Where places like the aforementioned Newport, or Bar Harbor, sprang up around sleepy New England villages, and were easily accessed by the non-rich, Tuxedo Park was to be ultra-exclusive, man-made, and entirely unique. Through a combination of poker winnings and legitimate purchasing, Lorillard pieced together five thousand acres of land in the Ramapo Mountains region of Orange County, New York. At the urging of his lover, socialite-turned-actress Cora Brown Potter, he then turned the tract of land over to architect Bruce Price (the father of Emily Post) to design and build a gated community which would consist of luxurious cottages, private roads, a clubhouse, a private police station, and landscaping to mimic a rustic setting. Lorillard imported Italian and Slovak immigrants to build Tuxedo Park, and he rather thoughtlessly, but true to the period, named the shanties in which they lived “Fifth Avenue,” “Broadway,” and “Wall Street;” the workers mess hall was “Delmonico’s.”

Tuxedo Park opened in 1886, and members of the Four Hundred rushed to snap up land. However, those families who were not allotted parcels on which to erect a cottage had to undergo a formal test before being allowed to buy land and build a home: first they contracted to buy land, at which point they were examined by the Tuxedo Association for admission to the club. If a prospective homeowner was denied admission to the club, their contract to buy property was simply voided. Nonresident members were permitted to stay in Tuxedo, but only for limited periods, and family members stayed in apartments on the top floors of the clubhouse, bachelors resided in a separate building, and families with children were housed in a separate building nicknamed “the baby kennels.” As Tuxedo Park was focused around the clubhouse, it was ruled with an iron fist by George Griswold, who created a set of rules and enforced them in a socially ruthless manner.

Laura Claridge describes the opening day on May 30, 1886 in Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners:

[T]hree special trains, loaded with seven hundred guests, arrived from New York City. Green-and-gold buses and wagons, branding the scene with the club’s colors, lined up at the station to transport the visitors to the park. For latecomers, there were the Tuxedo taxicabs–single-horse covered carts, locally called “jiggers”–to pick up the slack.

Though Tuxedo Park was built as a sporting resort, its proximity to New York naturally incorporated a stay into the year-round social season–some families preferring to go there after the Newport season, instead of the Berkshires, and some even made Tuxedo their permanent residence. The year Tuxedo Park opened sparked not only the birth of the country club and modern American resort, but an item of clothing which was to change the way men dressed for formal events to this day.

There are two accounts about the origins of the tuxedo. In one account, Pierre Lorillard’s son Griswold turned up in a tail-less evening jacket at Tuxedo Park’s annual Autumn Ball and apparently, the jacket became “known as the tuxedo when a fellow asked another at the Autumn Ball, ‘Why does that man’s jacket not have coattails on it?‘ The other answered, ‘He is from Tuxedo Park.’ The first gentleman misinterpreted and told all of his friends that he saw a man wearing a jacket without coattails called a tuxedo, not from Tuxedo.”

The other account gives the provenance of the tuxedo to fellow Tuxedo Park resident James Brown Potter, who brought a Homburg jacket made at Henry Poole & Co. home from a trip to England in 1886. When Potter and his friends wore this coat to a dinner party at Delmonico’s, it created a sensation and was dubbed a “tuxedo.” Whomever originated the tuxedo, its adoption over the tailcoat was considered daring until the Prince of Wales (later Duke of Windsor)–an ardent lover of all things American–made it acceptable for semi-formal evening dress. Though tie and tails prevailed for most, the younger generation preferred the tuxedo for its slightly informal aspect and its modernity.

This week’s giveaway title is The Victorian Fern Craze. The title is rather self-explanatory, and I highly recommend this for the absolute beauty of the photographs included. According to the blurb, from 1867 to 1914, Pteridomania, or fern madness, swept Britain. The author paints a lovely picture of the care and madness that this seemingly plain plant aroused in Britain’s budding gardeners. It was during this period that the study of plants and flowers became a respected vocation, with the most masculine of gentlemen scaling mountains and valleys for one delicate flower. Pretty romantic, no? Leave a comment below to enter to win a copy of The Victorian Fern Craze by Sarah Whittingham. Entry period ends Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 11:59 pm. As always, this title and others are available from the Shire Books website.

