening of the opera season at the Academy of Music. It was here, at this grand old theatre, whose boxes were guarded je[...]
April 6th, 2009 - 6:00 am § in New York City
The Four Hundred
Boston had its Brahmins, Philadelphia its Main Line, and Virginia its First Families. However the upper class of New York, unlike those venerable cities, did not remain unassailed, with famous family names such as the Cabots or Lodges, or Fitzhughs or Drexels, unsullied by nouveaux riche. No, New Yo[...]
March 30th, 2009 - 12:00 pm § in New York City, Scandal
The Bradley-Martin Ball
The backlash against this ball finds a parallel in today’s current economic situation, as the excesses of Wall Street and the free-for-all spending of bailout money by executives has evoked as much anger and resentment in people today, as our Gilded Age counterparts were during that eventful n[...]
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
March 25, 2009 is the 98th anniversary of the fire that tore through the workrooms of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and left 148 women dead. It had been a normal day in the factory where hundreds of young immigrant women worked in fourteen hour shifts for six or seven dollars a week to make shirtw[...]
