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 brutal pogroms of Imperial Russia between the years 1881-1924. The surge in population witnessed in America’s major cities created a number of conflicts, particularly in politics and government, as witnessed with the strong hold Tammany Hall held on New York City long after the death of Boss Tweed. Yet, this new power in numbers did little to protect these new Americans from exploitation and betrayal from power- and money-hungry politicians and robber barons. Troubles came not only from “native” Americans angered by the threat immigrants had to their jobs, but from exclusionary laws passed to keep “undesirable” minorities–like the Chinese–from entering the country to work for wages even lower than those garnered by European immigrants.

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

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 returned underground after the public’s initial outrage. By the 1910s, these smaller art movements began to convene and morph until two distinct styles of art bubbled beneath the mainstream–Expressionism and Cubism. Both began in Europe–the former in Germany and Austria, the latter in France–and were the culmination of the fascination turn of the century society held for “primitive” and “foreign” art.

In one way, the rise of Expressionism and Cubism could be seen as a reaction to the globalization of society. As colonialism spread throughout Asia and Africa, as well as the South and North poles, Europeans and Americans came in contact with peoples only hardy explorers of the past were able to meet. Also, this time witnessed the birth of modern anthropology. Though scientific racism retained its hold upon greater social thought, exploration began to turn its emphasis from conquer to the study and cataloging of non-European peoples and their customs.

The seeds for the Armory Show were sown at one of the artistic “Evenings” held by Mrs Mabel Dodge, a “400″ socialite who worked her darndest to become the “queen of Greenwich Village.” The 69th Regiment Armory for the National Guard located at on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets was chosen by organizers Arthur B. Davies, Walt Kuhn, and Walter Pach as the perfect venue for this show of modern art. Though the Metropolitan Museum of Art bravely purchased Paul Cézanne’s Hill of the Poor to symbolize their willingness to accept modern art, others were not so happy with the descent of art from nice, safe portraits, landscapes and still-lifes into dots and dashes across the canvas. Despite the rumbling of dissent, the Association of American Painters and Sculptors trundled on. The date for the show was from February 17th to March 15th, 1913, and the armory was home to approximately 1250 paintings, sculptures, and decorative works by over 300 European and American artists.

Among the artists whose work was to be shown were Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Marcel Duchamp, Raoul Dufy, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Many of the artists were known and respected, so the audience and art critics waiting to view these 1250 paintings were not too alarmed by the roster. But when they did feast their eyes upon the exhibition, most of New York was stunned. Lloyd Morris recounted the “outrage and protest [which] flared up in newspaper headlines” and “Cubism, futurism, post-impressionism became issues in a battle that engaged the general public.” Critics were baffled by Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, and were incensed by Matisse’s nudes, Picasso’s cubist paintings, and Constantin Brancusi’s roughly-hewn block. Former President Theodore Roosevelt condemned all modernists as lunatics, and many critics considered the more provocative art exhibited to be the work of degenerates, and described the Armory Show a “bedlam in art,” comparing cubism to prehistoric cave drawings.

In the midst of this furor, modern art did have a small, but growing number of supporters, which included Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who was to receive lasting fame for her art studios in Greenwich Village and the museum she founded in 1931. Many art collectors found much to admire in this new art movement, and more than a few wealthy art patrons included early Picassos among the then-priceless works by Rubens and Holbein the Younger. Ironically, for all the castigation the show received in the press and the public, it went on to tour Chicago and Boston to equal doses of acclaim and horror. The outcome of the Armory Show was but one of the many pre-WWI forces that shaped both modern culture and society in the coming decades. The Modernists took inspiration from non-European arts and looked forward rather than looking back to old masters, thereby forging not only a new path for art, but enabled them to stand on their own merits as artists.