The winner of the title is heidenkind!

*Denotes titles belonging to my personal library

The wedding customs of Edwardian England heavily influenced the fashion in America, though there were considerable differences in the former. By the late 1900s, afternoon weddings had become very popular, with 2:30 pm as the most fashionable time, despite the legally recognized time for marriage ceremonies being between 8 am and noon.

To counteract this legality, a special license was obtained (during most of the 19th century, only a few were in position to obtain them) from the Archbishop of Canterbury, after application at the Faculty Office–though a very special reason had to be given to meet with his approval. This license cost on average about £30. Two other options for marriage in England were marriage by “banns” and marriage by license. The “banns,” from an Old English word meaning “to summon”, were the public announcement in church that a marriage was going to take place between two specified persons. They were required to be published in three consecutive weeks prior to the marriage in the parish in which the groom resided and also that in which the bride resided, and both bride and groom were advised to reside at least fifteen days in their respective parishes before the banns were announced.

A marriage by license was a bit quicker, as either the bride or the groom were required to reside in their chosen parish for at least fifteen days prior to the application for the license, either in town or in the country. This £2 license was obtained at either the Faculty Office, the Vicar-General’s Office, the Doctor’s Commons, or at the chosen church where the bride and groom were to be married. On top of these fees,the officiating clergyman needed to be paid (usually according to the position and means of the groom), and the clerk who legalized the marriage required a tip. Interestingly, in Britain, all fees relating to marriage were paid by the groom, and most of the marriage details were left on his shoulders, including the purchase of the bride’s wedding ring and her bouquet, as well as the bouquets and trinkets for the bridesmaids!

In America, the arrangements and the details, if not the financial expense, of the wedding were largely assumed by the bride and her family, leaving the groom with little to do besides show up on the chosen date. The expenses of an American wedding could be heavy: for a church wedding, the services of the clergyman were requested and the church engaged for the date and hour appointed for the wedding. The sexton of the church was enlisted to have the church aired and comfortable for the impending nuptials. To him went the responsibility of making certain an awning and carpet were laid on the church floor, that a man was outside to assist guests from their carriages and maintain order, that another man was at the door to check invitations, and that a policeman was there to keep those uninvited away. To the sexton did much of the planning and preparation of a society wedding fall! Because of the superstitions held by America’s early settlers, weddings were frequently held in June, September, October, and January, though April was a popular month for city brides.

Roman Catholics prohibited marrying on Lent, and though Protestant marriages could be solemnized at any time, the old adage “Marry in Lent, you’ll live to repent” held fast, and that holiday was generally avoided. A nursery rhyme also influenced the day of the week on which a wedding was held–Monday for Wealth, Tuesday for health, Wednesday, best day of all; Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses, Saturday, no luck at all–though Friday was avoided as bearing the mark of Cain and also the stigma of Jesus’s crucifixion. The fashionable hour was high noon, though in imitation of the English, afternoon weddings were popular, and 3 pm was popular for winter weddings, and 4 pm in the spring. At one point in time, evening weddings were much in vogue, but fashionable society gave them up quickly.

The appointment of the wedding gifts were taken very seriously in the United States. The Gilded Age was truly gilded for a bride, with presents growing absurdly gorgeous, displacing the old Dutch custom of giving the young couple household items and a sum of money, and turning into a bold display of wealth and ostentatious generosity. Wedding gifts were displayed at the home of the bride two or three days before the wedding, and the bride and her mother hosted a tea as a way to thank those who sent presents–and also allow everyone to see the lavishness of the gifts sent to the bride. They were customarily placed on tables covered with white damask cloths, which were set around in an empty room to facilitate a tour of the gifts. This was in direct contrast to English custom, where wedding presents were sent to the bride’s residence immediately after the wedding and were supposed to be put in their rightful places and definitely not arranged for the purpose of display. The French did one even better, as the nearest of kin collected a sum of money which was sent to the bride’s mother, who spent it on the trousseau, or jewels or silver, or however the bride so chose.

