Introduction: The upper class is a foreign country -- "The best mart on the continent:" The 1750s and 1760s -- Uncertain adjustments: The 1780s and 1790s -- Immense wealth: The 1820s & beyond -- All for the union: The 1860s -- A dynamic businessmen's aristocracy: The 1890s -- The ways of millionaireville: The 1890s -- Making spaces of their own: The 1940s -- The anti-elitist elite: the 1970s & beyond -- Conclusion: The limits of anti-elitism.
Summary:
"Clifton Hood traces the history of the elite class of New York City and the institutions they created in their relentless pursuit of privilege. While they were responsible for the creation of intuitions such as Columbia University, the New York Public Library system, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and provided skilled leadership in eras of immense turmoil, the idea of a privileged class clashes with the American democratic ideal. And, in fact, this upper class clashed with the rising professional class of bankers, lawyers, and other executives who increasingly rose in prestige and power as time rolled on. In Pursuit of Privilege traces the history of this elite class over two centuries, focusing on decades of upheaval and great change (such as the wars of the 1780s, 1860s, 1940s and the urban upheaval in the 1820s and 1970s), and argues the upper class was not born in the Gilded Age, but that the late nineteenth century was one of many periods where the elites wielded great power and influence and profoundly shaped, for better and for worse, the history of New York and America."--Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.