America's Secret Aristocracy
Read America's Secret Aristocracy Online
Authors: Stephen; Birmingham
America's Secret Aristocracy
Stephen Birmingham
For Carol Brandt Pavenstedt in memory
CONTENTS
Part One
FIRST PEERS OF THE REALM
Chapter 6 Coronation in New York
Chapter 7 The Great Silverware Robbery
Chapter 8 From Camping Out with Indians ⦠to Dinner at the Jays'
Chapter 9 Livingston Versus Livingston
Chapter 11 Morrises and More Morrises
Part Two
BRAHMINS, KNIGHTS OF THE CHIVALRY, AND CALIFORNIA GRANDEES
Chapter 14 Knowing One's Place
Chapter 16 Beer and the Bourgeoisie
Chapter 19 Old Guard Versus New
Chapter 20 The Gospel of Wealth
Chapter 23 The Bogus Versus the Real
A Note on Sources and Acknowledgments
PART ONE
First Peers of the Realm
1
Telling Them Apart
Whenever you hear an American speak of a
terrace
rather than a
patio
, of a
house
rather than a
home
or an
apartment
, of a
sofa
rather than a
davenport
or
couch
, of
curtains
rather than
drapes
, of
guests for dinner
rather than
company
, of a
long dress
rather than a
formal
, of a
dinner jacket
rather than a
tuxedo
, and of
underwear
rather than
lingerie
, chances are you are in the presence of a member of the American upper class. Upper-class Americans use the toilet, not the lavatory or the commode or the facilities or the loo or the little boys' room. Upper-class Americans go to boarding schools, not prep schools, where they earn grades, not marks. Upper-class Americans are either rich (not wealthy) or poor (not less well-off), and the prices they pay for things are either high (not expensive) or cheap (not inexpensive). Upper-class Americans say “Hello,” not “Pleased to meet you,” and “What?” not “Pardon me?” Upper-class American women do not have bosoms. They have breasts, or even tits when they are among their own kind, when other vulgarisms frequently emerge. The familiar four-letter word for sexual intercourse is a perfectly acceptable upper-class expression.
Brevity, simplicity, and the avoidance of euphemism are the chief hallmarks of the upper-class American vocabulary. When an upper-class American feels sick, he says just that, and never “I feel ill” or “I feel nauseous.” Cuteness is anathema. Thus in an upper-class American house you would never find a den or a rumpus room or a family room, though you might find a library or a playroom. Upper-class Americans do not own bedroom suites or dining room suites or any
other kind of suites, or “suits.” They own furniture, and if it is particularly good furniture, it is often simply called wood. Pretentiousness is similarly shunned. Thus to an upper-class American a tomato is a tom
ay
to, not a tom
ah
to. Upper-class Americans write “R.S.V.P.” on the corners of their invitations, never “The favor of a reply is requested.” Upper-class Americans give and go to parties, never to affairs, and if the affair being talked about is of the romantic variety, it is always, specifically, a love affair.
But, most important, the American upper class never talks about the upper class, or about any other sort of class, for that matter. Partly this is a question of delicacy and taste. It is simply not upper class to talk about class. Also, in a constitutionally classless society where an upper class has managed to emerge anyway, there is a feeling among members of the upper class that they are a somewhat illicit entity, a possibly endangered species. If one were to go about boasting of being upper class, who knows what sort of angry mob from below might rise up and challenge the precious barricades? So you will never hear a member of the upper class talk of “the right people,” or “nice people,” or even “the people we know.” Instead it will be “our friends,” or, more often, “our family and friends.” This way, the polite illusion is created that the American aristocracy is a private, even secret, club, whose members all know each other and whose rules are observed without ever having to be written down or otherwise made public. Most frequently, when the American aristocracy speaks of itself in a general sense, it is in terms of “people,” as in, “What will people say?” And if a member of the upper class behavesâas can happenâin a non-upper-class way, the reaction is “People just don't
do
that!”
In an upwardly mobile society, in which nearly everybody dreams of elevating himself to a higher social or economic stratum, there are some rules of upper-class behavior that are easy to learn. For example, when upper-class women swim, they do the Australian crawl, never the breaststroke or backstroke. It is easy to remember that the finger bowl has no function whatsoeverâcertainly not to dabble one's fingers inâand is to be removed, with the doily, and set at the upper left of one's plate, after which the dessert spoon and fork are to be removed from the service plate and placed on either side of it. It is easy to remember that it is acceptable to eat asparagus with one's fingers (if no tongs have been provided
), while it is not acceptable to pick up the chop or the chicken leg in the same manner, unless one is dining
en famille
. It is never proper to squeeze the juice from a grapefruit half into a spoon.