The most important parts of the wedding were the bride’s gown and trousseau. The traditional attire for a bride was a gown of soft, rich cream-white satin, trimmed simply or elaborately with lace, a wreath of orange-blossoms, and a veil of lace or tulle. The skirt had a train, and except at an evening wedding, waists cut open, or low at the neck, or with short or elbow sleeves (unless the arms were covered with long gloves) were not approved for brides. A wedding gown was supposed to be sumptuous and of the most costly materials, for the bride was privileged to wear her wedding down for six months after her marriage at functions requiring full dress. The train averaged eighty inches in length, though very tall brides wore ninety-five inch trains.

The richest wedding gown was worn, naturally, by Consuelo Vanderbilt on her wedding to the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Of rich white satin, covered with flounces of point d’Angelterre, the court train was fastened to her shoulders and attached to the skirt below the hips, falling in a straight line to lie three and a half yards on the ground. It was edged in its entire length with a borner of rose-leaves tied by true-lovers’ knots (the irony!), wrought with pearls and tiny silver spangles. Accordingly, Consuelo’s trousseau was suitably lavish and just as detailed in the press, with Vogue publishing an illustrated article and the New York Times running nearly two pages to describing her lingerie. In her memoirs, Consuelo details the agony of “[reading in] stupefaction that my garters had gold clasps studded with diamonds, and I wondered how I should live down such vulgarities.” For men wedding attire was much simpler: morning dress was de rigeuer, though an etiquette manual published in the late 1890s detailed the declining fashion for morning wear by American men, who increasingly appeared at weddings in tuxedos.

The actual service was an equally lavish affair: the bride was driven to the church with her father, where relatives and guests awaited. Once the bride alighted from the carriage, the bridesmaids and ushers preceded her, two by two, as her father escorted her down the aisle. As the bridesmaids and ushers reached the lowest altar step, they moved alternately left and right, leaving space for the bridal pair. When the bride reached the lowest step, the groom took her by her right hand and conducted her to the altar where they both kneeled on an elaborate kneeling cushion. Formerly, brides removed the whole glove for the groom to place the ring on her finger, but by the turn of the century, gloves were made with a removable left ring-finger, to facilitate easy access. After the ceremony, the bride and groom marched down the aisle to a choir and strewn rose petals and were immediately driven home. The English fashion for wedding-breakfasts–where prior to the wedding the bride, groom, and their families, sat down to a delicious champagne brunch to toast the impending wedding–did not take off in America, and instead, a reception held after the wedding was popular. Nonetheless, the bride and groom took leave of their families and guests, and in England, were conducted in a four-in-hand to their destination, and in the United States, to the train station.

Widows marrying for a second (or third) time held noticeably simpler weddings. They were advised not to wear bridal veils, a wreath or orange blossoms, nor orange-blossoms on their gown, nor should they be attended by bridesmaids–though she could have pages should the wedding be a smart one. A widow could be given away by her father, uncle or brother, but it was optional after the first wedding, and many a quiet wedding did not feature the widow being “given away.” Formerly, widows married in gray or mauve, though it was later thought permissible for her to wear a cream or white dress, though some wore pale colors, with a matching hat or toque, and a bouquet comprised of mauve, pink, or violet flowers. Interestingly enough, the subject of a widow continuing to wear her first wedding ring was of importance, and etiquette advised the young widow to remove her first band, though she should not cease to wear it until she has arrived at the church. However, it was more usual for a formerly widowed bride to wear both rings for the remainder of her life.

