While the extended conversation, “Writers in the House,” has been cancelled, settle in here for an insightful look at how contemporary writers are looking at and responding to Edith Wharton’s legacy.
Tag: Gilded Age
CONNECTIONS: Trophy homes
One similarity between the island mansions and the Berkshire cottages may be the reason they were built: They were status symbols. No one claims, not even the owners, that 20,000 square feet is necessary.
BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Meritocracy Trap’: The rich and the rest
But despite the one-in-a-million, up-from-the-bottom stories we all know and love, equal opportunity was never real. We’re not united by this new system any more than we were under aristocratic rule.
Who knew? The Gilded Age Berkshires were ‘Well Wheeled’
Thanks to a new book by local historian Bernard Drew, we know that there were automobile storage facilities, road competitions and even innovative car manufacturing operations in the Berkshires. And we know that the cottagers embraced the industry with considerable gusto.
Author Roxana Robinson to discuss new biographical novel in conversation at The Mount
Set in Charleston, South Carolina, and based on the life of her great-grandfather Frank Dawson, Roxana Robinson’s use of published accounts, family journal entries and letters tells a compelling story of one man’s attempts to navigate the country’s new political, social and moral landscape.
CONNECTIONS: Elm Court and Wharton’s ‘The House of Mirth’
Amy Bend and her dire economic and social circumstances were the model for Edith Wharton’s Lily Bart in “The House of Mirth,” published in 1905.
CONNECTIONS: Is America becoming an oligarchy?
Today, 1 percent controls 90 percent of the wealth. Will there be an unstoppable shift away from democracy?
CONNECTIONS: Berkshire road trip! Part II
Lenox is known as a Gilded Age resort and many of the mansions are restored and open.
CONNECTIONS: The unspeakable climate
It is interesting to contemplate that weather is blamed for the demise of the Vikings, the French Revolution and the bubonic plague. It is also interesting that the founding of this country, the creation of our Constitution, the Civil War, American industrialization and our Gilded Age all happened against a backdrop of extreme cold and global climate change.
CONNECTIONS: A tribute to Ellen Greendale, lover of gardens
The wedding present Irene Botsford Hoffmann received from her father was a house. It was built on her 43-acre property and named Overbrook.
PART II: The politics of W.E.B. Du Bois – a commitment to equality and racial justice
Du Bois not only accepted and advocated the principles of human equality and natural rights embodied in America’s Declaration of Independence. He actually sought to apply them worldwide.
CONNECTIONS: A ‘goodie’ woman rebels
By 23 years old, Julia Ward Howe was dancing and talking, although neither was sanctioned, and testing the waters of whatever else might shock.
CONNECTIONS: A sense of place
It is interesting that what draws many to Berkshire today is no different than what drew people in the 18th century: land. If we value our unique Berkshire communities, how do we protect and maintain them in this modern world?
CONNECTIONS: Coaching and driving in the Gilded Age
During the Gilded Age, the equipage, the livery and the horses as well as the skill in driving were sources of great pride. A local newspaper even gave a whole column for the length of the page to recounting the teams and mounts of local cottagers.
CONNECTIONS: Nostalgia for trappings of royalty
Genuine or ersatz, the desire for a coat of arms was rampant in this country. A hundred years after ejecting the king, apparently, we wanted it back.
Bits & Bytes: Lenox Tub Parade; Imani Winds at Saint James Place; ‘Where the Wild Things Are;’ ‘Asian-Americans: No More Perpetual Foreigners;’ gravestone art
Panelists Helen Haerhan Moon, Deepika Shukla, Setsuko Winchester and K. Scott Wong will address what it means to be Asian-American in the U.S.
CONNECTIONS: Beauty and the beast
They say changing your story is an indication of guilt. Mr. Beach attracted the attention of investigators by changing his story no fewer than three times.
CONNECTIONS: Life and loves in the Gilded Age
What makes the gossip about Hannah Lydig peculiar is that it was not engendered by the behavior of living people, but only behavior after death.
CONNECTIONS: Rotch and Tilden, the High Society architects
The cottagers knew one another, served on one another’s boards, gave to one another’s causes, intermarried and brought each other to the Berkshires.
CONNECTIONS: An Age gilded by mirth returns
The difference between the British and American novels of manners was that the British novelists could rely upon the stability of their society. In America, Wharton’s characters were either on their way up or down the social ladder.
CONNECTIONS: Scaling the upper crust
America did not invent aristocracy – first we ousted it and then we imitated it. If there is an America form of aristocracy, it is probably celebrity and absolutely wealth itself.
CONNECTIONS: A pillar, a house on the hill, a mystery
Underledge was built by the Clifford Brothers and it is not a stretch to imagine that one of them carved “1915” into a pillar as they built Underledge, except for one thing: it was not built in 1915.
CONNECTIONS: Survival of the wealthiest
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher wedded the science of social Darwinism to the church, and helped obliterate criticism of the Gilded Age’s excessively disproportionate distribution of wealth. He justified the rich to their riches and blamed the poor for their poverty.
Bits & Bytes: Finn Wittrock in ‘Hamlet;’ Pittsfield CityJazz Festival; Berkshire Coaching Weekend; Plein Air event at Olana; college fair at BCC; rain garden maintenance
Most recently Finn Wittrock, who grew up in Shakespeare & Company, was seen in the Oscar-nominated film “The Big Short” opposite Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale and Steve Carell.
CONNECTIONS: Berkshire Robber Barons, Part III: The Vanderbilts
“I was the first woman of any prominence to sue for divorce for adultery … Men, if they were rich enough, felt they could do anything they liked without consequence. The women bore it to maintain their social positions, but that was not enough for me.”
— Alva Smith Vanderbilt
CONNECTIONS: Berkshire Robber Barons Part II: All that glitters is not gold
While she built the Mount in Lenox, Edith Wharton was still an occasional houseguest in Newport, a familiar stomping ground that formed the backdrop for one or more of her novels.
CONNECTIONS: Berkshire ‘cottages,’ then and now
The size of these Gilded Age estates helped create South County’s unique beauty and semi-rural character. For a video tour of the cottages, go to the end of the article.
CONNECTIONS: Blantyre and the future of Berkshire ‘cottages’
Blantyre is a true restoration in that it can transport the guest back in time. But now this Berkshire Cottage is on the market. Will it — can it — be acquired by someone who respects its original architecture and does not demand density for profitability?
CONNECTIONS: Power Shift, Part II
America stands on the precipice about to step into a new age just as America did at the beginning of the Gilded Age. What if anything can we learn from the last seismic change in the primary source of energy?
Stockbridge town meeting adopts $6.3 million budget; Cardillo wins seat on Board of Selectmen
Five-term Selectman Deborah McMenamy, a determined advocate for new Police Chief Robert Eaton and his style of running the department, was defeated in her quest for a sixth term. Her opponent, Ernest Cardillo, who campaigned as “the voice of the people,” won the 3-year term on the Board of Selectmen by a margin of 52 votes, 334 to 282.
Connections: Corporations gilding the preservation lily
The return of the Gilded Age: Right now the 80-acre Southmayd estate on the river in Stockbridge is for sale for $11.5 million. If a developer purchased the former cottage, and proposed a high density development, after approving Elm Court, on what basis could the Select Board turn down development of the precious Stockbridge Ox Bow?
Connections: Second Coming of the Gilded Age
The United States does rank high in one category. Among 139 countries, according to the United Nations, we rank 12th in inequity. The Inequity Adjusted Human Development Index measures the extent to which human development is thwarted by inequitable distribution of wealth, health services and education. Evidently we do exceptionally well thwarting our citizens.