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The Gilded Gentleman

Who Was Ward McAllister?

The Gilded Gentleman

Bowery Boys Media

History, Arts, Society & Culture

4.9698 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ward McAllister helped create New York City high society during the Gilded Age. But who was this mysterious Southern man?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

In a special two-part series of the Bowery Boys podcast, we're celebrating the history of New York City's oldest surviving bars and taverns with the people that know that history the best.

0:12.5

You just stop and you look and you just imagine what it was like back then.

0:17.4

A lot of those activities in real life, mobster life, happen in this area.

0:23.2

My father does demolition and salvage in Ireland, and we sourced a lot of interior from Ireland.

0:28.3

Their business is selling ale.

0:30.1

We're about our first and foremost.

0:31.5

Yeah. That's the Bowery Boys podcast. Find it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:38.7

The story of that mischievous snob, Ward McAllister, is a perfect embodiment of both the

0:45.2

glamour and absurdity of New York's Gilded Age High Society. He's been getting up to some

0:51.2

trouble on this season of HBO's The Gilded Age, where he's played by Nathan Lane,

0:56.0

so I thought it was a perfect time to revisit one of the Gilded Gentlemen's most beautifully written shows,

1:02.0

which originally ran during Carl's first season.

1:05.0

Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy the show.

1:11.6

When you think about the Elite Society of America's Gilded Age during the last quarter of

1:15.9

the 19th century, many people credit Caroline Astor.

1:18.9

The subject of a recent show is the personality large and in charge who ruled and relished

1:24.9

creating a society of her own specifications.

1:28.3

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

1:32.8

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

1:39.2

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

1:46.0

His name was Ward McAllister, and in many ways, Ward McAllister was a professional snob.

1:52.7

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,

...

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