Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [143]
The good doctor’s revulsion honored a code of taste and conduct known as “refinement.” Detailed in countless British magazines, novels, and “courtesy books” over the previous half century, “refinement” was what distinguished people of quality from the vulgar masses—not just money, that is, but an inner discipline of body and spirit, a natural smoothness, for which money was a necessary though far from sufficient precondition.
“Refined” men and women had a poised yet complaisant manner. They avoided coarse speech, gross or lewd behavior, uncouth gestures, and sharp displays of emotion. They could make their way through a roomful of strangers without embarrassment, and at table they didn’t give offense by using improper utensils or chewing with their mouths open. They conversed easily on history, literature, music, science, and other basic subjects. They read a little Greek and Latin and spoke at least one modern language besides English—hopefully French. For recreation, gentlemen rode and hunted while their ladies did needlework; both danced gracefully and played cards competently. Both, too, paid close attention to appearances: they kept their bodies clean, they wore fresh and fashionable clothing, they lived in commodious and agreeably furnished houses.
Notwithstanding Dr. Hamilton’s verdict on the Hungarian Club, there had always been handfuls of ladies and gentlemen in New York who qualified as “refined.” Earlier in the century they gathered round Governor Hunter, sipping Madeira, discussing Shakespeare, and peering through telescopes. In the early 1730s they patronized what may have been the city’s first regular playhouse: the New Theater, located in the loft of a Nassau Street warehouse owned by Rip van Dam. When it closed after a season or two, genteel audiences contented themselves with puppet shows, pantomimes, and assemblies in the “long Room” of dancing master Henry Holt. Only after 1750, however, did refinement become de rigueur among the Manhattan gentry. By then, wartime affluence and buy-now-pay-later offers from British exporters finally afforded them access to the full range of goods and services that signaled a refined way of life.
Evident almost at once was a new opulence and complexity in upper-class attire. Guided by the life-size fashion dolls with which Britain’s garment manufacturers advertised in distant markets, wealthy New York women began to accumulate closetfuls of “smart” clothes and accessories—girdles, hooped petticoats, gowns, cloaks, hoods, bonnets, pocketbooks, muffs—preferably constructed out of such exotic materials as India damask, China “taffety,” Irish and Venetian poplin, Turkey Tabby, German serge, or Genoa velvet. They teased their hair into “towers,” slathered their faces with fancy creams and pastes and powders, and splashed their bodies with costly oils and scented waters. Upper-class men developed comparable collections of “gallant” wigs, toupees, hats, shirts, waistcoats, cloaks, cravats, breeches, shoes, stockings, buttons, pocket watches, silk handkerchiefs, ribbons, snuffboxes, swords, walking sticks, and toothpick cases.
For Gerard B. Beekman, as for other wealthy New Yorkers, the wish to appear refined required a conscious adaptation to higher standards. Beekman resolved to wear stockings of the “best Silk” instead of plain linen. He sent to London for “a good fashionable Shass [sash]” of the sort favored by officers, plus “a fashionable Silver Mounted Sword .. . with a sword knot.” He also vowed to take up the “Glorious sport” of hunting and sent away, again to London, for a “Genteel fowling Piece.” One morning on Long Island, seated in his carriage, he experienced the sublime pleasure of shooting fifteen brace of