Research Catalog

Title

The season : a social history of the debutante / Kristen Richardson.

Author

Richardson, Kristen

Publication

New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2020]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

276 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

"The world of debutantes opens into a revealing story of women across six centuries, their limited options, and their desires. Digging into the roots of the debutante ritual, with its ballrooms and white dresses, Kristen Richardson - herself descended from a line of debutantes - was fascinated to discover that the debutante ritual places our contemporary ideas about women and marriage in a new light. In this brilliant history of the phenomenon, Richardson shares debutantes' own words--from diaries, letters, and interviews--throughout her vivid telling, beginning in Henry VIII's era, sweeping through Queen Elizabeth I's court, crossing back and forth the Atlantic to colonial Philadelphia, African American communities, Jane Austen's England, and Mrs. Astor's parties, ultimately arriving at the contemporary New York Infirmary and International balls. Whether maligned for its archaic attitude and objectification of women or praised for raising money for charities and providing a necessary coming-of-age ritual, the debutante tradition has more to tell us in this entertaining and illuminating book"--

Subject

• Debutantes > History
• Upper class women > Social life and customs
• Debutante balls > History
• HISTORY / Social History
• HISTORY / Women
• SOCIAL SCIENCE / Customs & Traditions
• Debutante balls
• Debutantes

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-256) and index.

Contents

Introduction : Too many daughters -- The girl standard : understanding the currency of daughters -- Revolution and Republic : the antebellum North -- Frozen in time : the antebellum South -- The Four Hundred and beyond : Old New York -- Transatlantic crossings: the Gilded Age -- The bright young people : an old ritual at the dawn of the modern -- Café society, celebrity, and conformity : 1930s-1980s -- Prophets, krewes, and fiesta queens: the modern South -- Creating a black elite : debutantes in African American society -- Nouveau now : the debutante reimagined.

Call Number

JFE 20-2268

ISBN

• 9780393608731
• 0393608735

LCCN

• 2019027203
• 40029575566

OCLC

1110655537

Author

Richardson, Kristen, author.

Title

The season : a social history of the debutante / Kristen Richardson.

Publisher

New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2020]

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-256) and index.

Other Standard Identifier

40029575566

Research Call Number

JFE 20-2268