coverSources Consulted

Gilded Age:  The American Girl by Howard Chandler Christy; The American Scene by Henry James; The Reign of Gilt and The Social Secretary by David Graham Phillips;  Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser; How Women May Earn a Living by Helen Churchill Candee; Manners for the Metropolis by Francis W. Crowninshield; New York Society on Parade by Ralph Pulitzer; Good Manners for All Occasions by Margaret E. Sangster; A Gentleman by Maurice Egan;  The Book of Good Manners by Mrs. Burton Kingsland; A Perfect Gentleman by Ralph Bergengren; The Well-Bred Girl in Society by Mrs. Burton Harrison;  The House in Good Taste by Elsie de Wolfe; Wanted—A Chaperon by Paul Leicester Ford; and Wall Street Stories by Edwin Lefevre.

General: The Vanderbilt Era by Louis Auchincloss; The Vanderbilts and The First Four Hundred by Jerry E. Patterson; Mrs. Astor’s New York by Eric Homberger; Families of Fortune by Alexis Gregory; The Upper Crust by Allen Churchill; When the Astors Owned New York by Justin Kaplan; Our Crowd by Stephen Birmingham; Top Drawer by Mary Cable; and The Opulent Interiors of the Gilded Age by Arnold Lewis, James Turner, and Steven McQuillan.

New York: Gilded City by M.H. Dunlop; This Was New York! by Maxwell F. Marcuse; Displaying Women by Maureen E. Montgomery; Steppin' Out by Lewis Erenberg; Incredible New York by Lloyd Morris; Capital City by Thomas Kessner; Life at the Dakota by Stephen Birmingham; Photographs of New York Interiors at the Turn of the Century by Clay Lancaster; Once Upon a City by Grace Mayer; After the Ball by Patricia Beard; End of the Road for Ladies’ Mile? by Margaret Moore; Delmonico’s by Lately Thomas; Stanford White’s New York by David Garrard Lowe; Lost Broadway Theaters by Nicholas Van Hoogstraten; Broadway Theaters by William Morrison; The Girl from Rector’s by George Rector; The World with a Fence Around It: Tuxedo Park, the Early Days by George M. Rushmore; The Blizzard of 88 by Mary Cable; and Tiffany & Co. by Grace Mirabella.

Biographies: Elsie de Wolfe by Jane S. Smith; Ladies and Not-So-Gentle Women by Alfred Allan Lewis;  Archie and Amelie by Donna M. Lucey; Alva and Consuelo by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart; Stanny: The Gilded Life of Stanford White by Paul R. Baker; William Merritt Chase: Genteel Bohemian by Keith L. Bryant, Jr.; and The Story of Louis Sherry and the Business He Built by Edward Hungerford.

Memoirs: A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton; The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan; King Lehr and the Gilded Age and The Turn of the World by Lady Decies; and Roman Springs by Mrs. Winthrop Chanler.

The Old Metropolitan Opera House: Opera in America by John Dizikes; Farewell to the Old House by Stuart Preston; and The Golden Horseshoe by Frank Merkling, John W. Freeman, & Gerald Fitzgerald.

The Original Waldorf-Astoria: Peacocks on Parade by Albert Stevens Crockett; The Story of the Waldorf-Astoria by Edward Hungerford; Peacock Alley by James Remington McCarthey; The Elegant Inn by Albin P. Dearing; and Oscar of the Waldorf by Karl Schriftgiesser. These and other chroniclers of the hotel do not agree on each and every detail pertaining to the Palm Garden and Peacock Alley (or the hotel itself), so in recreating the setting, I’ve picked and chosen as seemed appropriate.

Other: When Ladies Go A-Thieving by Elaine S. Abelson; “The Department Store” by Samuel Hopkins Adams, Scribner’s Magazine vol. XXI, 4-27; Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn by Jan Whitaker; Red Damask by Emenie Sachs; One Hundred Years: The Harmonie Club 1852-1952 by The Harmonie Club Historical Committee; American Nervousness 1903 by Tom Lutz; Confessions of a Social Secretary by Corinne Lowe; Turn of the Century Fashions 1899-1905 by Catherine Bishop; Letters from a Self-made Merchant to his Son by George Horace Lorimar; Learning How to Behave by Arthur M. Schlesinger; and Inventing the Modern Artist by Sarah Burns.

My thanks to Eleanor Brown of Cornell University’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections for access to the papers of Oscar Tschirkey, a.k.a “Oscar of the Waldorf.” And Arlene Weismantel of the Michigan State University Libraries was instrumental in helping me obtain a copy of J.C. Cartwright’s June 1905 Metropolitan Magazine account of James Hazen Hyde’s famous costume ball.

 

Wharton & Other Links
Inspiration for Rosedale in Love
Sources for Rosedale in Love
5-star Rave for Rosedale in Love

Buy Kindle Edition - Buy Nook Edition - Buy iBook Edition

Return to main page

[space]

 

© Lev Raphael. Web site by interbridge.