Pepper, George W. (1867-1961) Image of George Wharton Pepper painting. University Archives. University of Pennsylvania Page 1 of 2 University Archives and Records Center University of Pennsylvania George Wharton Pepper (1867-1961) Description: Portrait of "Former U.S. Senator" George Wharton Pepper in academic dress Artist or photographer: Cameron Burnside Date: undated Medium: black and white photo of original oil painting Location: University Archives. The University of Pennsylvania Alumni Records Collection Box 2058: "Biographical Material. Photographs. Obituaries. Collection Material and Inventories" Digital Reference: 20020722002 Note: See 1924 For use of digital images consult: Chronological file re Fee Schedule for Image Reproductions Permission to Publish Roads Hearing before Protocols for the University Archives and Records Center Securary of haterior Work. http://www.archives.upenn.cdu/img/ar/20020722002.html 1/6/2003 FRANKLIN upenn library catalog - Brief Record View Page 1 of 1 franklin upenn library catalog NewBooks I library home I con new headings titles search your library place borrow other search list list history account requests direct catalogs user guide Search Request: Author = pepper george wharton Search Results: Displaying 11 of 15 entries previous next View : Brief Fall Staff Author: Pepper, George Wharton, 1867-1961. Title: Miscellaneous manuscripts. 1906-1951. Description: Archival/Manuscript Material 10 items (40 leaves). Location: Rare Book & Ms Library Manuscripts Call Number: Misc Mss previous Print/Save/Email Select Download Format: Full Record Print/Save Email Enter your email address: Proxy /Pwebrecon.cgi?vl=11&ti=1.11&Search_Arg=pepper+george+wharton&SL=None&Search_Code=NAME_&PID1/6/200 FRANKLIN upenn library catalog - Full Record View Page 1 of 2 franklin upenn library catalog NewBooks I library home con new headings titles search your library place borrow other search list list history account requests direct catalogs 885.85 guide Search Request: Author = pepper george wharton Search Results: Displaying 11 of 15 entries previous View Brief Fall Staff Author: Pepper, George Wharton, 1867-1961. Title: Miscellaneous manuscripts. 1906-1951. Description: Archival/Manuscript Material 10 items (40 leaves). Biography/History: George Wharton Pepper was a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. Summary: Consists of three folders. One folder contains assorted documents dated 1906-1909 relating to a cane belonging to Benjamin Franklin that was in the possession of Lafayette's descendant. Marquis de Sahune de Lafayette. It includes a copy (in English) of Sahune's declaration of the authenticity of the various Lafayette/American Revolution relics in his possession: a declaration by Sahune's London solicitor. W. Sanders Fiske. describing the Franklin cane: a copy of the description of the cane from the French government auction catalogue: a letter from Pepper to Charles C. Harrison. Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. stating his intention to present the cane to the University: and a reply to Pepper. The second folder contains ms. drafts of four political specches by Pepper. dated 1922-[1926]. One is to the National Lumbermen's Association: the others concern Pepper's Senate re-election campaign for 1926 and Andrew Mellon's support for Pepper's opponent. Edwin S. Vare, in the Republican primary. The third folder contains a letter dated 4 April 1951 to John L. Haney. Provenance: The letter to Hancy was tipped into a copy of Pepper's book Philadelphia Lawyer: An Autobiography (4th printing) (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1944). with the bookplate of John Louis Hancy: this copy is now owned by the University Library. LC Subject(s): Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790 Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de, 1757-1834. Mellon, Andrew W. (Andrew William), 1855-1939. Vare, Edwin S., 1867-1934. United States. Congress. Senate. Elections Pennsylvania 1926. Electioneering Political campaigns. Politics. practical. United States History Revolution. 1775-1783. United States History 18th century. United States Politics and government 20th century. Form/Genre: Speeches. Notes: John L. Hancy was a professor of English and president of Central High School in Philadelphia. