SMALL TALK
Signs on the wall of a Mexican restaurant where I lunched recently:
It's fun until
the BEER
runs out
You are the
bacon to my
scrambled eggs
LOVE
is all you
need
No Fumar
CLOTHING
OPTIONAL
BEYOND
THIS
POINT
Aristocracy: Are Some of Us Better Than the Rest of Us?
“We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” So
states the opening of the Declaration of Independence, though it would be nice
to include the women, too. Which would seem to squelch any notion of
aristocracy right from the start. And the Constitution: “No title of
nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any
office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress,
accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from
any king, prince, or foreign state” (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8). Clearly,
the newly established United States of America was a democratic nation that wanted
no truck with titles of nobility or, by extension, with any class-based society
ruled by an aristocracy. And we held the very concept of monarchy in
contempt, as witnessed by the Declaration’s long litany of complaints against
King George III, whose arbitrary and unjust actions prompted our fight for
independence.
Yet
Martha Washington, our first First Lady, in holding weekly receptions on
Fridays for members of Congress, visiting dignitaries, and people of the
community (meaning New York and then Philadelphia, for Washington D.C. had not
yet been invented), presided with dignity and formality. Such dignity and formality, in fact, that she
was criticized by some for imitating the rituals and fashions of the abhorred
British crown. Worse still, perhaps, she was addressed by many as
“Lady Washington,” and by some as “Our Lady Presidentress.” Later prints
and paintings show her presiding over these affairs in dazzling gowns and with
an air of majesty worthy of Marie Antoinette before the Revolution. All
of which does smack just a little of monarchy, though in fairness to Martha it
should be remembered that she did this out of a feeling of duty, a feeling that
she owed it to her husband. She really preferred the quiet domestic
life of Mount Vernon, from which she and George had been plucked by his
election, and to which they would return at the end of his second term. As
First Lady, she would tell her niece, she felt “more like a state prisoner than
anything else." Which sounds rather like the
British royals today.
_-_Daniel_Huntington_-_overall.jpg#)
 |
| Martha Washington receiving. Versailles transplanted to America? An 1861 painting. |
And come to think of it, our Founding
Fathers, many of whom attended these affairs, were well-educated, well-mannered
gentry – WASPS of course -- and not riffraff from the streets. Most of them had money and property, and some
of them owned slaves. The Constitution
that they created was designed, among other things, to protect the property and
interests of two key elements of society: Northern merchants and Southern
landowners. So right from the first, the
newly hatched republic had at its head what might be called a kind of
aristocracy. No titles, but plenty of
property and self-interest.
Still, ordinary Americans nursed a keen
resentment of class differences and aristocracy. This was what bedeviled Frances Trollope, the
mother of the novelist, when she came here in 1831 in hopes of launching a business
to revive her family’s dwindling fortunes back in England. If she took exception to America and
Americans, she had good reason, for in launching her business in hog-slaughtering
Cincinnati, she was fleeced by the locals, who had no need of the grandiose
bazaar that she built at great cost; lacking customers, the store left her ridden with debt. The Americans she dealt with there and
elsewhere seemed to bear out Talleyrand’s two-word appraisal of us, when queried by
Napoleon: “Proud pigs.”
 |
| Frances Trollope, circa 1832. Here she looks so sweet, but her pen was savage. |
Wherever Mrs.Trollope went, she heard
comments on “British tyranny” and her “paltry little place of an island.” She resented being called “the English old
woman,” when butcher boys were referred to as “gentlemen.” The American males she met were
braggarts and boors who ate with their knives, chewed, schemed, and spat. Even in church, they spat. Were there no gentlemen at all? When she observed a session of Congress
where sprawling Westerners put their feet up on their desks and, of course,
spat, she also saw, by way of contrast, certain members who dressed and behaved
properly. Whenever she inquired about one of them, she got the same
answer: “He is a Virginia gentleman.” But
in her travels here, gentlemen were few and far between.
Mrs. Trollope happened to come when Andrew
Jackson, the first president from beyond the Appalachians, and thus the first
one from the “West,” was in office, to the extreme discomfort of the Eastern
elite. America was a raw adolescent
nation that had fought two wars with Great Britain and took delight in putting
Mother England down, and Frances Trollope was England incarnate. She bristled with preconceived notions and
prejudices of class, and resented the uppity presumption of ordinary
Americans. Her finery, her manners, and
her shrill, piercing voice made her just the sort of English biddy that
Americans loved to insult. She was
herself solidly middle class and no aristocrat, but represented a class-based
society where inferiors were expected to show good manners and above all know
their place. But in Jacksonian America
no one was required to know their place.
