Gilded: How Newport Became America's Richest Resort
by Deborah Davis
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Book Summary Information
Author: Deborah DavisEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-11-09
ISBN: 047012413X
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Wiley
Book Reviews of Gilded: How Newport Became America's Richest Resort
Book Review: An Illuminating Social History of a Unique Town
Summary: 5 Stars
There is no city in America that has so extraordinary a history as Newport, Rhode Island. This is chiefly due to its being a destination for visits, first by well-heeled New Yorkers and Southerners in the 1850s, and then most famously by the rich society swells who installed showplace mansions especially along the magnificent rugged coastline, and then by tourists who come to see the mansions. The mansions (erected by rich people who enjoyed the ironic humor of calling them "cottages") and the society within them are not the whole Newport story, but any social history of the city is going to concentrate on them. Thus does Deborah Davis in _Gilded: How Newport Became America's Richest Resort_ (Wiley), which is an anecdote-rich account mostly of life in and around the cottages, upstairs and downstairs, and those who got included and those who did not. The stories are funny and revealing. Rich people are not really that different from the rest of us, but they have resources to put peculiarities on display, and the rest of society seems to enjoy focusing on their peccadilloes. Davis thus has intrinsically interesting material, but the book serves well, too, as an informal history of a unique city and how it handled the economic ups and downs of its waves of visitors.
The tycoons who participated in the climb had scads of money to use for social advancement, and often were encouraged by ambitious wives to do so. Many of the marriages described here had that sort of teamwork, but didn't have much else going for them. Alva Vanderbilt had learned to ignore the philandering of her husband William, but when he gave her a thirty-fifth birthday present, a blank check to cover the cost of building the cottage she desired, people whispered it was because she had caught him in yet another compromising relationship. Nonetheless, she built a palace called Marble House which opened in 1892, and inspired the word "Vanderbuilding" as others thought to catch up to its gorgeous example. Even Alva Vanderbilt had had to curry approval from the grande dame of Newport society before her, Caroline Astor, but having gained it, she went on to become queen in her own right. When the marriage broke up, it may have been because she was having one affair contrasted to her husband's many, but she suffered bad press for insisting in the divorce proceedings that it would be a hardship for her to live on $200,000 a year. She cemented her social position within Newport, however, by arranging the marriage of her daughter Consuelo to the Duke of Marlborough. It was a sheer business transaction, and Consuelo hated it, but Alva Vanderbilt forced the wedding by feigning a heart attack and predicting worse if the marriage didn't happen. It was all hard work: "I know of no profession, art, or trade that women are working in today as taxing on mental resources as being a leader of society," Alva complained. There are many scandalous and unpleasant stories like hers here, but the social grind did produce one magnificent mansion after another.
Newport boosters, few of whom have the sort of money that built the cottages a hundred years ago, have also taken up a jazz festival, the nostalgia for Camelot (Jacqueline Lee Bouvier summered in Newport, and she and JFK married there), the Americas Cup sailing race, or modern scandals like the supposed murder of Sunny von Bulow, all of which have brought their share of gawkers. The city remains a playground for rich people; Elton John played at a birthday party there a few years ago, as did Billy Joel. The great attraction of Gilded, besides its collection of often hilarious if sad anecdotes about rich people, is its social portrait of a town like no other which has undergone huge social changes and is continuing to take on new roles for itself.
Summary of Gilded: How Newport Became America's Richest Resort
A beautifully written history of high society in Newport, Rhode Island, from the acclaimed author of Party of the CenturyNewport is the legendary and beautiful home of American aristocracy and the sheltered super-rich. Many of the country's most famous blueblood families?the closest thing we have to royalty?have lived and summered in Newport since the nineteenth century. The Astors, the Vanderbilts, Edith Wharton, JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Doris Duke, and Claus and Sunny von Bulow are just a few of the many names who have called the city home. Gilded takes you along as you explore the fascinating heritage of the Newport elite, from its first colonists to the newest of its new millennium millionaires, showing the evolution of a town intent on living in its own world. Through a narrative filled with engrossing characters and lively tales of untold extravagance, Davis brings the resort to life and uncovers the difference between rich and Newport rich along the way.
- An engrossing multigenerational saga that tells the real story of the rich and famous in Newport
- Vibrant, praiseworthy writing: "[Davis] brings splendidly colorful behind-the-scenes action and players up front" (the New York Times on Party of the Century)
- 34 evocative black-and-white photographs
Written with insight and dramatic flair, Gilded gives you a rare peek into the cloistered coastal playground of America's moneyed elite.
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