“She made the butcher bring one piece of meat after another until she found one that looked tender enough to suit her.
‘It’s not for me, it’s for my dog,’ she explained haughtily to the waiting women in the shop who were beginning to be impatient.
‘That dog’s going to make the Social Register yet!’ the butcher declared to an appreciative audience when she had left.
For some time after that, I believed that the Register was an exclusive listing of dogs – and it came as quite a shock to me when I discovered the truth.”
“But she felt she had no choice. Her position in society was threatened. The socialite did succeed in having a local judge declare the divorce invalid on a technicality. Her husband’s life was disrupted. His second wife was no longer a wife at all. But presumably the first wife’s club privileges were restored.”
“I just contributed $10,000 to charity. And I think people should know about it.”
“Very few people here know that this book, which influences top-drawer society, was run for many years by the daughter of a train conductor.”
“The comeback of society is, of course, a side reaction to the comeback of money.”
“One impoverished gentleman, now working for a large corporation, recently asked his employer, a more fortunate son of society, for a raise. He complained that some new houses had been built and he could see them from his land. He wanted the extra money to finance the creation of a hill to shield his home – an estate beyond question – from theirs. His employer refused the increase, but he paid for the raising of the hill himself. He understood this was really important.”
“‘When you start doing volunteer work,’ a friend in the Junior League discloses, ‘you discover a very strange fact: Lots of the people you help would not dream of accepting charity from anyone else. But they feel flattered by getting attention from debutantes.’
‘They have to go to the Social Register to find someone good enough to help me!’ is the unspoken but prevalent view of many people aided.”
“‘On a boy’s wedding day I tear up his card,’ Miss Palmer declared dramatically, adding a moment later: ‘Of course I expect him back on file in eleven or twelve years as the father of a future debutante.’”
“I asked Miss Palmer how she has been able to equal (or even outdistance) her formidable rivals in the field so quickly. She thought for a moment, then answered: ‘I’m the only one of the three who has never married. This is my whole life.’”
“Many old people, although poor now, are pleased at attention from well-born young ladies.”
“Although the Old Guard may not believe it, there are people today – even quite well-to-do and respectable people–who have never heard of the St. Cecilia Society or the Terpsichorean Club of Raleigh and who think that the Baltimore Cotillon is spelled with two ‘i’s.”
“The West Coast is traditionally the land of opportunities, so people expect to make their way there easily. ‘You’re thinking of Los Angeles. They don’t even have a Social Register there,’ is apt to be the snide comment of San Franciscans.”
“And boys will come to New York parties from Boston, Philadelphia, or even Detroit if the hostess has a famous society name or is a former native of those cities. So will girls, but nobody needs girls, unfortunately, at least as party guests. There are too many of them already.”
“It was there in 1906, at Mary Astor Paul’s debut, that ten thousand exotic butterflies were brought from Brazil and stored in a cylinder suspended from the ceiling to be released at the high point of the ball. Unfortunately, the butterflies died and their release brought chaos instead of joy.”
“The subdebutantes provide their own escorts. The boys must be members. But the committee will consider for membership any young man suggested.
‘Is it hard to get a boy in?’ a woman asked innocently. Her question was greeted with laughter.”
[From The Private World Of High Society]
DEAD BUTTERFLIES OMG.
I was at a wedding many years ago. They gave everyone a small box with a butterfly in to be released at the appropriate time. Well it was a warm sunny day.. and a long ceremony. So when everyone opened their boxes to toss the butterflies into the air to majestically fly away, about half plummeted right back down to earth.
Don’t even get me started on the bride having dated both the grooms twin brother, and step brother.
D:
D:
D:
D:
D:Ɑ
I love this whole story, despite feeling sad about the wasted butterfly lives.
Are they still married though.
Or did the butterfly ghosts get their revenge.
They are still married.
I did leave out the fact that they had a photo montage of themselves playing before the ceremony, so we all played “which twin is that in the pic”, b/c we are horrible people. As well as wondering “how identical are they?”
And the toast from her uncle, which referenced how much she liked to be spanked as a little kid, and the groom should keep that in mind… wink. ewwww
This sounds like the WORST wedding I wish I had been there.
D:
D:
D:
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Oh! And they named their two kids themed. I don’t want to put them in here in case some one is searching one day, but the boy was named after a famous baseball field in Chicago, and the girl after the street the field is on.
Is it Comerica?
Those are some devoted masochists.
Oh this is the best/worst thing.
Ugh, is that a girls name now? I am not ever That Person but here I will be because there’s so much to take in.
Also I have distant triplet cousins who were all named after golfers…their last names, and one of them is a girl, and ugh. People. PEOPLE.
It actually is a super popular girls’ name now — it almost hit the top 10 a couple times.