The German custom of celebrating Silver weddings became a vogue in Britain of the late 1910s. The entertainments given to celebrate such an occasion were either an afternoon reception and a dinner party; a dinner party and an evening party; a dinner party and a dance; or a dinner party only, of some twenty or thirty covers. The invitations were issued on “At Home” cards three weeks beforehand, the cards being printed in silver with the name of the husband and wife, and the date and the time on them. Each person invited was expected to send a present in silver, and these were exhibited in the drawing room on the day of the Silver Wedding with a card attached to each bearing the name of the giver. At the afternoon reception, matters were much as at an afternoon wedding, with refreshments and a large wedding cake in which the wife made the first cut much as a bride would do. At the dinner party, the husband and wife went in first, followed by the guests according to precedence, and a wedding cake occupied a prominent place on the table. At the dance, the husband and wife danced the first dance together, and subsequently led the way into the supper room arm-in-arm, where their health was toasted. In the country, some Silver Weddings were celebrated in festivals ranging over three days, and balls, dinners, and treats were given to the neighbors, tenants, villagers and servants. At this celebration, the wife wore white and silver, or gray and silver.

Further Reading:
Manners and Rules of Good Society (1913) by A Member of the Aristocracy
The Book of Weddings (1907) by Mrs. Burton Kingsland
Manners and Social Usages (1897) by Mrs. John Sherwood
The Wedding Day in All Ages and Countries in Two Volumes (1869) by Edward J. Wood
Everyday Etiquette (1905) by Marion Harland and Virginia Van de Water

This uniquely North American institution soon flourished and soon, new or auxiliary chapters of existing fraternities were present on nearly all college and university campuses across America. At the same time, sororities (initially called fraternities until the word was used to define Gamma Phi Beta at Syracuse University in 1874) grew from the popular Greek movement, with Kappa Alpha Theta of DuPauw and Kappa Kappa Gamma (both 1870) formally recognized as being the first secret society for collegiate women based on the Greek secret societies for men.

Taking note of this, America’s black educated elite followed suit, and Alpha Phi Alpha became the first intercollegiate Greek letter fraternity established for people of African descent when it chartered a chapter in 1906 at Cornell University. In Spring 1907, Ethel Hedgeman led the efforts to create a sisterhood at Howard University, inspired by the Greek experience of future-husband George Lyle, who was a charter member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity’s Beta chapter at Howard.

Hedgeman recruited any interested ladies and by autumn of that year, Hedgeman and eight other women began to draw plans for the organization. With Hedgeman serving as the temporary chairperson, the women wrote the sorority’s constitution, devised the motto and colors, and named the sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. In early 1908, seven sophomore honor students expressed interest and were accepted without initiation; however, the first initiation was held in a wing of Miner Hall on Howard University on February 11, 1909.

Alpha Kappa Alpha grew at leaps and bounds at Howard, and featured a bevy of ritual and sponsored social events. The sorority did hit its first snag, however, in 1912, when twenty-two members were initiated and seven officers were elected. The twenty-two were dismayed at progress and wanted to reorganize the sorority, leading to a split into two factions. The new members wanted to establish a national organization, enlarge the scope of activities of the sorority, change its name and symbols, and be more politically oriented. When Nellie Quander, a graduate member, heard about changing the sorority name, she disagreed and gave the other women a deadline to stop the efforts to reorganize the sorority. However, the twenty-two declined and instead formed Delta Sigma Theta on January 13, 1913.

Quander later revised her opinion, and along with five other sorority members, led an initiative to incorporate Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority as a perpetual body on January 29, 1913.The organization was nationally incorporated in Washington, D.C., as a non-profit under the name Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated on January 30, 1913. During the same year the sorority began using Greek names for officers. After this, AKA continued to spread its wings with a second chapter at the University of Chicago in was chartered in fall 1913, with many others following soon after.

