Gilded Age Excess and Etiquette

Cutting up a $2,100 cake at a birthday party attended by several score of young men and fair girls just entering society has hardly created more than a ripple in New York society, so common are the extravagant whims of millionaires. Yet such a cake was one of the features of the recent birthday given by Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt on the occasion of the social debut of her daughter, Consuelo.

A Vanderbilt Cake

Cut at Miss Consuelo Vandebilt's Birthday Party

💍💍💍💍

Valuable Diamond Rings Inside

The Brilliant Prizes Went to the Lady and Gentleman who Drew the Slices Containing Them

Cutting up a $2,100 cake at a birthday party attended by several score of young men and fair girls just entering society has hardly created more than a ripple in New York society, so common are the extravagant whims of millionaires. Yet such a cake was one of the features of the recent birthday given by Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt on the occasion of the social debut of her daughter, Consuelo.

Strictly speaking, the cake did not cost $2,100. It cost $100, and that is a pretty good price for a cake, even if it was three feet in diameter and was carried by two men with difficulty. The value of $2,100 was due to the presence beneath its frosted and beautifully ornamented crust of two diamond rings, one for the fortunate young lady whose pearly teeth found it nestling in the depths of the wedge which was cut off with a silver knife for her delectation, the other for some equally fortunate young man.

The rings cost $1,000 each. Both were clusters and were especially designed. An inscription was engraved upon the inner surface of the golden bands. The cake was not in itself an especially ornate affair. The baking company which furnished it has made many others and cakes more costly. This cake was 36 inches in diameter and 14 inches in height. It was made of layers of poundcake and marmalade, the whole saturated with French cordials. The surface decorations were of roses in sugar, and the sides of the cake were further decorated by delicate sugar tracery. A dividing line in red was drawn across the snowy surface of the cake.

In one of the halves thus made a tiny blue silk flag bore the letter “G.” In the other field an orange banner displayed the letter “L.” Within these sections were hidden the rings destined for the lucky lady and gentleman. At the close of the elaborate collation, over which the proud mother of the young debutante presided, Miss Consuelo in person undertook the task of cutting up the cake. There was as near an approach to a scramble as good breeding would permit. The cake had been less than half distributed before the prizes had been discovered, and the rest of the guests accepted their pieces as a polite duty. 

In the meanwhile, a cake containing two rings valued at $100 each was being cut in the servants’ hall. “There was nothing remarkable about this prize cake,” said Manager Jansen, of the company which furnished it, “except that the value of the rings given was greater than usual.” The custom of secreting valuable jewels in cakes made for birthday parties and cotillions is common among society people of wealth, and an order for something of this nature is received every day or two. I do not recall an instance of rings being used as valuable as these, but a list of the names of parties who have expended from $200 to $500 in this line would be quite long and embrace most of the names made familiar in society news columns. 

“At a wedding celebrated last October, a bride’s cake contained a handsome solitaire diamond for each of the bridesmaids. If asked to say off-hand how many orders of this kind we have filled in a single year, I would say more than a hundred. On last St. Valentine's Day we put on the market a fancy heart-shaped cake, elaborately ornamented and satin incased, which cost $3 each. In no less than fifty instances, the parties who ordered them – men of course– brought valuable rings to be placed in them.” –Hanford Journal, April 23, 1895

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

McAllister... Supreme on Social Matters

The son of Ward McAllister, the self-appointed “social arbiter of the Gilded Age,” was reportedly permanently removed without pay from his job as a District Court Judge for Alaska, due to “drunkenness, indolence and incompetency.”
 ————— 
When asked about the court’s decision, McAllister said that in social matters, he recognized no authority except his own, but in matters legal, he took off his hat to the authority of the Supreme Court of the United States.
— Photo source, Pinterest

The “McAllister Decision”

New York, May 20.— Ward McAllister was interviewed by the World To-day on the Supreme Court decision that his son (the ex-Alaska Judge) was not entitled to a salary after his removal. McAllister says that in social matters, he recognizes no authority except his own, but in matters legal, he takes off his hat to the authority of the Supreme Court of the United States. Just like any other good citizen, he had nothing to say as to the propriety, etiquette and good taste of such decision. — San Francisco Call, 1891

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Gilded Age Sights and Styles

 

Patterns for girls’ fashions of 1887 in Godey’s Lady’s Book or Godey’s Magazine 

The Latest Wrinkles in Society

Among the ridiculous sights of the hour are the little girls in short dresses whose parents are quite willing they should wear bustles. 

Liquor decanters now come in glass of a color to “match the liquor they are to contain,” absinthe, chartreuse, kümmel liqueur and all the rest. 

Brass teapots on a tripod are new, and as far as can be learned, are admirably adapted for upsetting and saturating the family table cloth.

Photograph stands or easels on “cattails” are having an extraordinary run. Introduced a year ago, they appear to have been neglected until now. There is a fashionable preference now for small photographs of the visiting-card size, but they are as good a cure for vanity as the large ones.

They make finger-bowl mats now of bolting cloth, hand-painted, and edged with lace, which, of course, one’s country cousins are warned never to use. 

Jeweled hairpins are fancy in Paris, and put in the hair hap-hazard, according to a correspondent, have a very charming effect at night. 

For all full-dress and ceremonious occasions this coming season, ladies will wear feathers in their hair, or on their head, in Mrs. J. Bull fashion.

In fall hats for women, masculine styles prevail, much to the disappointment of people who hoped the Tom-boy fashions and styles were dying out. Basques are a mass of the most elaborate and bewildering trimming or embroidery down the front, and we are told, as winter advances, will become more so.

Some new umbrella handles have in them a match box, but what is wanted more is a magnetic umbrella that will get it back to its owner when borrowed or purloined. 

A Swiss alarm clock produces at the hour for which it is set a rooster who crows loud and shrill enough to quickly awaken even the man who retired very late.—New York Mail, 1887

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia