The Grandes Dames

The acclaimed social historian provides an in-depth look at eight society women who shaped upper class culture from the Gilded Age to WWII.

Astor. Rockefeller. McCormick. Belmont. Family names that still adorn buildings, streets, and charity foundations. While their men blazed across America with their oil, industry, and railways, the matriarchs founded art museums, opera houses, and symphonies that functioned almost as private clubs. Linked by money, marriage, privilege, and power, these women formed a grand American matriarchy—and they ruled American society with a style and impact that make today’s socialites seem pale reflections of their forbears.

Stephen Birmingham takes us into the drawing rooms of these powerful women, providing keen insights into an American society that no longer exists. Caroline Astor, who, when asked for her fare boarding a streetcar, responded, “No thank you, I have my own favorite charities.” Edith “Effie” Stern deciding that no existing school would do for her child, so she had a new one built. And the legendary Isabella Stewart Gardner replying to a contemporary who was overly taken with their Mayflower ancestors: “Of course, immigration laws are much more strict nowadays.”

These women had looks, manner, and style, but more than that, they had presence—a sense that when one of them entered a room, something momentous was about to occur; Birmingham opens a window to the highest levels of American society with these profiles of American “royalty.”