Further Reading:
1913: an End and a Beginning by Virgina Cowles
Online exhibition recreating the Armory Show
ArtLex on the Armory Show
The 69th Regiment Armory Show
The 69th Regiment Armory

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 of an “us versus them” between aspiring authors and editors/literary agents of major publishing houses. Though things like iPods, television, the internet or video games were not distractions from reading, nonetheless around the turn of the century, the London correspondent of the New York Evening Post reported that the British bookseller was liable to tell a tale of woe: “The trade is not what was once, you know, sir, and what with the war and six-penny reprints, some of us are pretty well at the end of our tether,” and would then “proceed to show you a shelf after shelf of war-books which are not selling, and shelf after shelf of spring which we hoped to get rid of, but which is now so much old stock.”

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 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 should be called simply Mrs. Astor since he was head of the senior branch of the Astor family. But Caroline wouldn’t budge and the sublimely frustrated W.W. Astor exacted his revenge after his father’s death and tore down his side of the connecting Astor brownstones to build the Waldorf Hotel (1893). This move was tantamount to throwing down the gauntlet. W.W. Astor soon moved to England and watched with glee as the thousands of visitors to the hotel invaded his aunt’s staunchly-held privacy. Caroline eventually capitulated and her move uptown happened to concede to both her nephew’s vengeful behavior and the social prominence of the Vanderbilt family, who in the early 1880s, built their massive Fifth Avenue mansions well above the streets the Mrs. Astor considered fashionable.

Now titular head of the family after W.W. Astor’s defection to England (who also became a British citizen), John Jacob Astor IV (yes, the one who went down on the Titanic) contacted his cousin to build a hotel on the site of his mother’s former residence to accompany the Waldorf Hotel. Four years after the Waldorf Hotel opened its doors, the Astoria made its debut and the duo-hotel became the Waldorf-Astoria. It immediately became a sensation and outshone any hotel built before, with its forty public rooms and 1300 guest rooms, and also opened the door for public dinners and dining in a way Sherry’s and Delmonico’s had been unable to do as mere restaurants.

Known colloquially as “the Hyphen,” between noon and the early hours of the morning, the Waldorf-Astoria was the place to see and be seen. From the 34th Street entrance, a wide, three-hundred foot amber-marble corridor where guests could relax on the luxurious chairs and sofas provided, became known as “Peacock Alley,” and the primary restaurants of both hotels featured wall-to-wall mirrors, allowing easy viewing of other diners while one supped. So coveted were seats in the Palm Room that tables were frequently engaged weeks in advance and at seven o’clock, the velvet rope barring entrance signaled that those less fortunate would have to dine at the less prestigious Empire and Rose Rooms overlooking Fifth Avenue.

Prior to the 1890s, dining at home or in an exclusive restaurant summed up the gastronomy of the era, but as people began to “dine out” hotels such as the Waldorf-Astoria and later, the Ritz-Carlton, or the Hotel Regis, they adapted to this new form of social amusement. Now there was a great emphasis on eating well and people “thought out their meals and hired foreign chefs more extensively than before. Americans began to explore menus with French names more confidently and found that the dishes they signified had as exotic a flavor as the cooks who created them.” Guiding this new movement was Oscar Tschirky, better known as “Oscar of the Waldorf.” Born in Switzerland, Tschirky emigrated to America in the 1880s and set about changing the way 19th century society ate one step at a time. He advanced quickly in the restaurant world and by 1891, had become maître d’hôtel of Delmonico’s Restaurant. His fame spread throughout New York City and he then went with Hoffman’s to take charge of its famous Down-Town Restaurant, where he remained until he was hired by George C. Boldt to take charge of the Waldorf’s restaurant.

Under Oscar’s delicate tutelage, gastronomy became a form of art for even ordinary Americans. Despite not being a chef, he lent his name to such dishes as Veal Oscar, and aided in the popularization of Thousand Island dressing. However, it was the Waldorf Salad that remained immortal, and this simple yet exotic salad made of chopped celery, walnuts, and apples drenched in mayonnaise and displayed on a bed of lettuce was wildly popular, no doubt because of the ease with which ordinary housewives could recreate some of the glamor of the hotel in their own homes. Chicken a la King and Lobster Newburg were specialties of the hotel, and the chafing-dish, introduced by the hotel, became a very popular wedding gift in which the two dishes could be made. So famous was the hotel, and so aligned it was with fine dining, Oscar Tschirky is certainly one of the first persons to have a nationally distributed food product with his “Oscar sauce.”

