From Publishers Weekly
It's unclear whether Dunlop (Sixty Miles from Contentment), who teaches 19th-century American literature and culture at Iowa State University, believes she is shocking her readers with tales of greed, excess and debauchery based on her close reading of period big-city newspapers, especially the New York Herald. Certainly, readers are well aware that even beneath the veneer of Victorian propriety lay the seamier side of the human condition. Nevertheless, she demonstrates that in the years between 1880 and 1910Aan age of "big new money" where "more and larger" were important achievementsAin New York City, "there was more wealth in private hands, more stuff available to buy, more opportunity to get ahead, and more densely packed poverty than anywhere else on the face of the earth." The wealthy flaunted their jewels, held elaborate social affairs and aspired to connections with European royalty. The general public was fascinated by such conspicuous consumption, in particular by "what other Americans could be made to do in their service" in exchange for money: "rich and not so rich men [set] out to discover how many girlsAat fifteen dollars apieceAwould drop their undergarments in front of a group of men." But this same public (rich and otherwise) was constantly on the lookout for the wealthy's errors in judgment and action; a New York Herald reporter, for instance, described how Giulia Morosini, who had invited him to view her diamond-encrusted wardrobe for the upcoming social season, had the gall to suggest that, in compiling such a wardrobe, she was serving as a benefactress of social welfare and a promoter of the arts.. Dunlop has perfectly timed for what has been called a "new gilded age" her captivating and enlightening work on Americans' obsession with money and privilege. Agent, John Ware. (Nov. 28; publication of this review was delayed due to a production error) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

American culture scholar M.H. Dunlop penetrates the psyche of New York City from 1880 through 1910—the era made famous by Edith Wharton and families like the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers—to unveil a Gilded Age that was not genteel and proper, but dangerous and predatory. She shows us a society whose drives and desires speak familiarly to our own.

Drawing on rare primary sources, Dunlop focuses each chapter on an event—some infamous, some near-forgotten—that showcases a singular facet of America as reflected in this dominant city. The preoccupations of the time emerge in Dunlop's edgy portraits of sensational events that riveted the public, including a wealthy society wedding where locals were trampled in their frenzy to watch; a bachelor dinner during which men sliced off the girl dancers' dresses; the execution of a zoo elephant diagnosed with sexual frustration, and more.

Spiced with such cameos as exotic dancer Little Egypt, art-collecting ex-com Eddie Stokes, and the bizarre Midnight Band of mercy (women who chloroformed cats on the streets after 8:00 p.m.), Gilded Cityis a new view of a pivotal time in American history and a riveting account of 19th-century New York society.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

It's unclear whether Dunlop (Sixty Miles from Contentment), who teaches 19th-century American literature and culture at Iowa State University, believes she is shocking her readers with tales of greed, excess and debauchery based on her close reading of period big-city newspapers, especially the New York Herald. Certainly, readers are well aware that even beneath the veneer of Victorian propriety lay the seamier side of the human condition. Nevertheless, she demonstrates that in the years between 1880 and 1910--an age of "big new money" where "more and larger" were important achievements--in New York City, "there was more wealth in private hands, more stuff available to buy, more opportunity to get ahead, and more densely packed poverty than anywhere else on the face of the earth." The wealthy flaunted their jewels, held elaborate social affairs and aspired to connections with European royalty. The general public was fascinated by such conspicuous consumption, in particular by "what other Americans could be made to do in their service" in exchange for money: "rich and not so rich men [set] out to discover how many girls--at fifteen dollars apiece--would drop their undergarments in front of a group of men." But this same public (rich and otherwise) was constantly on the lookout for the wealthy's errors in judgment and action; a New York Herald reporter, for instance, described how Giulia Morosini, who had invited him to view her diamond-encrusted wardrobe for the upcoming social season, had the gall to suggest that, in compiling such a wardrobe, she was serving as a benefactress of social welfare and a promoter of the arts.. Dunlop has perfectly timed for what has been called a "new gilded age" her captivating and enlightening work on Americans' obsession with money and privilege. Agent, John Ware. (Nov. 28; publication of this review was delayed due to a production error) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

At the end of the 19th century, more wealth was privately owned in New York City than anywhere on Earth, notes Dunlop (American literature and culture, Iowa State Univ.; Sixty Miles from Contentment). Daily newspapers covered an acquisitive, unrestrained upper class that, with their glittering events and lavish wardrobes, demanded to be noticed. For her social portrait, the author explored books and eight city dailies, singling out the New York Herald for its informed coverage and style. With wry eloquence, Dunlop draws from an opulent Edith Wharton world, where wealth might buy status through a daughter's alliance with an impoverished British nobleman. Appearances mattered in 1897, when a plumber was denied admission to the Metropolitan Museum because he wore overalls. Diamond tiaras, rare skins, frenzied decorating, police-escorted slumming tours, and men's private pastimes occupied the moneyed class along with drug addiction and jarred nerves. Those without power and money who protested intolerable conditions were deemed cranks or worse. With chapters on art collecting, interior design, the depression of 1893, and even the widespread passion for diamonds, this entertaining book is filled with the immediacy and irreverence of its era's press coverage. Recommended for public and academic libraries.--Elaine Machleder, Bronx, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

new leaf press

Whether anatomizing a sociey wedding, plumbing the demimonde, or relating the grotesque execution of a male zoo elephant, Dunlop furnishes not only vivid narrative but also historical context; the wedding chapter, for example, contains marvellous digressions on the roles of diamonds and flowers in high society.

Kirkus Reviews

Entertaining if insubstantial look at the goings-on among late—19th-century New York's upper classes. Dunlop (Sixty Miles from Contentment, not reviewed) paints an unflattering picture of life among the social elite of turn-of-the-century Manhattan. He draws from a number of contemporary secondary sources (and a smattering of surviving primary ones) and begins by relating tales of the social excesses of the Bradley Martins, a preeminent and trend-setting family of the time. Then he roams through considerations of the bizarrely fashionable clothing styles and artistic tastes of the period, offers a brief discussion of rapidly increasing class tensions, and moves on to an overview of the sexual dysfunctions of both humans and elephants (yes, that's right) of those days. The spectacularly insensitive behavior of New York's prominent people (from all eras), of course, will never cease to amaze. But while the eccentricities of Gotham's 19th-century denizens make for an amusing read, the author relies almost exclusively on contemporary newspaper accounts (from publications that invented the practice of"yellow journalism"). These accounts provide endless anecdotal diversions, but are hardly reliable in their veracity. Dunlop has two simple claims to establish. First, she maintains that there are many historical parallels between the late-19th century and our own day. Fair enough. Second, she believes that the ills of that time were caused by a hurried, overworked, male-dominated, sexist, and racist society unwilling to tolerate social criticism of any kind. As valid as this argument may be, it needs more in the way of evidence than a seemingly never-endinglitanyof New York Herald snippets and headlines. An agreeable snapshot of an interesting time and class in New York—but a less-than-satisfying historical critique. (b&w illustrations throughout, not seen)