This episode examines the rise, dominance, and disappearance of the WASPs, the old American families from the Northeast who dominated business, society, and politics for much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It distinguishes them from the Southern gentry, and defines them as an upper class formed by intermarriage, inherited wealth, and shared institutions rather than just a group of rich individuals.
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It then describes how the WASPs were economically and culturally powerful at their height. They funded railroads, industry, banking, museums, libraries, and opera houses, while shaping high society through prep schools, Ivy League colleges, clubs, debutante events, and church life. Their influence also extended into politics, largely through the Republican Party and through journals, donations, and private networks rather than direct office-holding.
I argue that the class declined because of three main factors: an addiction to leisure, inflation, and taxation. Many families came to prefer yachting, travel, parties, and passive investing over active oversight of businesses and fortunes. It also explains that their preference for bonds left them vulnerable when inflation rose after the gold standard weakened, reducing both the real value of their income and the value of their capital. Further, income taxes and death taxes made it difficult to preserve wealth, and many families tried risky investing or leverage instead of adapting. A few families, such as the Mellons and the Golets, survived by holding better assets, using trusts, and remaining attentive to their wealth, but most of the New York 400 that was so dominant in the Gilded Age had faded near-entirely away within a century.
This episode ends by drawing lessons from this history: the importance of duty, long-term thinking, solid assets, keeping fortunes consolidated, and staying involved in family and business affairs. The episode says the WASPs disappeared as a class because they stopped doing the work required to remain an upper class.
Read my article on this here: https://www.theamericantribune.news/p/how-the-old-american-wasp-aristocracy
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Sources Referenced in this Episode:
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support the show at no added cost to yourself, you can do so by using the links below to order and read the sources I used to create this episode. Thanks!
First Families: The Making of an American Aristocracy, https://link.amazon/B0bZphqPQ
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance, https://link.amazon/B0e5P2nOQ
Leaving a Legacy: Inheritance, Charity, & Thousand-Year Families, https://link.amazon/B0b0BGNIR
Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class, https://link.amazon/B08kDcLPA
The Landed Gentry: Passions and Personalities Inside America’s Propertied Class, https://link.amazon/B0hQrndQ6
Mellon: An American Life, https://link.amazon/B0eSSuT2R
An American Aristocracy: The Livingstons, https://link.amazon/B04RHm2G7
Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World’s Great Family Businesses, https://link.amazon/B02JEw2t3
The Education of Henry Adams, https://link.amazon/B03AmIXkQ
The Managerial Revolution, https://link.amazon/B0iR5SahH
The Proud Tower A Portrait of the World Before the War, https://link.amazon/B01ZmV6Hk
1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War, https://link.amazon/B0eVAW0k8
American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900, https://link.amazon/B01dz8Ad1
Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, https://link.amazon/B07zwq4Q9
Transcript
