Author: BIRMINGHAM, STEPHEN
Title: The Grandes Dames the Wonderfully Uninhibited Ladies Who Used Their Wealth & Position to Create American Culture in Their Own Images?from the Gilded Age to Modern Times
Description: Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2016. First Edition Thus. Paperback. ISBN: 1493024752. 8.7 X 5.8 X 0.4 inches; 299 pages; Soft cover has purple spine with white lettering. Slight rubbing to covers. Originally printed in 1982. 'Astor. Rockefeller. McCormick. Belmont. All family names that still adorn buildings, streets and charity foundations. While the men blazed across America with their oil, industry, and railways, the matriarchs founded art museums, opera houses, and symphony houses that functioned almost as private clubs. These women ruled American society with a style and impact that make today's socialites seem pale reflections of their forbears. Linked by money, marriage, privilege, power and class, they formed a grand American matriarchy that dominated the social and cultural life of the nation between the 1870s and the Second World War. The Grandes Dames of America knew just what they wanted and precisely how to get it, and when faced with criticism, malice or jealousy, they would rise above their detractors and usually persevere. Preeminent social historian Stephen Birmingham takes us into the drawing rooms of these powerful women, providing keen insights into aspects of an American Society that no longer exists...' Index.. Fine .

Keywords: 1493024752 9781493024759; Cultural History; Social History; Women's History; Biography; American History; Society; Upper Classes; 19th Century America; Women/Womens' History Cultural History History American History Biography/Memoirs/Journals Judaism/Jewi