In a time when women were marginalized, and women of color were even more so, the ladies of AKA possessed a bravery and courage in their active role in the voting concerns of the day and the support for black rights and education. In addition, Alpha Kappa Alpha helped to support members by providing scholarship funds for school and foreign studies.

After graduating from Howard, Ethel Hedgeman Lyle and the other founding members of AKA continued to be a guiding light to subsequent pledges and members, using their education and social standing to uplift and encourage the lives of black Americans, and uphold the sisterhood, amidst crushing racism and violence practiced against blacks. Today, the sorority boasts a membership of college-trained women around the world, with active members who comprise a diverse constituency, from educators to heads of state, politicians, lawyers, medical professionals, media personalities, and corporate managers, and many chapters, located in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, Germany, Korea and Japan.

For more information:
Alpha Kappa Alpha (wikipedia)
Official Website
Centenary Celebration

By the end of the 19th century, society both fashionable and wealthy, as well as the entertainment world, moved up the island. Broadway was lined with electric streetlights and packed around the clock with theatergoers, club patrons, chorus girls and tourists. But the glamorous limelight was at this time focused on 42nd Street and points south, in the district then known as the Upper Rialto. This scene marked the birth of Times Square.

Originally called Longacre Square after a similar London district, this intersection of 42nd Street, Bloomingdale Road and Seventh Avenue was made of the nexus of important roads to the north of the island. With the shift north, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs moved his operations to the newly-built Times Tower. Marooned on a tiny triangle of land at the intersection of 7th Avenue, Broadway and 42nd Street, it was at the time Manhattan’s second-tallest building. Having persuaded the mayor to build a subway station there, the area was also renamed “Times Square” on April 8, 1904. Three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway.

To inaugurate the move, Ochs hosted a massive celebration in the square for New Year’s Eve. Over 200,000 people attended the all-day street festival, which culminated in a fireworks display set off from the base of the tower, and at midnight the joyful sound of cheering, rattles and noisemakers from the attendees could be heard, it was said, from as far away as Croton-on-Hudson, thirty miles north along the Hudson River. While there was no ball, the popularity of the party paved the way for the first dropping of a time ball in Times Square to ring in the New Year on December 31, 1907.

The first New Year’s Eve Ball was built by a young immigrant metalworker named Jacob Starr, and for most of the twentieth century the company he founded, sign maker Artkraft Strauss, was responsible for lowering the ball. Constructed with iron and wood materials with 100 25-watt bulbs weighing 700 pounds (318 kg) and measuring 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter, it was affixed to the flagpole at 1 Times Square to drop 1 second after midnight. To ring in 1908, waiters in lobster palaces and fine restaurants in the hotels surrounding Times Square were supplied with battery-operated top hats emblazoned with the numbers “1908″ fashioned of tiny light bulbs. At the stroke of midnight, they all “flipped their lids” and the year on their foreheads lit up – conjunction with the numbers “1908″ on the parapet of the Times Tower lighting up to signal the arrival of the new year.

One can only imagine how chaotic the celebration must have been, based on the report given by the Times:

“…100,000 people supped at midnight. The storm center was the new Hotel Plaza, at 5th avenue and the Plaza. Between 11 and midnight, more than 6000 people stormed the doors. Crowds filled the lobbies and almost fought their way into the three large dining rooms and tea room. People who had reserved tables couldn’t get in for all the rush…Mrs Stuyvesant Fish got no further than the entry until a gentleman used his girth to force his way through the crowd for her to follow…Visiting from place to place was very much the vogue. Many who began at the Plaza went to Cafe Martin later. Each hotel and restaurant was filled with celebrities culled from the stage and opera–Lina Cavalieri, Caruso, John Barrymore–society and the very rich…The Waldorf-Astoria was a social scene. Venetian fete on the eighth floor of the Hotel Astor…The proprietor of Cafe Martin gave permission for ladies to smoke that night, but none did…From to midnight, Broadway from Canal to the Battery, was crowded with merrymakers. Just before the ringing of the chimes in the tower of Trinity Church the crowd surged onto Broadway, and from Vesey Street south, passage was impossible for cars and carriages…”

A testament to New York’s rapid change, Times Square went from simple area known for its horses and carriages to the dazzling, billboard advertisement square you see today in a period of less than ten years. Despite its complete transformation, there remains one constant link with the past: the New Year’s Eve celebration.

