Mrs. Astor's New York: Money and Power in a Gilded Age (Paperback)

As such, this book is as much about the evolution of the modern city as it is about the robber barons who shaped the era. The research is impeccable and almost ponderously thorough.

The title, however, is somewhat misleading, as the volume is does not focus on Mrs. Astor individually but, rather, on what she meant to her contemporaries in terms of being a symbol and an inspiration as to how one should live.

Eric Homberger is an excellent writer. Yet the mass of information he presents, albeit significant, is too tedious to make for an entertaining read. As a work of historical record, however, MRS. ASTOR'S NEW YORK is invaluable.


Fascinating but not quite what I expected...   December 24, 2002
 18 out of 19 found this review helpful

This book really doesn't seem to be about Mrs. Astor or even the daily world she lived in, so much as it is about the History of New York. In the first several chapters the author chronicles lucidly, but perfunctorily, the attachments, financial and domestic, and above all architectural and urban of several wealthy New York families. From the earliest times post the Revolution, New York society had exceedingly difficult standards with some families struggling to get into society or stay in, and others struggling to keep some of those families, or individuals out. Quickly a dichotomy reveals itself between those who have money, and those who have a family line stretching back to Adam, with the power of money vs. lineage constantly alternating, though lineage always seems to have a slightly upper hand, or think it does. That mentality as expressed by the evolution of neighborhoods emerges for the first two thirds of the book. Homberger does a fascinating study of the ascendancies and declines of such old neighborhoods such as St Johns Park and Bond street and how families strategically placed themselves in these neighborhoods, and strategically sold out, devoting themselves to building new mansions elsewhere, always further North, taking the money, and lineage, with them. In quick time these mansions were also razed to make room for the new. There are in fact many photographs of mansions which became other mansions or Grand Hotels. Into this arena of inadvertant social mobility emerges the social conservatism of Ward MacAllister, commentator, arbiter and arranger of the social scene, and his social Boss, Mrs. Astor herself. MacAllister seems to have had a ruthless and iron grip but to have stumbled when he wrote a a Truman Capote-like expose of his social experiences called "Society as I have found it," dubbed by his jeerers "Society as it has found me out." Homberger doesn't treat MacAllister's rise and fall in narrative form, but constantly refers back to it, in fact he introduces us to MacAllister with his funeral. He also introduces us to Mrs. Astor, at the end of the book, with the end of her days, as a woman living in a mimicry haze of the past. Perhaps for this reason, the portrait of Mrs. Astor never quite takes off. One learns a few things about her life, but there don't seem to be any notable turning points, and there are only rare depictions of her actually interfering in society which is extremely strange. We never quite see her promoting, demoting or blocking entrance into the sacred class as much as we expect her to. About the last thing we see her do is make an exception for a friend who married a Jewish banker, because she likes her, but even that is anti-climactic. While, the book itself is fascinating in its depiction of New York, and the history of its founding elite, the main leader, Mrs. Astor, of the society emerges as nearly a phantom, almost an absence more than a presence. (If you're going to read about the cream, you may as well read about the dregs in Luc Sante's Low Life.)