Not simply a place for after-supper dining or afternoon tea and lunches, the Waldorf-Astoria was also a favorite of men. The Men’s Cafe, a lofty, spacious hall paneled in dark wood, provided liberally with tables and arm chairs, the four-sided mahogany bar was the magnet for such financial luminaries as J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick and “Bet-A-Million” Gates. It dominated the room where eight bartenders slung out drinks of nearly five hundred varieties, and not far from it was the “free lunch” table where habitues could snack on crisp Virginia hams, Vermont turkeys, various hot delicacies in casseroles and an assorted cold buffet. The concept of the “free lunch” was a new one, and one that paid off for much of the food offered for free was of a salty, dry nature that required a drink–so a man who was liable to linger in the cafe snacking on free food was likely to purchase a surfeit of cool, refreshing liquids to quench his thirst.

Besides dining and gawking, the Waldorf-Astoria was the perfect venue for social events, and the hotel’s most famous and infamous event was the Bradley-Martin ball of 1897. The publicity reaped by the hotel was such that the ballroom in which the ball was held was promptly renamed the Bradley-Martin room, and visitors to the hotel for years afterward were anxious to see the site of this much-derided night. Other less hearty events which the Waldorf-Astoria hosted was the investigation into the Titanic’s sinking in 1912. But on a lighter note, the hotel witnessed the habits of many celebrities, from princes to presidents to Wall Street tycoons to diplomats. Until the late nineteen teens, the Waldorf-Astoria reigned supreme, but as with all wild successes, it is inevitable that it suffer from a decline. In the case of the Waldorf-Astoria, the passing of the old guard in society and the subsequent shift of the younger generations away from Fifth Avenue, and the onset of Prohibition–which devastated many of the Gilded Age’s popular restaurants–sounded its death knell. The hotel closed in 1929 and was razed to make room for the Empire State Building. A new Waldorf-Astoria was built on Park Avenue later on in the 1930s, and it was purchased in 1949 by Conrad Hilton who added the double-hyphen flourish, “completely in the spirit of gilded ornamentation.”

Further Reading:
Incredible New York by Lloyd R. Morris
The Story of the Waldorf-Astoria, Old and Sold Antiques
Peacocks On Parade by Albert Stevens Crockett

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 jealously by the Knickerbocker elite and handed down from generation to generation, that Countess Ellen Olenska made her first appearance in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. Because of this exclusivity, those “swells” who hammered at the Knickerbockers’ doors pulled together resources to fund the Metropolitan Opera House, whose “Golden Horseshoe” of 122 prominently placed boxes proved irresistible to Society. After 1883, even the old guard abandoned the Academy of Music for the more fashionable and opulent Metropolitan Opera House, and attending the opera on opening night and thereafter on Friday nights was de rigueur. As in other social cities, the opera was the place to see and be seen, and throughout the evening, the Four Hundred turned their lorgnettes to the boxes opposite and paid visits. Mrs. Astor sat regally in her box, recieving the homages of her subjects, but never leaving to visit someone else. She rarely remained past the first act, and it was a serious breach of etiquette for someone to leave before Mrs. Astor left.

Over the twelve weeks of the winter season, society “flung itself headlong” into a bevy of balls, receptions, parties, dinner and other activities. Besides the opening of the opera season, the New York Horse Show each November, and Mrs. Astor’s annual ball, held in January, also became demarcations of the rise and ebb of the season. The month of December became fixed as the month for coming-out receptions for debutantes, who made their entrance into society in the Patriarchs’ Balls (until 1897) and the junior cotillions. February’s Charity Ball, which cut across all coteries and sets, signaled the end of the winter season and the onset of Lent. During the Lenten season, social events were less public, less showy and generally less ostentatious. The Four Hundred occupied this “quiet time” with fundraisers for charities, informal dinners and preparing themselves for the onset of the summer season.