But there are other more subtle, arcane codes by which members of the American aristocracy recognize each other and send signals to each other and that are more difficult to learnâwhich, it might be added, is the whole unwritten point of there being such codes. In addition to language and vocabulary, recognition is by name and by the association of name with place. Thus one should be able to remember that Ingersolls and Cadwaladers and Chews and
some
Morrises are from Philadelphia, while other Morrises are from New York and New Jersey, and so when meeting a Morris it is important to find out which family he or she represents. Livingstons, Jays, Bownes, Lawrences, Schieffelins, Iselins, Schuylers, and Fishes are from New York, while Otises, Saltonstalls, and Gardners are from Boston. Gardiners are from New York. Hoppins and Browns are from Providence, Pringles and Pinckneys are from Charleston, Des Loges are from St. Louis, Stumpfs are pre-oil Texas, and Chandlers are Los Angeles.
Over the past generation, America's upper-class boarding schools and colleges have become thoroughly democratized, but members of the upper class can still send signals to one another by the way they designate their schools. An upper-class Yale alumnus, for example, would never say that he had graduated “from Yale.” He would say that he had studied “at New Haven.” Following is a list of other upper-class schools and colleges, with their special upper-class designations:
Actual Name The Taft School The Hotchkiss School St. Mark's School St. Paul's School Miss Porter's School The Foxcroft School The Ethel Walker School ChoateâRosemary Hall School Smith College Vassar College | Upper-class Designation Watertown Lakeville Southborough Concord Farmington Virginia Simsbury Wallingford Northampton Poughkeepsie |
But even more important and difficult than remembering names and their ancient associations with cities is mastering the American upper-class accent. Just as in England, where class is defined by accent, the American aristocracy has developed an accent peculiar to itself. It is a curious hybrid derived, in part, from the flat vowel sounds of New England, as well as from the New York accent that is sometimes described as “Brooklynese,” with random borrowings from the drawl of the antebellum South. From the South comes a tendency to drop final consonantsâas in “somethin'” or “anythin'”âor to elide initial letters in words such as “them,” which makes a statement such as “I can't think of anything to give them” sound very much like “I cahnt think o' anythin' to give 'em.” Final
r
's are also dropped, whereby
paper
comes out “papuh,” and
rear
is “reah.” Interior
r
's are elided as well, so that
apart
becomes “apaht,” and
church
becomes “chuhch.” Final
s
's are almost, but not quite, lisped, so that the word
birds
is pronounced something like “budzh.” Perhaps most difficult to master are the vowel sounds in simple words like
were
, where the audible vowel sound of the
e
almost sounds like the
i
in
prism
. On top of this, particularly among men, there has long been something called the boarding school stammer, a speech pattern whose origins are unclear but which may descend from the British public school stammer: “Iâuhâoh, I sayâwha-what would you say toâuhâ,” et cetera.
In perfecting an American upper-class accent, one rule to remember is the upper-class injunction to keep a stiff upper lip. The upper lip moves very little in American upper-class speech. But of course members of the American upper class do not have to be taught how to speak this way. They learn it from the cradle.
A comparison of the aristocracies of America and Great Britain is useful, for the American uppermost class has always looked to the British class system as its most satisfactory model. Even at the time of the American Revolution this was true, and many of the American “heroes” whose signatures grace the Declaration of Independence signed this document with great misgivings, distrusting the Revolutionary movement and not at all agreeing with Thomas Jefferson's notion that “all men are created equal.” A number of American families have aristocratic forebears who managed to be conveniently “out of town” or otherwise unavailable when
that document was being signed, and as we shall see, there are American families today who are just as proud of ancestors who failed, or refused, to sign as are those with ancestors who were Signers. Particularly in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, enthusiasm for the Revolution was lukewarm at best, while in Boston, the Revolutionary cradle, it was intense. Even today, these philosophical differences between Boston and the rest of the East Coast more than two hundred years ago are expressed in a certain antipathy between the upper classes of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore and the upper class of the Bay Colony.