Ironically,
in and around New York City and in the Hudson Valley there was a landed
aristocracy implanted here long since. Back
in the seventeenth century the Dutch West India Company, the founder of New
Amsterdam, had granted title to large tracts of land to landholders called
patroons, so as to encourage colonization and settlement. The
patroons enjoyed many rights and privileges, such as appointing local
officials, creating civil and criminal courts, and holding land in perpetuity. And when the English took over from the Dutch
in 1664, they continued the patroon system and themselves granted large tracts
of land, called manors.
The
largest of the patroonships was Rensselaerswyck, granted to the
Dutch merchant Kiliaen van Rensselaer in 1630, comprising most of Albany
and Rensselaer counties and parts of two others. This huge estate was kept
intact by his descendants until the death of the last patroon, Stephen
Rensselaer III, in 1839. Following Stephen’s death the estate’s
3,000 tenant farmers, resenting their subjection to a landlord living in
semi-feudal splendor, launched an anti-rent rebellion against Stephen’s heirs
that soon became a statewide revolt against the whole system of leasehold tenure.
When the anti-renters got support from the legislature and courts, the various
Rensselaer heirs sold out their interests in the late 1840s and this particular
patroonship was ended once and for all.
In
New York City there were no huge estates with tenant farmers paying rent – or
refusing to do so – to any lords of the manor; there wasn’t room. But there was what
could be called an aristocracy, the oldest, quietest, and most exclusive of
whom were the Old Knickerbockers, descendants of the old Dutch families of the
region, with names like Van Rensselaer, Stuyvesant, Bleecker, Van Cortlandt,
and Roosevelt. (“Knickerbockers” also designates the baggy knee
trousers, or knickers, that the early Dutch male settlers wore.) The
Knickerbockers impressed others as being refined but clannish, quietly proud of
the gilt-framed portraits of ancestors on their walls, but not too bright.
Not
quite on a par with the Old Knickerbockers were descendants of early English
settlers who had amassed fortunes here, and also, in smaller numbers, descendants
of Huguenots, French Protestants who had fled persecution in Catholic France
and come here long before the Revolution. These families
intermarried and often provided mayors and governors, since public service was
considered an obligation of the elite, though by no means a career.
All
the old families guarded their position quietly but determinedly, and looked
with scorn on any pushy New Money folks who aspired to join their ranks. So
in New York City, as in the state and the nation, if all citizens were created
equal, some were more equal than others.
In
burgeoning New York City the situation was aggravated by the heavy influx of
Irish fleeing famine in Ireland in the late 1840s. They were turbulent,
poor, and Roman Catholic, traits not likely to endear them to the WASP
majority, least of all the self-styled elite who up till then had governed the
city. The election of Fernando (“Fernandy”) Wood as mayor in 1854 marked
the advent of the full-time professional politician, and the Tammany machine
was already organizing the Irish as a massive block of voters (“Vote early and
often”) who could swing an election. The so-called New York aristocracy
withdrew in disgust from politics, abandoning it to Tammany and its grubby
cohorts, except for occasional reform movements like the one that ousted Boss
Tweed and his cronies. But those movements rarely lasted. As the
Tammany spokesman George Washington Plunkitt observed, “Reformers are like
morning glories, they wilt by noon. But Tammany’s a fine old oak.”
Even
as Tammany took over the political scene, another aristocracy was appearing,
one based on money. Entrepreneurs like John Jacob Astor, the fur king,
and Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad magnate, amassed fortunes that let their
descendants distance themselves from the grubby details of business and
fortune-making, and aspire to social preeminence. They were the real
snobs of the day, being newly arrived, with the Astors looking down on the
Vanderbilts, and the Vanderbilts looking down on others, while the Old
Knickerbockers quietly looked down on them all. Taking a hint from
Oliver Wendell Holmes’s line, “Build thee more stately mansions,” the New Money
clans did just that, rearing up palaces like the Vanderbilts’ French
chateau-style residences on Fifth Avenue, Jay Gould’s Gothic castle at
Lyndhurst on the Hudson, and a
slew of palatial residences at Newport, Rhode Island. The old elite
had been tasteful and discreet, but the parvenus now coming to the fore lived
more blatantly. If you had money, you
wanted the world to know it, and an imposing residence was a fine way to
display your millions.
 |
| Lyndhurst today. Gould took refuge here, when his enemies on Wall Street turned nasty. The place was ringed with guards. urban-commonswiki |
Meanwhile,
whatever their feelings about class, Americans nourished an abiding fascination with the aristocracies and monarchies of
Europe.