In a manner, the dandy was the male counterpart of the professional beauty: he had no other occupation than to devote himself to being clever, witty, well-dressed and amusing. Much like the Regency dandy, the Edwardian version flourished in an era where birth and breeding were no longer indicative of entrance into exclusive circles of society.

In England, King Edward set the standard by his attention to the finer details of dress. So acute were his sensibilities, he was not above rebuking a subject for not appearing up to date: as in the case of the Marquess of Salisbury, who, rushing to a Drawing Room and dressing without his valet, horrified the Prince of Wales by his haphazard attire (according to an account, Lord Salisbury ironically replied, “It was a dark morning, and I am afraid that at the moment my mind must have been occupied by some subject of less importance.”), or with the American-born Duchess of Marlborough, who was coldly rebuked by the king when she appeared at a supper wearing diamond combs in her hair instead of a tiara, like the Queen (to this, Consuelo quietly answered she had little time to change, having hurried home from a charity event). Under his aegis, it was very important to know exactly when to wear the right clothes, as any departure from the norm was regarded as a social gaffe.

As such, the 1880s and 1890s found dandyism once more of good repute. The English dandy oddly enough, was most likely found in the Houses of Parliament. With the exception of W.E. Gladstone, new standards of sartorial elegance were set, most notably by Lord Randolph Churchill and Joseph Chamberlain, whose image became synonymous with the ever-present monocle, silk hat and orchid boutonnière he wore. On stage, the plays of Shaw, Pinero and Wilde demanded super-fine, even fantastical costumes for the male characters, and the “fashionable novel,” which depicted the lives of the upper classes, made a triumphant return, and every one had its chorus of showy dandies. In 1889, the London weekly, Vanity Fair, debuted a new column, “The Fashion for Men” by “the Man in the Mall”, whose author wrote detailed recommendations for “stiff collars, velvet bands, true and false waistcoats, peg-top trousers, yellow gloves, gilded sticks, and violet boutonnières”.

The most notorious dandy of this period was, of course, Oscar Wilde. His early years were spent in the standard clothing of a middle-class young man: tiny Bowler tipped rakishly over a brow, bright tweeds and comfortable trousers, waistcoat and jacket. By the end of his term at Oxford, he set himself on the path to becoming “Professor of Aesthetics” and dressed the part in knee breeches, a flowing tie, velvet coat, wide, turned-down collar, and a drooping lily. Laying siege to London society, he quickly conquered such notables as Henry Irving, Sarah Bernhardt, Lillie Langtry and Ellen Terry, among others, by writing them countless invitations to supper, flower arrangements and requests for photographs. These celebrities, and anyone with which they associated, were news, and by 1880, two years after Wilde came down from Oxford, he was a star. Moving from strength to strength in the ’80s, by the wit of his pen and sweat of his violet-scented brow, Wilde’s plays reached the stage, and to wild success. As he achieved both financial security and creative success, his style of dress changed from that of languid Aesthete to the florid Regency-era dandy. In the ’90s, fame, brought about by his plays, replaced the trivial notoriety of his earlier years, and his dress became coldly correct, Wilde expressing his individuality with a single detail: a green boutonnière, a bright red waistcoat, or a turquoise and diamond stud.

