A Season of Splendor

A Season of Splendor PDF Author: Greg King
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1620458837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
Journey through the splendor and the excesses of the Gilded Age "Every aspect of life in the Gilded Age took on deeper, transcendent meaning intended to prove the greatness of America: residences beautified their surroundings; works of art uplifted and were shared with the public; clothing exhibited evidence of breeding; jewelry testified to cultured taste and wealth; dinners demonstrated sophisticated palates; and balls rivaled those of European courts in their refinement. The message was unmistakable: the United States had arrived culturally, and Caroline Astor and her circle were intent on leading the nation to unimagined heights of glory."—From A Season of Splendor Take a dazzling journey through the Gilded Age, the period from roughly the 1870s to 1914, when bluebloods from older, established families met the nouveau riche headlong—railway barons, steel magnates, and Wall Street speculators—and forged an uneasy and glittering new society in New York City. The best of the best were Caroline Astor's 400 families, and she shaped and ruled this high society with steel. A Season of Splendor is a panoramic sweep across this sumptuous landscape, presenting the families, the wealth, the balls, the clothing, and the mansions in vivid detail—as well as the shocking end of the era with the sinking of the Titanic.

A Season of Splendor

A Season of Splendor PDF Author: Greg King
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1620458837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
Journey through the splendor and the excesses of the Gilded Age "Every aspect of life in the Gilded Age took on deeper, transcendent meaning intended to prove the greatness of America: residences beautified their surroundings; works of art uplifted and were shared with the public; clothing exhibited evidence of breeding; jewelry testified to cultured taste and wealth; dinners demonstrated sophisticated palates; and balls rivaled those of European courts in their refinement. The message was unmistakable: the United States had arrived culturally, and Caroline Astor and her circle were intent on leading the nation to unimagined heights of glory."—From A Season of Splendor Take a dazzling journey through the Gilded Age, the period from roughly the 1870s to 1914, when bluebloods from older, established families met the nouveau riche headlong—railway barons, steel magnates, and Wall Street speculators—and forged an uneasy and glittering new society in New York City. The best of the best were Caroline Astor's 400 families, and she shaped and ruled this high society with steel. A Season of Splendor is a panoramic sweep across this sumptuous landscape, presenting the families, the wealth, the balls, the clothing, and the mansions in vivid detail—as well as the shocking end of the era with the sinking of the Titanic.

The Second Mrs. Astor

The Second Mrs. Astor PDF Author: Shana Abe
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 1496732057
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
"Abé is an exquisite storyteller. Rich in detail and deeply moving." —Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnolia Palace "One of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. A gorgeous, phenomenal novel I won’t soon forget.” —Ellen Marie Wiseman New York Times bestselling Author of The Orphan Collector Perfect for fans of Jennifer Chiaverini and Marie Benedict, this riveting novel takes you inside the scandalous courtship and catastrophic honeymoon aboard the Titanic of the most famous couple of their time—John Jacob Astor and Madeleine Force. Told in rich detail, this novel of sweeping historical fiction will stay with readers long after turning the last page. Madeleine Talmage Force is just seventeen when she attracts the attention of John Jacob “Jack” Astor. Madeleine is beautiful, intelligent, and solidly upper-class, but the Astors are in a league apart. Jack’s mother was the Mrs. Astor, American royalty and New York’s most formidable socialite. Jack is dashing and industrious—a hero of the Spanish-American war, an inventor, and a canny businessman. Despite their twenty-nine-year age difference, and the scandal of Jack’s recent divorce, Madeleine falls headlong into love—and becomes the press’s favorite target. On their extended honeymoon in Egypt, the newlyweds finally find a measure of peace from photographers and journalists. Madeleine feels truly alive for the first time—and is happily pregnant. The couple plans to return home in the spring of 1912, aboard an opulent new ocean liner. When the ship hits an iceberg close to midnight on April 14th, there is no immediate panic. The swift, state-of-the-art RMS Titanic seems unsinkable. As Jack helps Madeleine into a lifeboat, he assures her that he’ll see her soon in New York… Four months later, at the Astors’ Fifth Avenue mansion, a widowed Madeleine gives birth to their son. In the wake of the disaster, the press has elevated her to the status of virtuous, tragic heroine. But Madeleine’s most important decision still lies ahead: whether to accept the role assigned to her, or carve out her own remarkable path… “A touching, compelling, and haunting love story that will delight fans of historical fiction and enthrall those of us for whom the Titanic will always fascinate.” —Hazel Gaynor, New York Times bestselling author of When We Were Young and Brave “An engaging novel told with both heartbreaking care and vivid detail. The Second Mrs. Astor is historical fiction at its gripping and irresistible best.” —Patti Callahan , New York Times bestselling author of Surviving Savannah and Becoming Mrs. Lewis

Mrs. Astor's New York

Mrs. Astor's New York PDF Author: Eric Homberger
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300105155
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Mrs Astor, queen of New York society in the decades before World War I, used her prestige to create a social aristocracy in the city. Mrs Astor's story, told here by Eric Homberger, sheds light on the origins, extravagant lifestyle, and social competitiveness of this aristocracy.