When the young Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII of England, came
to the U.S. in 1860, he was greeted and feted with enthusiasm. In
New York there was a grand ball at the Academy of Music that everyone who was
anyone managed to attend, the jam so great that the floor collapsed beneath
them, though with no injury to anyone. When Grand Duke Alexis of
Russia, the fourth son of Czar Alexander II, came for an extensive tour in
1871, the city honored him with balls and receptions and a torchlight parade of
the firemen, before he visited other cities.
The climax of his American tour was a buffalo hunt in Nebraska in the
company of Buffalo Bill Cody and several hundred Sioux recruited for the
occasion. Clearly, Americans were in love with both aristocracy and
monarchy, as long as they weren’t the ones being dominated.
Could
Americans aspire even further and become members of European aristocracies? The answer wasn’t long in coming. In 1874 Jenny
Jerome, the daughter of Wall Street speculator Leonard Jerome, married Lord
Randolph Churchill, the result being Winston Churchill. Widowed,
she would catch the roving eye of the Prince of Wales, Victoria's son and the
future Edward VII. (Any good-looking woman of the proper rank was apt to
catch his eye.)
And Anna Gould, the daughter of New York financier Jay Gould (called by
some the Mephistopheles of Wall Street) married a titled Frenchman in 1895
and so became the Comtesse de Castellane; that she had inherited millions from
her father was not irrelevant. Then, in Paris in 1906, after
her high-living hubby had gone through half her fortune, she divorced him on
grounds of infidelity (and there were plenty of grounds). This event was celebrated hilariously in a
cartoon by the satirical magazine Puck. The
cartoon showed her arriving in the courtroom in black, almost like a bride at a
wedding, carrying a bouquet of incriminating affidavits, while her husband
swoons. Not that she and her millions were in any way out of the
marital market. In 1908 she married her ex’s cousin, a titled
nobleman of the illustrious house of Talleyrand-Périgord, thus becoming the Marquise
de Talleyrand Périgord, Duchesse de Sagan. This marriage – and the
title that came with it -- stuck.
As
international social climbing went, Anna Gould’s ascent was remarkable. But
as a Wall Streeter once observed, if you aim for the stars, you get chorus
girls; if you aim for chorus girls, you get nothing. Admittedly, a very
male-oriented observation, but the message applies to both sexes: aim high. How about majesty? Well, that took a little
longer. In 1956, movie star Grace Kelly
married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in what was called “the wedding of the
century,” thus becoming Princess Grace. Not bad, but let’s face it,
Monaco, however pretty, is a pretty small place. Could an American
woman aim even higher?
It
had already happened. In 1934 Wallis Simpson (born Wallis Warfield),
a divorced woman, had become the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales, who,
still unmarried at age 40, was charmed by her very American ways, her
domineering manner and irreverence toward his exalted position – a liaison that
the British court and government found increasingly worrisome. Matters
came to a head when, at his father’s death in January 1936, Edward became King
Edward VIII of Great Britain. A prolonged crisis followed, since the
new king was determined to marry the woman he loved, and divorced women – she
would soon divorce her second husband as well – were not welcome at the Court
of Saint James. So in December of that year Edward abdicated, so as
to marry Wallis Warfield, who after the marriage would become the Duchess of Windsor.
 |
| President Nixon receiving the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, 1970. |
Wallis
Warfield’s success fascinated Americans as much as it dismayed and angered the
Brits, among whom the Prince of Wales had been especially popular. But
not all Americans approved. A friend of mine told how, at an early
age, he overheard his matriarchal grandmother announce to his mother at the
time of the abdication, “He has abandoned the ship of state for a tramp
steamer!”
Was
there any truth to the allegation? There were rumors of
other lovers, but they were rumors only. One critic described the
Duchess as “charismatic, electric, and compulsively ambitious.” In
1936, having become the adored favorite of the most eligible bachelor in the
world, she was surely the most famous woman in the world, and no doubt the
object of envy. In suburban Evanston, Illinois, at a tender age I became aware of her when I saw, on a table in the living room, a biography entitled Her Name Was Wallis Warfield, with a photo of a rather handsome dark-haired woman on the cover. Such was my mother's reading of the moment.
