The character of Gilded Age socialite Mamie Fish, otherwise known as Mrs. Stuyves and Fish,

became one of the most followed characters in HBO series The Guilded Age. With her pointed

no-holds-barred comments, and ability to seemingly turn up everywhere,

Mamie was a much welcomed foil to the barbs

shot between Mrs. Astor and Bertha Russell.

Mamie Fish was real.

She reigned at the top of the set,

often called the 400 as one of the leaders of society, and while challenging Mrs.

Astor in many ways, she never toppled her. Mamie's goals were perhaps different. At the time,

she was called a funmaker, but by modern historians, most certainly she is called a rule breaker.

But who was she? Really?

The real Mamie was complicated, controversial in some aspects, certainly with our modern sensibilities.

Yet along with the real Alva Vanderbilt, she wasn't going to settle for the role that a made-up society told her she had to play.

In wielding the power that she had in that constrained world,

Mamie Fish broke the rules and most definitely broke the mold.

Music and most definitely broke the mold.

Hello, I'm Carl Raymond, the host of the Gilded Gentleman History podcast where every two weeks we journey into corners light and dark for a look at America's gilded age, Francis

Bel-Ipac and England's late Victorian and Edwardian eras.

You can't get very far into reading many of the books on the social history of the

Guilded Age without encountering Mamie Fish.

Her place in the big four of society rulers, including, of course, Mrs. Astor, Alva Vanderbilt,

and Tessie Ulrichs, was well acknowledged and

...