Weird Things You Didn't Know About Mrs. Astor's Parties - The Gilded Age Season 1

To be fair, some of the "party rules" were actually just normal everyday courtesy back then. My mother's family is very much one of those "Old New England" families, and mom's definitely a child of the 1950's, raised by the generation born & raised in the 1920's. She always taught us that in polite society, "We do not publicly discuss any body part which is normally kept covered." She also explained that it is because we respect people's privacy, we respect that their body and their issues are their personal business, and that it's rude to stick your nose into other peoples' personal issues. hello internet, huh LOL

You gotta love that 13 years after Alva Vanderbilt upstaged her with a French Chateau on 5th ave, Mrs. Astor used the same architects to build her own.

Born in the South in the 1960’s and was told on more than one occasion as a child by my grandmother “ Who do you think you are Miss Astor!?” I had no clue who Ms. Astor was as a child but my grandmother did not think much of her!😂

Many of the "The Gilded Age" outside scenes were filmed in a small city not far from me as they still have an entire street of intact brownstones. It was very interesting the way the scene dressers changed all the shop windows and signs and set up for the filming. Just watching that was a big hit in my area.

The Astors were plantation owners. All of the all of them new money and old money were plantation owners. That’s a part of history, they like to cut out before shipping before railroads. It was cotton and tobacco, and that is how they made their fortunes.

I like the etiquette because when ppl come to my house unannounced I just watch them from my cameras. Don’t come ringing my bell

It wasn’t “long after” the fancy dress ball Mrs. Astor accepted the Vanderbilts. Her daughter Carrie wanted to go to this huge party and practiced her Quadrilles for weeks. She found out she couldn’t attend because her mother never called on Alva Vanderbilt (which Alva knew and had planned). Mrs. Astor was then forced to call on Alva so she and her daughter could attend the ball.

Nearly 30 years ago I was a tour guide at the Breakers which was the "summer cottage" of the Cornelius Vanderbilt family which descendents were Gloria and her son Anderson Cooper. This family as well as the other uber rich Dutch New Yorkers that summered in Newport would pack up pretty much their entire New York mansions including the china and load up railroad cars and then it was carted off to Newport. Their indentured Irish servants had the task of putting a mansion full of stuff away for the short summer seasons. Some of the descendents of these indentured Irish servants to this day still live in the 5th ward section of Newport formerly the area reserved for the poor. These wealthy families so desired to be royalty they married off many of their daughters to European aristocracy such as to counts, dukes, etc. and paid handsome dowries to get royal blood into the veins of their families. The Preservation Society of Newport has taken over most of these mansions including the Breakers. But a little known fact about the Breakers is that when the property was handed over by the family it was with the stipulation that the family retain ped residential occupancy rights to an apartment on the top floor which LOL was formerly the servants quarters. I was most fortunate to catch a glimpse of a now deceased Vanderbilt Countess heading up the stairs to that apartment wearing a dirty hot pink Wal-Mart sweat suit lugging a case of toilet paper. Oh how times have changed!!!

What's odd to me about Mrs. Astor is that she had several nude female paintings and drawings displayed very prominently in her home, but at her parties, the women couldn't even show their ankles and lower legs covered up in stockings. What type of weird juxtaposition is this?

I was raised by my Grandparents who were born in the 1918+1909 respectively. Taught how a proper table service should look. The proper etiquette, when to wear white and not to, all my clothes were custom made by a local tailor, I had very long legs and a small waist. All school cloths were Dry-cleaned. Shirts With Moderate Starch creases in the arms and pants. Decorum when at parties was a must. I Dearly miss those much SIMPLER TIMES!

I really enjoy your channel and your diligent research! The Gilded Age has quickly become my favorite show! Not only because of the decadent costumes and detailed settings with outstanding performances from the entire cast and crew, but also because I have been a New Yorker for the past 3 decades fascinated with her rich, complex history especially during the rapid industrialization of this global city (1865-1915). I’ve also been blessed to work and socialize with those of “New” and “Old” New York. There’s definitely the impact of common sense which Ward McAllister points out to Astor in the upcoming 9th episode, “We can not hope to keep out the New People entirely”. The timing of this show’s life lessons is perfect since the struggle between the old and new transfers to our current unrest between outdated conservatisms with a newer, more liberated approach of co-existing as Americans. It’s aligned with the golden rule we all know is true, “What’s old will need some renewing to survive as what is now considered new will inevitably become old. To succeed we must respect and adjust to the sign of the times or fall on irrelevance”. It’s humanity101.

Much of this is still practiced in certain circles. As a “retired debutante” I can testify that there are even a couple of balls where one cannot show an ankle to this day!

OMG - apparently Mrs. Astor is considered by this blogger to be “weird” for having paintings and sculptures of nude females in her art collection — have you ever heard of “art?” The Vatican museum, home of the Roman Catholic Church, is lined with statues and paintings of nude females (and males). So is the Louvre.

Her final residence is permanently in the dirt just like everybody else, how delightfully posh.

My God, how vain these people were! "Old money" as opposed to "new money"; they obviously didn't realise that, compared to the British aristocracy, they were all money from yesterday morning. They ended up selling their heiress daughters to British noblemen for a title and a grand country house. And this way of flaunting their wealth on futilities like expensive costumes for one evening, extravagant jewels, crowded rooms with too much furniture, mansions pulled down after 20 or 30 years... it was called the "Gilded Age" and not the "Golden Age" for a reason.

“Have you heard about Mimsie Starr?” “She got pinched in the Astor bar”. Ya gotta love Cole Porter! 😆

If you wanna hear about the party instead of the geography of the mansion, jump right in to the later half of this vid at 6:03. Warning : Despite the title, there's really nothing weird about it.

@5:27 Wow, all that energy and money put into a house to be used for only 20 years.

So, the Astors moved uptown and built double mansions on 65th and 5th Ave in 1896, which were then torn down in 1926 after they were purchased by a real estate developer. Was this deemed a significant architectural loss, was there any public outcry? Or were the mansions seen as antiquated by this point?

It even happens today in the middle classes. My beautiful intelligent daughter was seperated from a boy who had more money than us and lived in a more exclusive neighborhood. I dont think she understood it, but I did. Remember to this day 25 years later. It didnt matter, she went on to the next ones, she was so gorgeous. Their loss. LOL