The Summer season was, famously, held in Newport, Rhode Island. Initially a resort which attracted wealthy planters prior to the Civil War, the beautiful views and agreeable weather began to attract New York’s millionaires. Practically overnight this sleepy Colonial town on the coast of America’s smallest state turned into an exclusive enclave for some of the country’s wealthiest citizens. Every square mile of available land was snapped up by millionaires, old structures razed and grandiose mansions dubbed “cottages” were erected. The lack of hotels and the staking of Bailey’s Beach–where changing rooms were purchased at a cost of $500–kept away sightseers, though later on in the 1900s, tour guides began to ply trade in Newport, the most famous incident being when a tea held by the former Alva Vanderbilt was interrupted by a guide remarking on her former residence at Marble House and her present residence at Belcourt “above the stables with Mr. Belmont.” So exclusive was Newport society, it was considered the ultimate place in which to test one’s acceptance into the Four Hundred. Chicago society’s grand dame, Mrs. Potter Palmer, was ignored during her first forays into the resort, as her husband, a hotelier, was considered little better than an innkeeper.

By the 1890s, the fragmentation of society into sets and cliques manifested itself in the variety of places in which prominent families chose to spend their time. The establishment of golf and country clubs and the construction of large mansions on Long Island, particularly Southampton and Glen Cove, lured numerous people away from Newport. Saratoga was popular with the racing set. George Gould settled in Lakewood, New Jersey, and a thriving community there added itself to the social season. Some members of the Four Hundred even went to the resorts native to the elite of Boston or Philadelphia, summering in such places as Martha’s Vineyard, Bar Harbor or Cape Cod. Another place for summering were the Adirondack Mountains, and hardy New Yorkers placed their indelible stamp on this site by building “camps” that rivaled their “cottages” in Newport. Here, men and women were informal, donning casual clothes and enjoying the vogue for outdoors life.

The turn of the century craze for outdoors life led to the development of a “suburban” season in the autumn. This overlapped somewhat with the Newport season, though the enclaves of the Berkshires, the Hudson River and Tuxedo Park were even more exclusive. In the Berkshires, society indulged in sports such as hunting and riding, and in-home entertainments like card games, acrostics, and amateur theatrics. Centered around the quiet towns of Stockbridge, Lenox and Pittsfield, those who chose to spend time in the Berkshires were of a more sober nature. Those who visited the Hudson were typically of old Knickerbocker stock as the early Dutch settlers built farms upon the banks of the Hudson, and here English-style week-end house parties were held. Tuxedo Park, founded in 1886 by Pierre Lorillard, was a private “resort” just north of Manhattan. This was an ultra-exclusive place, with just 20 families owning “cottages” on five acre sections of a 600,000 acre estate. These families took up residence in autumn and remained there until around Thanksgiving, and returned again at Christmas and New Year’s, where they met for dinners and dances at the Tuxedo Club. Another alluring, new activity for the Four Hundred were winter sports, and winter resorts catering to the craze for skiing, tobogganing and sledding, sprang up around the Adirondacks’ lakes, most notably the Lake Placid Club organized in 1895 by Melvil Dewey (he of the Dewey Decimal system). Other winter spots included the balmy climate of Palm Beach and Daytona Florida, where a number of fashionable hotels and bungalows were built to cater to the wealthy visitors.

As did their European counterparts, during the 1900s and 1910s, members of the Four Hundred no longer placed as much importance on their native social seasons as they did in the past. During the early 20th century, the elite of all nationalities mingled in different locations: London or Paris during the spring, Rome or the French Riviera in winter, with possible stops in Berlin, St. Petersburg or Vienna, depending on whether the visitor possessed the proper social cachet. A typical itinerary for a New Yorker was to travel to Europe in late spring to take part in the Parisian or London seasons, spend the summer months touring Italy or visiting a German spa, and then returning to Paris in early autumn to pick up the orders made in the couture houses along the Rue de la Paix. They would then cross the Channel and embark on a steamer from Liverpool headed to New York to begin the social game all over again!

Further Reading
A Season of Splendor: the Court of Mrs. Astor in the Gilded Age by Greg King
Displaying Women: Spectacles of Leisure in Edith Wharton’s New York by Maur Montgomery
Edwardian Life & Leisure by Ronald Pearsall