The 1880s: Looking Back at the Most Decadent Era of New York Society

McAllister, on the other hand, was the so-called social arbiter of their time—a bon vivant figure and a connoisseur of etiquette. Together, Mrs Astor and McAllister curated New York's grandest party of only 'Four Hundred' guests with a few reasons: the Astor matriarch was in rivalry with her sister-in-law, Mrs John Jacob Astor III, in terms of being the society's 'queen bee', she wanted to limit the upper class to only those whose family had been in the city for four generations, and her house at 350 Fifth Avenue could only fit 400 people inside.

The glamourous balls Mrs Astor held annually on a January Monday later became the most important event of the season and it was collectively known as the Gilded Age balls. The upper crust of New York's society she has curated was given the term Knickerbockers, which usually connotes American elite families of Dutch origin. But the name actually originated from Washington Irving's pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker for his 1809 book, A History of New York: From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. (And yes, that's how the New York Knicks also got its name).

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The ball season has been an old tradition in many parts of the world. Just like in Downton Abbey, we hear Mary Crawley and her sisters talk about their seasons as debutantes participating in the social events of the year. Basically, the balls are cultural events that include dinner, music, dancing, receptions, luncheons, ballet, and opera performances, which the most powerful families and stalwart figures in the land attend; it is also where their young daughters are introduced to society and swooned by the most eligible bachelors. Missing an invitation from any of these balls means that you are being frowned upon by society.

In the Gilded Age New York, the winter social season runs from October until Easter and indeed Mrs Astor's has become the most important of all. The Vanderbilt costume ball, which started in 1883, may have been the only thing to compete against Mrs Astor and McAllister's 400. Of how the society got in the middle of this clash of the new and old generation of the elites, we'll see in the next episodes of HBO's The Gilded Age.

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