They’re named Cellular and West 35th???
nononononononononono
Holy God.
oh my GOD thank you for this.
Truly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.
What the actual what
I would quite like you to get started on that, actually. Please go on.
EXACTLY
I am not afraid of insects, but I am very afraid of dead insects, so that is a special kind of hell right there.
I AM TOO. I’ve never met anyone else with that particular fear. SOLIDARITY.
I feel so validated!!
I’m afraid of killing harmless or beneficial insects. Or even insects that are no danger to me at this exact moment. There’s something so awful about killing something for no reason. I accidentally killed a beautiful jumping spider and I could just hear some novelist use that moment as a character description of someone despicable.
I feel so guilty about killing insects that are an inconvenience to me, because really, I couldn’t let that beetle live? But then I start thinking about what would happen if I really embraced that philosophy wholeheartedly, and about that time we had pantry moths. Would I really just be like “this is fine I will not kill any of these moths laying eggs IN MY FOOD”? And then I stun them with a flyswatter and have my cat come eat them. That way it’s the circle of life.
Hmm, yes, perhaps “danger” is the wrong word and I should have gone with “dangerous to me or my belongings.” Because the spiders and such would still be A-Okay but then I don’t have to seem hypocritical about carpet beetles.
And NO WAY are you supposed to be chill about things laying eggs in your food. That’s a vector of disease there and I don’t care if technically pantry moths aren’t vectors they sure could be without any trouble.
I can’t even imagine what this looked like, all those delicate debutantes probably crying and fainting, and Miss Mary Astor Paul’s mother hissing to her husband “her chances are ruined now, Charles, RUINED.”
I picture Miss Paul as Cheryl from Miss Congeniality in that moment. I do not blame either of them for that reaction.
After reading the anecdote I felt compelled to find out what Mary Astor Paul’s fate was and apparently she eventually divorced the butterfly husband (you would have to wouldn’t you) and married a Frenchman, then joined the French Resistance and palled around Paris with fellow former debutantes
I am SO GLAD you looked this up
Excellent gif game, just excellent.
As resident gif doyenne CleverManka might put it,
Imagine the rustling WHUMP of a pile of dead butterflies falling like a bag of raked leaves onto a crowd of rich people.
Your wording on this is DELIGHTFUL.
The above is immediately what I imagined.
My cousin decided to include a windup paper butterfly (like so: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Twi… in her wedding invitation. I had no idea that it was in the invitation, and had just seen the episode of GAME OF THRONES where someone tries to kill Daenerys with an evil buzzing scarab thing. Luckily, my fiance had not yet started the car when I opened the invitation, because when that thing sprang out and started buzzing at me I let out the most unearthly shriek I have ever uttered. Scared me to death. Those of you who are engaged, please do not include one of those in your invitation.
This isn’t why the invitations to my wedding were entirely electronic, but it isn’t not why.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to guillotine old people this badly before.
Well, as long as you aren’t gauche enough to think that it is spelled with two ‘i’s, I imagine that would be just fine.
“Train …conductor?”
(Puts tea cup down)
“Is that anything at all like the symphony?”
A+ usage of Kate Beaton comic.
That’s pretty old.
Why can I not find a version of this for kindle, it sounds like the perfect book for mad highlighting and automatic saving of said highlights to send to all your friends with a lot of exclamation points and emojis
Kindles are for plebs, obviously.
I echo your sadness. I would even buy the print version if it didn’t cost almost $50.
Imagine being Hill Man’s employer. Imagine having to look at that request with your own eyes. Imagine having to continue to work with that Hillock Pillock.
That Summit Twit.
That Tor Bore.
That Knoll Dillhole.
I live in a city where Society is still very much a Thing, and one of the big-name ladies is currently trying to get building approval for a 30-foot wall around her property that will hide her view of her neighbor’s trees. Sadly, she does not have an employer who can assist her with this venture.
What’s wrong with the neighbor’s trees? Also, then the neighbor is going to have to get taller trees to block the view of the wall. Where will it all end?
In the area where I grew up, apparently no one ever wanted to see beyond their own yard. In every even slightly moneyed neighborhood, all the houses are surrounded with berms covered with trees and wildflowers and such. There are berms all along the highway to spare the homes its invasive presence. Everyone lives in a private tiny valley.
It must get so soggy when it rains.
Has she never fucking read The Selfish Giant? THIRTY FEET?
“So will girls, but nobody needs girls, unfortunately, at least as party guests. There are too many of them already.”
Cool, way to impress value on your daughters. We’ll be over here having lady parties, thanks very much.
I read some of the book–boys were in such demand because they wanted a 3-1 boy/girl ratio. Why was not explained–maybe to keep the dancing moving and people mingling because partnerless boys would cut in?
Doe anyone here have access to the way-back NYTimes and can get us the contemporaneous report of Mary Astor Paul’s debut? I’d love to see how they described it.