Caricatures of Max Beerbohm show him attired in a high stiff collar, gloves, a carefully tilted silk hat, a cane, a boutonnière, an artfully bulging frock coat, and tapering trousers–the basic equipment for the ’90s dandy of the most correct school. A contemporary of Wilde’s, and half-brother to celebrated actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Max Beerbohm exemplified the Edwardian dandy. As befitting a proper dandy of this period, he was in much demand as a guest at the great dinner parties of Mayfair, where he was considered by many to be the greatest wit in town. His inspiration came directly from Brummell and D’Orsay, and as the era experienced a revival in the 1880s and 1890s, materializing in numerous plays, and reprinted memoirs and biographies,it was as “prophet” of the English Regency that his reputation was made.

Across the Channel, the French dandy was personified in many of le gratin‘s gentlemen, most notably Comte Robert de Montesquiou and Comte Boni de Castellane. Both gentlemen were members of France’s most elite aristocracy, and both had a reputation for decadence and bizarre ostentation. The favorite subject of Comte Robert de Montesquiou was himself, and his vanity prompted him to commission innumerable portraits of himself. To any criticism, he was indifferent, saying “It is better to be hated than to be unknown.” Descending from the dukes of Gascony and the Merovingian kings, he was exceedingly proud of his royal connections and, sublimely self-assured, he held sway over a worshipful band of muses, literary ladies and young Symbolists. He selected his costume based upon his moods, and could turn up in sky-blue, or his famous almond-green outfit with a white velvet waistcoat. His collection of scarf pins was notorious; ranging in motif from an emerald butterfly to an onyx death’s head. On a finger, he wore a large signet ring with a crystal hollowed out to contain one human tear. Adding to this affectation was Comte Robert’s place of residence. Living on the top floor of his father’s hotel prive, his remote suite of rooms were reached by climbing a dark, twisting staircase and passing through a carpeted tunnel lined with tapestry. In this suite were fantastical rooms decorated by his various moods: a pink room, a gray room (for which he ransacked flower stalls daily for gray flowers), a room featuring a Russian sleigh and polar-bear rug, and a library housed in a glass conservatory.

Though his wife was extremely plain, Anna Gould had a dowry of fifteen million dollars. Bolstered by this, Boni de Castellane devoted himself to the art of dandyism, spending those millions lavishly on the construction of the Palais Rose, a pink marble palace in the Avenue du Bois fitted with a staircase as grand as that of the Opera, an immense ballroom and a private theatre with five hundred seats; maintaining two châteaux in the country, a villa at Deauville and a 1600-ton yacht; buying priceless works of art; and becoming the best dressed man in Europe. Despite his spendthrift behavior, Comte Boni was a person of polish and culture, who could converse on any subject. His only crime was to have been born in the wrong century, for he adored the court of eighteenth century Versailles, and did anything to recreate the bygone era. His reign came to an abrupt end, however, in 1906 when he arrived home to discover the electricity out. After eleven years of marriage, five children and the spending of $10 million of her dowry, Anna Gould had filed for divorce. She cut off his funds, threw him out of his houses and sent his clothes, his only remaining fortune, to him in care of his parents and shortly thereafter, married his cousin.

The outbreak of the Great War brought la belle epoque to an abrupt end, and with it, the dandy. Certainly gentlemen since have cared greatly for their appearance, but the art, the cultivation of it, and even the acceptance and admiration of it by both men and women, seems strictly the province of the long nineteenth century.

Further Reading:
The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm by Ellen Moers
Dandies and Desert Saints: Styles of Victorian Masculinity by James Eli Adams
Dandies by James Laver
Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes by Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell
Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II by Philip Mansel

The law of England regarded marriage as a contract, a status and institution. Up until 1857, divorce was administered by ecclesiastical courts, who created such a long, frustrating and expensive route to end a marriage, most unhappy couples had no choice but to remain together. Upon the passing of the controversial Divorce Act of 1857, the jurisdiction was passed from the ecclesiastical courts to a new civil tribunal, and absolute divorce was sanctioned with permission of remarriage on proof of adultery on the part of the wife, or adultery and cruelty on the part of the husband.

