Vanderbilt Ball How a costume ball changed New York elite society
In the spring of 1883, the solemnity of Lent didn’t stand a chance against the social event on the mind of all of New York’s elite society: Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt’s fancy dress ball. The invitations had been hand delivered by servants in livery, young socialites had been practicing quadrilles (dances performed with four couples in a rectangular formation) for weeks, and “amid the rush and excitement of business, men have found their minds haunted by uncontrollable thoughts as to whether they should appear as Robert Le Diable, Cardinal Richelieu, Otho the Barbarian, or the Count of Monte Cristo, while the ladies have been driven to the verge of distraction in the effort to settle the comparative advantages of ancient, medieval, and modern costumes” (New York Times). The best dressmakers and cobblers had spent months poring over old books making costumes — which were already being breathlessly described by the New York Times — as historically accurate as possible.
Prior to the ball, Gilded Age New York society had been dominated by the Mrs. Astor. (Emphasis, hers – to even ask which Astor was a sure sign that you were thoroughly ignorant in the most basic points of New York’s social hierarchy.) Mrs. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor and self-appointed “society expert” Ward McAllister were the authorities in all things upper class. It was up to them to decide if your last name was venerable enough or if your bloodlines were pure enough for entry into the upper ranks of society. They were the champions of old money and tradition.
But New York’s social hierarchy is not known for being static. Thanks to the meteoric increase in millionaires in New York due to the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution, many of whose fortunes rivaled or even surpassed the oldest of families, Mrs. Astor and Ward McAllister had a whole new challenge in deciding who of the nouveau riche was acceptable. This led to the creation of the famous List of 400 — the Four Hundred people who were New York’s high society. One family that they deemed wholly unsuitable were the Vanderbilts. The willful crassness of Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, the ambitious entrepreneurial shipping and railroad industry mogul, and patriarch of the family, was still the stuff of legends.
The Commodore’s grandson, William Kissam Vanderbilt, married the determined, pugilistic and socially ambitious Alva Erksine Smith from Mobile, Alabama (but schooled in Paris). Alva made it her mission to bring the Vanderbilts into what she thought was their proper place in society, and onto the list of the 400.
Her first move? Building an opulent French château style mansion designed by Richard Morris Hunt at 660 Fifth Avenue at 52nd street that literally overshadowed the dour, albeit luxurious, town homes that lined the avenue.
H.N. Tiemann & Co. 1898. 5th Avenue north from 52nd Street. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.11.4755.
As grand as the mansion was, the ball which served as her housewarming party was even grander. On March 26, 1883 Alva threw one of the most incredible parties that New York had ever seen. With her access to seemingly endless amounts of money, she used every available resource – including the power of the press by inviting journalists to come in and preview the decorations before the ball began – to build excitement and to make it bigger than any ball before it. According to an apocryphal tale, Alva used what was possibly the simplest weapon in her arsenal to gain admission to the New York 400: good old fashioned manipulation. The story goes, that like all marriageable young girls Mrs. Astor’s daughter, Carrie, was anxiously awaiting her invitation and even began practicing for a quadrille with her friends. Then the unthinkable happened: all of her friends got their invitations and hers never came. She immediately got her mother on the case. Due to complex social customs, Alva claimed she could not invite Miss Astor since Mrs. Astor had never called on the Vanderbilt home. Mrs. Astor really had no choice but to drop her visiting card at 660 5th Avenue, thus formally acknowledging the Vanderbilts. The Astors’ invitation was received the next day.
At ten in the evening carriages began arriving at 660 5th Avenue, dropping off nearly 1200 outrageously costumed members of the highest ranks of society. Crowds, held back by police, strained to catch glimpses of debutantes and society stalwarts attired in their costumes as they were escorted into the mansion. Even Mrs. Astor (with her daughter) and Ward McAllister were there.
It is easy to see the casual display of over-the-top excess of the ball in these portraits of attendees in their costumes taken by Mora.
Miss Edith Fish was dressed as the Duchess of Burgundy, with real sapphires, rubies and emeralds studding the front of the dress.
Mora (b.1849). Miss Edith Fish (later Hon. Mrs. Oliver Northcote). 1883. Museum of the City of New York. 41.132.45.
Mora (b. 1849). Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II (neé Alice Claypoole Gwynne. 1883. Museum of the City of New York. F2012.58.1341.
