- Description
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.
Author: Greg King
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 10/01/2008
Pages: 528
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.95lbs
Size: 9.30h x 5.90w x 1.70d
ISBN13: 9780470185698
ISBN10: 0470185694
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | State & Local | Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD,
- History | United States | 19th Century
- History | United States | 20th Century
About the Author
Greg King is the author of the British bestseller The Duchess of Windsor: The Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson as well as The Court of the Last Tsar, The Fate of the Romanovs, and Twilight of Splendor. He has appeared as an onscreen commentator for the BBC, the Discovery Channel, and A&E.
