Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [765]
As her chamberlain she chose Ward McCallister, a man who became known as the “Autocrat of Drawing Rooms” but was really more a steward of the elite, on the order of Isaac Brown. McCallister’s own pedigree was most unaristocratic; the son of a Savannah attorney, he had moved to New York in the 1840s and worked as a bookkeeper. Society-struck, and desperate to break into the inner circles, McCallister found he lacked the economic wherewithal or social cachet to sustain a position among the smart set. Resolved to correct both deficiencies, he went to California, made a modest fortune, and married an heiress. Then he traveled extensively in Europe, memorizing the manners of the great courts and studying heraldry, genealogy, and cookery.
After the war, McCallister came to Caroline’s attention through his elaborate Newport parties and his revival, in the winter of 1866-67, of cotillion suppers—an old New York tradition dating back to the colonial-era Dancing Assembly. The metropolitan patriciate was delighted at the idea of a secure space in which its daughters could meet eligible men. In the winter of 1872-73, McCallister, with Caroline Astor as special adviser, executed his masterstroke, the creation of the Patriarchs. He selected a group of twenty-five men, headed by the Astor brothers, that included both Old Knickerbockers and newly monied—a group that collectively commanded unrivaled respect. Each Patriarch was invested with the right and responsibility of inviting four ladies and five gentlemen to periodic Patriarch’s Balls. Fastidious exclusion soon made these affairs the city’s cultural pinnacle, the goal of every social climber. They were also—along with balls given by the Assembly, the old guard, and the Cercle de l’Harmonie—attended by representatives of the press. Reporters wrote up the parties for the society pages, and artists sketched the scenes for Harper’s Weekly, Frank Leslie’s, or Ballous’s Pictorial, making it a matter of public record as to who was in, and who was out. The city’s facilities for creating celebrities were now applied to the social elite.
Grand public spectacles were complemented by more private weekly dinner parties at Mrs. Astor’s Fifth Avenue and 34th Street mansion. These elaborate rituals further helped to discipline the chaos of social life, especially as practiced by playboys like her husband. They began and ended at precise times. Exact gastronomic rules were enforced. Topics tolerated in other mansions were banished; food, wine, horses, yachts, cotillions, and marriages were the only acceptable subjects.
“STILL DESTITUTE OF SUCH AN INSTITUTION”
Though art was not on Mrs. Astor’s list of approved topics, for many in the elite world the amassing of great collections had long been an important tactic in the struggle for social preeminence. But the galleries established before the war by mercantile men had been chiefly for private consumption. Now industrial and financial elites decided to marry their pursuit of personal collections with a new emphasis on creating museums in which to display their treasures publicly. By providing the city with cultural institutions more lavish than any the old elites had created—merging connoisseurship with civic stewardship—they would exalt their own status while enhancing the city’s reputation.
The Hudson River painters remained popular in the city—Asher Durand still sold well—but chroniclers of the Catskills were now surpassed by those who captured the glories of the great West. In 1859 Albert Bierstadt had explored the Rockies. After his return he moved to New York City and took a room in the Richard Morris Huntdesigned Tenth Street Studio Building—the first structure in the United States or Europe