One of the most amazing costumes was Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II ‘s representation of “Electric Light” which even had a torch that lit up, thanks to batteries hidden in her dress. The dress is actually in the Museum’s costume collection and you can see it as it looked on Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II in the cabinet card below, and how stunning it is in the full color collection image. (To take a closer look at the dress, visit our Worth/Mainbocher online exhibition here.)
Charles Frederick Worth House of Worth (Firm) Jean-Phillippe Worth (1856-1926). Fancy dress ensemble, “Electric Light,” worn by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt at the 1883 Vanderbilt Ball. 1883. Museum of the City of New York. 51.284.3A-H
At exactly 11:30 the ball began with the hobby-horse quadrille, the first of five quadrilles where the young people of society danced down the grand staircase in lavish costumes.
Dancers in the Dresden Quadrille wore all-white court costumes evoking the time of Frederick the Great and giving them the eerie and intentional look of living porcelain dolls.
For the Opera Bouffe quadrille, the costumes were just as elaborate. The New York Times described a dress as, “Miss Bessie Webb appeared as Mme. Le Diable in a red satin dress with a black velvet demon embroidered on it and the entire dress trimmed with demon fringe-that is to say, with a fringe ornamented with the heads and horns of little demons.” It’s not everyday that you hear the term “demon fringe”.
Speaking of things that you don’t hear or see on a daily basis, Miss Kate Fearing Strong wore a peculiar cat costume. Miss Strong, who Henry James described as “youthful and precocious,” went as her nickname “Puss”. Somewhat disturbingly, the entire costume consisted of a taxidermied cat head as seen in the image, but also seven cat tails sewn onto her skirt. Continuing with the animal theme, Alva’s sister-in-law went as a hornet, with an imported headdress made of diamonds.
After the last quadrille ended, the ball really began. Dozens of Louis XVIs, a King Lear “in his right mind”, Joan of Arc, Venetian noblewomen and hundreds of other costumed figures danced and drank among the flower filled house, including the third floor gymnasium that had been converted into a forest filled with palm trees and draped with bougainvillaeas and orchids. Dinner was served at 2 in the morning by the chefs of Delmonico’s working with the Vanderbilt’s small army of servants. The dancing continued until the sun was rising, diamonds and other jewels glinting in the changing light. Alva led her guests in one final Virginia reel and just like that, the ball was over. The fantasy world that Alva created turned back into reality as men in powdered wigs stumbled down Fifth Avenue, much to the amusement of children on their way to school.
Most contemporary sources put the cost of the ball at $250,000 (nearly 6 million dollars in today’s money), including such costs as $65,000 for champagne and $11,000 for flowers. It was conspicuous consumption at its finest and it worked. Newspapers across the country reported the most minute details and extolled Alva’s tastes and classiness. (This is not to say that there wasn’t a backlash to the ball. The New York Sun published this very stern article, critiquing the excess when there was so much suffering in the same city.). But as of March 27, 1883 the Vanderbilts were at the top of a new New York society that was not just limited to 400 people.
Headstones with unusual stories to tell: The diver who saved a cathedral
William Walker was a deep-sea diver who, in 1905, was employed to help repair the foundations of Winchester Cathedral.
Large cracks had appeared in the cathedral's walls and vaulted ceilings, some of which were wide enough for owls to roost in.
Because Winchester has a high underlying water table and the cathedral is built on peaty soil, trenches dug below filled with water before any reinforcing work could be done.
So Walker, who usually worked at Portsmouth dockyard, was recruited.
A tunnel was excavated beneath the building and for six years he spent nearly six hours a day underwater, in darkness, replacing and shoring up the foundations with his bare hands. He worked entirely by touch. Eventually he propped the cathedral up with 900,000 bricks, 114,900 concrete blocks and 25,800 bags of cement.
Because it took him so long to put on and take off his heavy diving suit, when he stopped for a break he would just take off his helmet in order to eat his lunch and smoke his pipe.
As if that was not enough effort, each weekend he cycled 150 miles - home to Croydon, south London, before returning to work on Monday.
He died aged 49 during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. His grave, at Beckenham Cemetery in Bromley, south-east London, bears the words: "The diver who with his own hands saved Winchester Cathedral."
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Headstones with unusual stories to tell: Peter the Wild Boy
Peter had been found living alone and naked in a German forest in 1725. He could not talk, and would scamper about on all fours rather than walk.
