When you think about the elite society of America's Gilded Age during the last quarter of the 19th century, many people credit Caroline Astor,

the subject of a recent show as the personality large and in charge who ruled and relished creating a society of her own specifications.

But the truth is, she didn't act alone, and a certain particular gentleman,

whose credentials were murky at best and blown significantly out of proportion at worst,

joined forces with her to become the social sovereigns of the uppermost threads of the Gilded Age

tapestry. His name was Ward McAllister,

and in many ways,

Ward McAllister was a professional snob.

Music I'm Carl Raymond, host of the Gilded Gentleman History podcast, join me every two weeks for a nice cup of tea, and stories, secrets, style, and usually some scandal as we look behind the velvet curtains of America's Gilded Age, Francis

Belipoc, and England's late Victorian and Edwardian eras. If you were sitting in your highly

polished wood pew in New York's venerable Grace Church on that morning of February 5, 1895,

you'd have pulled your black wool overcoat or your shawl more tightly around you as the frigid gusts of wind blew through the solemn neogothic church each time the door opened

to admit new mourners. A winter morning sun filtered through the brilliantly colored stained glass

windows casting spots of muted light on the stone floor. Expertly carved marble memorials

placed around the heavy gray stone walls bore witness to the endurance of the names and the families of what had come to be called Old New York.

Grace Church, built in 1846, had been New York Society Church of the city's old guard since its construction.

Architecturally, it was kind of a warm-up

act for architect James Renwick Jr. who went on much later to create his masterpiece,

the great St. Patrick's Cathedral later in the century. But here, at Grace Church,

generations of Rhinelanders, Jones, and Skirmarhorns had all heard

sermons, witnessed weddings, and paid their respect at funerals in this lofty, dramatic,

and yet still intimate sacred space.

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