Capital Elites: High Society in Washington, D.C. After the Civil War [Hardcover]

Kathryn Allamong Jacob (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Jacob reveals that while Washington, D.C.'s cocktail- and dinner-party circuit has changed in its makeup over the last 200 years, its spirit remains the same. Jacob (assistant program director for publications at the National Historical Publications and Records Commission) focuses on three subsets of D.C.'s elite during the Gilded Age, as dubbed by Mark Twain: the Antiques (who later became known as the Cave- Dwellers), the Officials, and the Parvenus. Before the Civil War, the fine old Southern Antique families reigned in society. After the war, with Southern ways and means felled by Confederate defeat, war heroes, Bonanza Kings, and patent profiteers poured into the capital, and the Northern Republican officials who came to administer the restored Union set the social agenda. By the turn of the century, masses of new millionaires had streamed into Washington, which, because of its regular post-election population turnover, was known as the easiest American society to break into. The bankrolls and ballrooms of the nouveaux riches ruled the social pages of the newspapers. In each of the three eras, snubs, scandals, seasonal belles, and supermarriages fed the rumor mill. Interestingly, the First Ladies of the last century suffered some of the same travails as their 20th-century successors: Mary Todd Lincoln was criticized for her expensive clothing tastes, and Julia Grant was caught up in a gold speculation scandal. Despite such occasional juicy historical gossip, the book often resembles a who- was-who catalog. Ultimately, the social gaze Jacob casts upon D.C.'s well-born and well-to-do proves superficial, like a party- goer who describes the setting, the guest list, the seating, the menu, and a few snippets of overheard conversation without ever catching the double entendres. In describing social jockeying in pre-Beltway D.C., Jacob sacrifices incisiveness for comprehensiveness. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press; 1st edition (October 17, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156098354X
• ISBN-13: 978-1560983545
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,455,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kathryn Allamong Jacob is curator of manuscripts at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. She is the author of Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C., also published by Johns Hopkins, and Capital Elites: High Society in Washington, D.C. after the Civil War.

When she was growing up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Kathryn Allamong Jacob's grandfather organized family car trips to different historic sites each month year round. These trips always included wonderful meals cooked by her grandmother, packed in wooden boxes designed and built by her grandfather, and eaten on picnic tables, sometimes while wearing mittens. Jacob liked the Gettysburg battlefields best, with their acres of markers featuring dying bronze soldiers and celebrating suicidal charges, especially in the autumn because that meant steaming macaroni and cheese casseroles. With the past so thrilling and linked with family and food she loved, it seems only natural that Jacob should become a historian of the United States during the years just before, during, and after the Civil War.

After graduating from Goucher College, Jacob earned her MA in history from Georgetown University and her PhD in American history from Johns Hopkins University. She has held positions as university archivist at Johns Hopkins University; assistant historian at the U. S. Senate Historical Office; archivist at the National Archives; assistant program director at the National Historical Publications and Records Commission; deputy director of the American Jewish Historical Society; and she is currently curator of manuscripts at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University.

Themes important for placing Sam Ward's life and the post-bellum lobby into the context of their times run throughout Jacob's career. Her doctoral dissertation examined high society in Washington during the Gilded Age. As a historian for the Senate, Jacob studied Congress and lobbying up close. As editor-in-chief of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-1989 (Government Printing Office, 1989), she gained an understanding (and a trove of arcane details) of the lives of hundreds of former senators, some of whom got caught up in the cascade of scandals that washed over the two administrations of Ulysses S. Grant.

Research for her first book, Capital Elites: High Society in Washington, D.C., after the Civil War (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), introduced Jacob to Sam Ward, a key player at the three-way intersection of politics, power, and entertaining in the post-war years. Her second book, Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C. (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), again took her into the thick of politics and lobbying, where she ran into the ubiquitous Sam once more.

A frequent lecturer on Washington during the Gilded Age, Jacob has also discussed the lifestyles of the 19th-century rich and famous on "America's Castles," produced by Cinetel Productions for the Arts and Entertainment Network; and on "The Grand Tour" and "America's Mansions, Monuments, and Masterpieces," both by Jupiter Entertainment for A & E. She has written for American Heritage, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post on the Lizzie Borden ax murders, physician Clelia Mosher and her sex survey of American women, sculptor Vinnie Ream, who unabashedly lobbied Congress for government commissions, and Sam Ward. In all of these, Jacob weaves biography together with social, cultural, and political history to create a colorful tapestry that not only examines a life but tells a bigger story about power, class, or gender -- sometimes all three.

Jacob lives in historic (of course) Lexington, Massachusetts.