For the miserable couple willing to weather the scandal and the exclusion from the choicest circles, if not the still considerable expense, the application for divorce would be made by a petition to the Probate Divorce and Division of the Court of Justice. The party seeking relief was called the “petitioner” and the party against whom the petition is brought was called the “respondent“. If the wife was accused of adultery, the party with whom she committed this “criminal act” was the “co-respondent.” However, the person with whom the wife alleged her husband had committed adultery was not a party to the suit–but a woman implicated in a divorce suit could, upon proper application, be allowed to secure an order permitting her to attend the proceedings as an “intervener.”

While a husband was entitled to a divorce if his wife committed adultery, a wife had to jump through hoops. Besides adultery, a husband had to commit incestuous adultery, bigamy, rape,  sodomy, bestiality, adultery coupled with cruelty, or adultery coupled with desertion without reasonable excuse for two years or more. Incestuous adultery was adultery with a woman within the prohibited degrees (sister, grandmother, mother-in-law, etc). Furthermore, a wife would not be granted a degree of divorce on the grounds of cruelty and adultery, unless the cruelty consisted of bodily hurt or injury to health, and at least two acts of cruelty on the party of the husband were required. Thankfully (in this instance at least), the communication of venereal disease when the husband knew of his condition was considered an act of cruelty.

Barring condonation (where a matrimonial offense, which is a sufficient cause for divorce, is condoned or forgiven by the spouse aggrieved), connivance (where the adultery complained of was committed by the connivance or active consent of the petitioner) or collusion (the illegal agreement and co-operation between the petitioner and the respondent in a divorce action to obtain a judicial dissolution of the marriage), the couple was on its way to receiving a decree nisi. If, after six months, it was unaffected by any intervention by the King’s Proctor or any other person it could be made decree absolute upon proper application.

For the gentleman or lady who desired lose an undesirable spouse, there was no greater a solicitor than Sir George Lewis of Ely Place, Holburn. Described by contemporary portraits as a “pleasant-voiced, white-haired, dapper little man” who was the “depository of so many scandalous secrets,” it was he who helped society’s brightest extricate themselves from sticky situations–such as the time when Lady Charles Beresford attempted to blackmail the Countess of Warwick into breaking off her relations with Lord Charles, and Lady Warwick brought in the Prince of Wales to back her up.

The divorce court itself was a source of entertainment. On almost any day, particularly if a scandalous case was being tried, a line some fifty or sixty people deep, made mostly of women, queued up at Royal Courts of Justice the for a seat in the public gallery. This was a considerable annoyance to junior barristers, who, especially when an aristocratic trial brought a crush, were perpetually unable to find a sufficient number of seats.

Despite collusion nullifying a petition for divorce, it was a standard procedure for couples who just couldn’t stand one another. To spare the wife even greater scandal, she would hire a private detective to follow her husband on an appointed night, the husband himself having hired a lady to impersonate his lover, and there would be proof of adultery. On the other hand, a wife could publicly refuse to share her husband’s bed, and he could sue for divorce based on her repudiation of his conjugal rights. If divorce was unobtainable, a couple could petition for a legal separation, which was easier to receive, but the prospect of a future divorce was made a bit more difficult.

The most difficult part of an English divorce were the children. Unlike in France or America,where children of divorced parents lost nothing and were at liberty to watch over their bringing-up, according to English law, a guilty mother was entirely deprived of their custody and even access (however, it was allowed for a faithless father). Under no circumstances, if the mother was found guilty, would she have custody of the children regardless of their ages. In divorce, the guilty woman lost everything: income, custody and access to children, reputation, and even in some cases her husband’s name.

Sources:
Thirty-five Years in the Divorce Court by Henry Edwin Fenn
Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders
The Eighth Year by Phillip Gibbs
Edwardian Stories of Divorce by Janice Hubbard Harris
Marriage and Divorce Laws of the World by Hyacinthe Ringrose