When he was about 12 he was brought to London by King George I where he became a "human pet" at Kensington Palace. However, his inability to learn table manners or speech, hatred of wearing clothes - even his specially-made green velvet suit - and lack of decorum led to him falling out of favor.
The court paid for him to retire to a Hertfordshire farm with a generous pension and when he died, aged about 72, the locals paid for a headstone. Even today, flowers are laid on his grave.
Peter's funeral was held at St Mary's Church, Northchurch, Hertfordshire, and was paid for by the government. His gravestone was provided by local people.
At the time, courtiers assumed Peter's behavior was the result of being brought up by wolves or bears. However, modern analysis of a portrait suggests Peter had a rare genetic condition known as Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome.
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Headstones with unusual stories to tell: The soldier whose beer was too weak
In Winchester, there is a grave which pays homage to a 26-year-old grenadier in the North Regiment of the Hants Militia. Thomas Thetcher died after drinking contaminated small (weak) beer when he was hot.
Before the invention of modern sanitation, people would drink small beer when fresh water was unavailable. This was because the alcohol was toxic to water-borne pathogens.
However, it was not enough to prevent Thetcher catching a fever and dying.
Following his death in 1764, his comrades arranged for a jocular headstone inscription warning of the dangers of drink. It read:
Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier,
Who caught his death by drinking cold small beer,
Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall
And when ye're hot drink strong or none at all.
In 1918, the tombstone caught the attention of a young American soldier called Bill Wilson, who was camped nearby with his US Army unit.
Twenty-one years later, following a battle with alcoholism, he founded Alcoholics Anonymous and in 1939 published a book about his experience.
In it he claimed the gravestone had been an "ominous warning which I failed to heed", and printed the first two lines of the verse in the front of his book.
However, it appears he misunderstood the headstone, as he missed out the crucial advice about only drinking strong beer.
On 12 May - the anniversary of Thetcher's death - people gather at the grave to drink (strong) beer and raise a glass to the grenadier.
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Headstones with unusual stories to tell: The barmaid who taunted a tiger
In 1703, Hannah Twynnoy became Britain's first recorded victim of a tiger.
She was a barmaid at the White Lion in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, when a travelling menagerie set up in the pub's large rear yard, ready to attract paying crowds.
Hannah was warned against upsetting the tiger but she enjoyed bothering and poking at the big cat - until one day it discovered the cage door was open. Fed up of the pesky barmaid, the tiger launched itself on the unfortunate servant and mauled her to death.
The stone, in Malmesbury Abbey has the epitaph:
In bloom of life
She's snatched from hence
She had not room to make defence;
For Tyger fierce
Took life away
And here she lies
In a bed of clay
Until the Resurrection Day.
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100-Year-Old Box of Negatives Discovered Frozen In Block of Antarctica’s Ice
Imagine discovering a 100-year-old box of photographic negatives frozen in the ice of Antarctica! That's exactly what happened to researchers at the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust.
After being frozen for a century, the negatives had to be gently restored by first separating one from another, then cleaning, removing the mold, and consolidating the cellulose nitrate image layers. Only after this painstaking process were they turned into digital positives.
As stated in the Trust's media release, the box of photographs was probably left in Captain Scott’s hut by Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, an expedition stranded after their ship floated away to the sea during a massive blizzard. The group was finally rescued, but only after three men had already been lost.
Cellulose nitrate negatives were found blocked together, so Wellington photography conservator have spent many hours restoring them until they revealed their secrets.
As stated in the Trust's media release, the box of photographs was probably left in Captain Scott’s hut by Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, an expedition stranded after their ship floated away to the sea during a massive blizzard. The group was finally rescued, but only after three men had already been lost.
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| Alexander Stevens on Aurora deck, chief scientist and geologist. |
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Iceberg and land, Ross Island. |
Alexander Stevens on the Aurora.
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| Big Razorback Island, McMurdo Sound. It was most likely taken from the deck of the Aurora in January 1915. |
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This photo was taken from the deck of the Aurora looking South to Hut Point Peninsula. |
Can We Grow Our Spirits As Fast As Our Tech?
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We’re plunging into a future of stupendous technological wonders. AI. VR. Bioengineering. Can we manage these breakthroughs wisely—or will they destroy us?
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