Society as I Have Found It

Ward McAllister was the man who Invented the American elite. In this tart, glittering memoir from 1890, he dissects the society he helped create and then, apparently, grew to despise. McAllister takes readers inside the ballrooms of Gilded Age New York, where fortunes were made and lost over waltzes, where committee positions carried more weight than bank accounts, and where the proper preparation of a dance floor could make or break a season. He names names, settles scores, and recounts his relationships with the most powerful families in America, all while offering remarkably frank commentary on the absurdity of social climbing. Part confession, part polemic, part period document, the book captures a world of immense wealth and immense pretense, where a single ball could cost more than most Americans earned in a decade. For readers fascinated by the Gilded Age, old money, or the origins of American elite culture, this remains an indispensable primary source: a insider's confession that reads like gossip columns from a vanished world.