When the Astors Owned New York

When the Astors Owned New York PDF Author: Justin Kaplan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101218819
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
In this marvelous anecdotal history, Justin Kaplan––Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Mark Twain––vividly brings to life a glittering, bygone age. Endowed with the largest private fortunes of their day, cousins John Jacob Astor IV and William Waldorf Astor vied for primacy in New York society, producing the grandest hotels ever seen in a marriage of ostentation and efficiency that transformed American social behavior. Kaplan exposes it all in exquisite detail, taking readers from the 1890s to the Roaring Twenties in a combination of biography, history, architectural appreciation, and pure reading pleasure

The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story

The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story PDF Author: Frances Kiernan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393078841
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
"Kiernan's sharp-eyed biography brings back a woman who, far into her 90s, relished the dance of life." —O, The Oprah Magazine This biography, based on firsthand knowledge and interviews with Mrs. Astor’s friends and the heads of New York’s great cultural institutions, gives us back the woman so loved and admired. At the age of 51, Brooke Astor wedded the notoriously ill-tempered Vincent Astor, who died in 1959. In a highly publicized courtroom battle, she fought off an attempt to break Vincent’s will, which left $67 million to the Vincent Astor Foundation. As the foundation’s president, Mrs. Astor would use this legacy to benefit New York City. She would personally visit every grant applicant and charm anyone she met. At her hundredth birthday, princes and presidents honored her, but in 2006 a grandson petitioned the courts to have his father removed as Brooke’s guardian. Once again an Astor court battle became the stuff of headlines.

Mrs. Astor Regrets

Mrs. Astor Regrets PDF Author: Meryl Gordon
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0618893733
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Gordon's powerful, poignant saga goes behind the gates of a powerful American dynasty--the Astors--to tell of three generations' worth of longing and missed opportunities, which ultimately led to the empire's unraveling.

The First Four Hundred

The First Four Hundred PDF Author: Jerry E. Patterson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Elite (Social sciences)
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


Gilded New York

Gilded New York PDF Author: Phyllis Magidson
Publisher: The Monacelli Press, LLC
ISBN: 158093367X
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The Gilded Years of the late nineteenth century were a vital and glamorous era in New York City as families of great fortune sought to demonstrate their new position by building vast Fifth Avenue mansions filled with precious objects and important painting collections and hosting elaborate fetes and balls. This is the moment of Mrs. Astor’s “Four Hundred,” the rise of the Vanderbilts and Morgans, Maison Worth, Tiffany & Co., Duveen, and Allard. Concurrently these families became New York’s first cultural philanthropists, supporting the fledgling Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Opera, among many institutions founded during this period. A collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York, Gilded New York examines the social and cultural history of these years, focusing on interior design and decorative arts, fashion and jewelry, and the publications that were the progenitors of today’s shelter magazines.

The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910

The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910 PDF Author: Esther Crain
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
ISBN: 031635368X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 681

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Book Description
The drama, expansion, mansions and wealth of New York City's transformative Gilded Age era, from 1870 to 1910, captured in a magnificently illustrated hardcover. In forty short years, New York City suddenly became a city of skyscrapers, subways, streetlights, and Central Park, as well as sprawling bridges that connected the once-distant boroughs. In Manhattan, more than a million poor immigrants crammed into tenements, while the half of the millionaires in the entire country lined Fifth Avenue with their opulent mansions. The Gilded Age in New York captures what is was like to live in Gotham then, to be a daily witness to the city's rapid evolution. Newspapers, autobiographies, and personal diaries offer fascinating glimpses into daily life among the rich, the poor, and the surprisingly large middle class. The use of photography and illustrated periodicals provides astonishing images that document the bigness of New York: the construction of the Statue of Liberty; the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge; the shimmering lights of Luna Park in Coney Island; the mansions of Millionaire's Row. Sidebars detail smaller, fleeting moments: Alice Vanderbilt posing proudly in her "Electric Light" ball gown at a society-changing masquerade ball; immigrants stepping off the boat at Ellis Island; a young Theodore Roosevelt witnessing Abraham Lincoln's funeral. The Gilded Age in New York is a rare illustrated look at this amazing time in both the city and the country as a whole. Author Esther Crain, the go-to authority on the era, weaves first-hand accounts and fascinating details into a vivid tapestry of American society at the turn of the century. Praise for New-York Historical Society New York City in 3D In The Gilded Age, also by Esther Crain: "Vividly captures the transformation from cityscape of horse carriages and gas lamps 'bursting with beauty, power and possibilities' as it staggered into a skyscraping Imperial City." -- Sam Roberts, The New York Times "Get a glimpse of Edith Wharton's world." -- Entertainment Weekly Must List "What better way to revisit this rich period . . ?" -- Library Journal

Manhattan Moves Uptown

Manhattan Moves Uptown PDF Author: Charles Lockwood
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486781208
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Compiled from newspaper archives and richly illustrated with historic images, this fascinating chronicle traces the city's growth from Wall Street to Harlem during the period between 1783 and the early 20th century.