I do not, but I did find this article on her that mentions it: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&d…
OMG you guys they “fell into the plates,” and her father paid for a brand new breed of rose to be made just for the decorations. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/cgi-bi…
“scores dropped to the floor during the dancing and were crushed under the dancers’ feet.”
Oh my goood read the article below about the importance of kids holding their head high properly! It all comes down to having the self-control to always be in the right mood: “That is why a stirring march first thing in the school day is such a help.”
I like that they’re trying to deny it ever happened as if attendees couldn’t tell the difference between real butterflies and fakes.
“A magnificent scene was presented to-night in Horticultural Hall. Foyer and ballroom had been turned into tropical gardens, and plants valued at $100,000 were engaged for the “Ball of the Arts,” which James Paul gave for his daughter, Miss Mary Astor Paul and Miss Margaretta Drexel…More than 1,000 invitations to the ball were issued, from Maine to Florida, as far west as California, and even to Europe, and fully one-half of those invited attended the function.”
No mention of dead butterflies.
Funny, I think if you go back just a generation or two, having your debut mentioned in the paper would have been considered ultra-tacky.
Very short article, nothing exciting. I did however find this paragraph for a ball given by a Mrs. William Sloane:
“The innovation of the evening, a novel feature of the cotillion, in which a hundred couples took part at 1 o’clock, was the “barnyard figure.“ Both men and women dancers carried toy domestic animals, hens, sheep, roosters, horses, pigs, &c., perched on sticks. It was the barnyard’s début into society dances and it’s the latest wrinkle.”
Guests included Mrs. and Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt! (Also Mr. and Mrs. George McClellan.)
That is an amazing thing. Imagine how awful it would be to be pressured into that.
Also I cannot tell if the lone Amazon review this book (at least at the link) has is serious or not. I’m hoping not.
I love that review almost as much as these excerpts. Especially this quote:
“Rich women have for years told their daughters to lie in bed, facing the ceiling. This makes the force of gravity work FOR you, and not against you — and gradually, (but happily!) irons out wrinkles without paying a penny!”
I came here to say the same thing! That review is gold.
My mouth was physically agape through this entire piece. Oh my god.
I’ve never been prouder of Boston’s blunt, bookish, badly dressed old money set. Butterflies forsooth!
(They are all like the decent old eccentrics in Jane Langton novels and don’t do rubbish like this no none of them lalala I can’t hear you.)
“Very few people here know that this book, which influences top-drawer society, was run for many years by the daughter of a train conductor.”
May I be granted leave to request some explanation/context for this sentence? Is the Social Register a “book” that must be “run”?
Ever read books set in oh, 1800’s England where they refer to Burke’s Peerage? It’s a living database of people (like an old school periodical index (paper book listing articles by name/subject/etc, which is now mostly Google/pubmed/lexis.)) that is updated as folks are born, die, marry etc.
So the publishers were competitive, and keeping it updated and correct required running in the days before the internet or phonebooks. It required social contacts.
The Social Register is indeed a physical book, but it’s only available by subscription if you are a listee. There are two editions every year and it is updated annually and includes addresses, births, deaths, marriages, club memberships, yachts (in the Summer Edition), schools… You have to be born into a listed family or nominated and seconded by at least three other (non-related) listees to be considered for eligibility.
“Is it hard to get a boy in?”
No, sweet summer child. You see, boys are VALUABLE, no matter their accomplishments. Girls are unwanted party guests.
“It was there in 1906, at Mary Astor Paul’s debut, that ten thousand exotic butterflies were brought from Brazil and stored in a cylinder suspended from the ceiling to be released at the high point of the ball. Unfortunately, the butterflies died and their release brought chaos instead of joy.”
This is the funniest thing I’ve ever read.
Oh my god. Poor (endangered) butterflies.
When is this from? Surely the 2011 date is not the original publishing!
The unique Amazon review claims it was published in the 1960s.
Mallory, how did your grandmother react??
Rich people! They’re…nothing like us, actually.
I lived in Raleigh all my damn life and never heard of the Terpsichorean Club until right now, which is a shame bc I kind of want to light it on fire.
…is this an okay place to tell you guys that I was a debutante? Like I wore a long white dress and long white gloves and walked in a weird formation and everything.
It happened.
So far, it has managed to help me achieve literally nothing except for being able to see the looks on people’s faces when I tell them that I was a debutante.
(PS This was recent. Like. 2008.)
(PPS There was a cake shaped like a poodle. #noregrets)
Out of curiosity… why were you a debutante? Family history? Weird social circle?
The local Junior League sponsors debutantes but this is so incredibly far removed from my social circles, I don’t even know how teenagers get involved in the first place.