Once her second divorce was finalized, Wallis Warfield and the Duke married and settled in France. But in 1937 they visited Nazi Germany and were welcomed personally by Hitler. The Duchess, it was said, was a fan of Hitler’s and was influencing the Duke accordingly. (It was also said by some that she had had an affair with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister.) Rumors circulated that the Nazis hoped to put the Duke back on the British throne, once they had defeated the Brits. When France fell in 1940, the Windsors removed to neutral Portugal, where German agents courted them. So the Brits found an ingenious solution: they made the Duke governor of the Bahamas, thus getting him and his wife out of Europe and the reach of the Germans. He was governor until 1945, when the Nazi regime collapsed and Germany surrendered.
Once her second divorce was finalized, Wallis Warfield and the Duke married and settled in France. But in 1937 they visited Nazi Germany and were welcomed personally by Hitler. The Duchess, it was said, was a fan of Hitler’s and was influencing the Duke accordingly. (It was also said by some that she had had an affair with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister.) Rumors circulated that the Nazis hoped to put the Duke back on the British throne, once they had defeated the Brits. When France fell in 1940, the Windsors removed to neutral Portugal, where German agents courted them. So the Brits found an ingenious solution: they made the Duke governor of the Bahamas, thus getting him and his wife out of Europe and the reach of the Germans. He was governor until 1945, when the Nazi regime collapsed and Germany surrendered.
Ostracized by the British court, after
that the Windsors had little to do but become, in the words of some, social
parasites, gadding about from one international gala to another and risking
boredom. To her credit, those who met
the Duchess were impressed by her stately manner, her grace, and her
charm. Famous for saying “A woman
can’t be too rich or too thin” (and she achieved both), she also memorably remarked, “You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great
romance.”
In
America the Duke and Duchess remained popular.
Maybe we were delighted that an American – however estranged and
controversial – had snagged the most desirable bachelor in the world. Today we are still fascinated by monarchy, as
seen in Helen Mirren’s brilliant portrayals of Elizabeth II on stage
and screen. But maybe aristocracy and monarchy aren’t all they’re cracked up to
be. Maybe we commoners should thank our lucky stars that we
aren’t onstage constantly, aren’t besieged by paparazzi, don’t have to flee
them and risk dying in a high-speed auto accident like Princess Di and her
Egyptian boyfriend in Paris in 1997. Maybe we can live quietly and
contentedly, glorying in our snug obscurity.
Today’s partisan politics have added a new
twist to the story of aristocracy in America.
The people of the deindustrializing heartland – many of whom voted for
Donald Trump in 2016 – feel looked down upon by the coastal elites. A nonprofit named Better Angels is trying to
bring red state and blue state residents together for long conversations that
will help them understand each other.
When asked to name the five stereotypes that the other side throws at
them, the Reds gave these in this order:
1. Racist
2. Uncaring
3. Uneducated
4. Misogynistic
5. Science
deniers
The Reds feel much more
shamed by the Blues than the Blues feel shamed by the Reds. As a result, the Reds are reluctant to enter
into conversation with the Blues, fearing still more shaming.
And what stereotypes do the Blues feel the
Reds hurl at them? Here are three:
1.
Against religion
and morality
2.
Unpatriotic
3.
Against personal
responsibility
There is mutual misunderstanding
here. For the Reds, the Blues are a kind
of self-appointed aristocracy that think themselves inherently superior to the
Reds, and this the Reds bitterly resent. As a committed New Yorker who hails from the Midwest, I find myself on both sides of the divide, sympathetic to Blues and Reds alike, perhaps more of a Blue than a Red, but eager to make peace between them. Not easy. Even in democratic America, where
all are supposedly equal, the notion of aristocracy dies hard.
Source note: For
information on Better Angels, I am indebted to a column by David Brooks in the New York Times of February 20, 2018: “Respect
First, Then Gun Control.” Brooks argues that Reds and Blues must talk to each other and show mutual respect, before they can work together to achieve meaningful gun control.
BROWDERBOOKS
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Just released; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
 |
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront.
The back cover summary:
New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
* * * *
Coming soon: As usual, no idea.
© 2018 Clifford Browder
Coming soon: As usual, no idea.
© 2018 Clifford Browder
