Newport Society in the Gilded Age

During the late nineteenth century, wealthy American families built elaborate summer houses in Newport, Rhode Island. Balls, yacht races, dinners and carefully regulated introductions made the resort a stage on which wealth could be converted into social authority.

Old families attempted to exclude industrial and railroad fortunes whose money was recent or whose business methods were considered disreputable. Social arbiters such as Ward McAllister helped define the rules while debt, marriage and reputation placed private pressure behind public display.

This context supports fiction about robber barons, heiresses, social exclusion, conspicuous consumption and the conflict between inherited status and new wealth in Gilded Age America.