I am about 99% sure that was I was invited to be one because my mother was one. I was not involved in any sort of social group that would have led to such a thing, and I was not attending college in the area. So for me it was pretty much just a random fancy thing that I got to wear a pretty dress for. (This happened during my sophomore year of college.)
Ah, yes, family thing makes a lot of sense.
There’s this very weird and very tiny circle of The Elite in my hometown who do all the debutante balls, charity auctions, country clubs, etc. (and publish a frankly hilarious monthly magazine about it) but I always wonder how people get into them in the first place.
Is there an online version of this magazine?
… asking for a friend.
A college friend of mine did not want to be a debutante (in NoLa) but her mother so wanted her to do the whole thing that she bribed her with a trip to Europe. I do miss getting to share the express mailed King Cake every mardi gras.
Haha, I bet being a debutante in NoLa was a wayyyy bigger deal than being one in East TN. I know literally nothing about any debutante situation other than my own, but I am willing to speculate that mine was relatively low-key as such things go.
Wow, I grew up in East TN and I didn’t even know we HAD debutantes! I thought that was a Texas thing that rich girls did when they were 16. Just as well I was never a debutante, I would’ve tripped on my gown or something.
They had deb balls in my non distinguished middle TN town.
Really? We were in a really rural area, where it was still 1925, so maybe the lack of proper debutantes was a localized phenomenon.
Wait did you go to Boston College by any chance?
My Grandma (mom’s mom) desperately wanted me to do the debutante thing. I refused, but to save my mom some grief did agree to join the DAR.
ETA: Wait, I forgot to tell you the best part! The DAR chapter where I joined (and where several of my aunties are members) has you wear stars for confirmed Revolutionary War ancestors. And then there’s competitive star-comparing at meetings, where you brag about the number of stars you have, or casually ask some new member how many SHE has when really you just want to have an excuse to casually mention your 23 confirmed ancestors. Seriously, I am not making this up.
I’ve always been curious how much evidence you have to have. My mom’s got a typed-up family tree from HER mom that says we have Mayflower ancestors as well as people who fought in the revolutionary war, but I don’t know where she got the information!
Since my aunts (Mom’s sisters) were already in, they’d already done the hard work of tracing and proving ancestry from my grandparents on back. So all I had to prove was that my Mom was my grandparents child, that my parents were married, and that I was their child. I had to provide copies of marriage and birth certificates as proof. For further back ancestors, I think they had to provide the equivalent of marriage/birth certificates. Depending on where you are the official “state” records can go back quite far, then you have to start relying on things like church registries and family Bibles. I assume the Mayflower stuff is similar, but all my colonial ancestors (aside from the native american ones on my dad’s side) are German, so obviously they wouldn’t show up on the Mayflower.
Dang, that sounds like too much work. My mom’s mom died a few years ago, so I have no way of knowing how she got that info.
My bf did cotillion, claiming EVERYONE at his highschool did it.
But, that does not answer why he took THREE years of cotillion classes does it?!
( I am bitter because he can dance and I can’t.)
I was one of the few in my middle school who did not do cotillion classes. Going to school with the rich when you’re not rich is weird.
I demand pictures of the poodle cake!
Technically, “Baltimore Cotillon” does have two is in it!
There is a Social Register in Boston, which I know because my mother politely requested to be removed from it after her debut. I do not know if it is the same Social Register for all teh fancy people.
This is perfect timing, because I just finished watching the first season of Another Period (with Rikki Lindholm (sp?) from Garfunkel and Oates) and it is DELIGHTFUL. Has anyone seen it? It’s all about horrible wealthy people in Newport in 1902 and it is hilariously inappropes and kind of a parody of reality shows and also Downtown Abbey? BRILLIANT cast. I think Toasties would enjoy it!
Yes! That’s all I could think of when reading these excerpts.
i have all of the episodes of Another Period but i’m saving them to use as Downton Abbey methodone.
This is giving me all of the Gilmore Girls flashbacks (to last week when I was rewatching it again who am I kidding) because that is literally the closest I have ever or will ever come to this sort of shenanigans. Also I can imagine Emily doing some of these things – anyone remember how she got someone’s retirement party booted from a venue so that she could hold a last minute vow renewal? I wonder if Amy Sherman-Palladino read this book to get ideas or if she just knew a lot of quirky society folks…
This is giving me all of the Gilmore Girls flashbacks (to last week when I was rewatching it again who am I kidding) because that is literally the closest I have ever or will ever come to this sort of shenanigans. Also I can imagine Emily doing some of these things – anyone remember how she got someone's retirement party booted from a venue so that she could hold a last minute vow renewal? I wonder if Amy Sherman-Palladino read this book to get ideas or if she just knew a lot of quirky society folks…
Will I get booted from Toast readership if I admit I kind of want to be listed in a Social Register or some such old money thing…?