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1929. Language(s): The description of the cane from the French government auction catalogue is in French. FRANKLIN upenn library catalog - Full Record View Page 2 of 2 Other Contributors: Fiske, William Sanders. Haney, John Louis, 1877-1960. Harrison, Charles Custis, 1844-1929. Sahune Dumottier de Lafayette, Paul Marie Rene Gaston de Pourcet, marquis de. National Lumbermen's Association. University of Pennsylvania. Other Titles: Philadelphia lawyer, an autobiography. 1944. Location: Rare Book & Ms Library Manuscripts Call Number: Misc Mss previous next Print/Save/Email Full Record Print/Save Select Download Format: Email Enter your email address: Proxy /Pwebrecon.cgi?v2=11&ti=1.11&SEQ=20030106153512&Scarch_Arg=pepper+gcorge+wharton&SL=None&Se 1/6/2003 1.1 FRANKLIN upenn library catalog - Brief Record View Page 1 of 1 franklin upenn library catalog NewBooks I library home I con new headings titles search your library place borrow other search list list history account requests direct catalogs user guide Search Request: Author = pepper george wharton Search Results: Displaying 4 of 7 entries previous next View Brief Full Staff Author: Pepper, George Wharton, 1867- Title: Men and issues : a selection of speeches and articles by George Wharton Pepper, compiled by Horace Green. Publisher: New York, Duffield. 1924. Description: Book xiii. 308 p. front.. pl.. ports. 21 cm. Location: Van Pelt Library Yarnall Collection Call Number: P320 P396 previous next Print/Save/Email Select Download Format: Full Record Print/Save Email Enter your email address: Proxy Pwebrecon.cgi?vl=t&ti=1.4&Scarch_Arg=pepper+george+wharton&SL=None&Scarch_Code=NAME_&PID=21/6/2003 FRANKLIN upenn library catalog - Brief Record View Page 1 of 1 franklin upenn library catalog NewBooks I library home I con new headings titles search your library place borrow other search list list history account requests direct catalogs user guide Search Request: Author = pepper george wharton Search Results: Displaying 9 of 15 entries previous next View Brief Staff Author: Pepper, George Wharton, 1867-1961. Title: In the Senate / by George Wharton Pepper. Publisher: Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania press : London, H. Milford. Oxford university press. 1930. Description: Book V. p.. 21., 3-148 p. front. (port.) 22 cm. Location: High Density Storage: Request with PLACE REQUESTS tab Call Number: 328.73SP39 Status: Available. check location previous news Print/Save/Email Select Download Format: Full Record Print/Save Email Enter your email address: Proxy ./Pwcbrecon.cgi?vl=9&ti=1.9&Scarch_Arg=pepper+gcorge+wharton&SL=Nonc&Search_Code=NAME_&PID=21/6/2003 JSTOR: American Historical Review: Vol. 51. No. 1. p. 137 Page 2 of 2 PHILADELPHIA LAWYER: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. By George Wharton Pepper. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1944 Pp. 407. $3.75.) HISTORIANS usually expect to find little of value to their trade in a book of random recollections written by an ex-senator during the seventy-seventh year of his age and twenty years after it term in office of less than six years. This book will agreeably disappoint them--and for three reasons. Mr. Pepper's methods of preserving bis physical health (pp. 294-95) and mental resilience ("I must thoroughly understand the modern point of view even if I cannot accept it," P. 283) have proved effective; and he stubbornly refuses to lose his sense of humor or to magnity his own importance. This autobiography ranges among the experiences of a well-bred, upperclass Philadelphia youth of liheral-conservative leanings, who became an outstanding Previous Page Next p. 137 of 137-138 (1st of 2 pages) Select Another Page Previous Item in Journal | Next Item in Journal SAVE CITATION VIEW SAVED CITATIONS You have saved o citations Philadelphia Lawyer: An Autobiography, Review author[s]: Jeannette P. Nichols The American Historical Review i 1945 American Historical Association PRINT I DOWNLOAD CITATION/STABLE URL | TABLE OF CONTENTS JSTOR HOME I SEARCH | BROWSE | TIPS | SET PREFERENCES | ABOUT JSTOR | CONTACT JSTOR | TERMS & CONDITIONS ©2000-2003 JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/view/00028762/di951266/95p02146/0 1/6/2003 JSTOR: American Historical Review: Vol. 51. No. 1. p. 138 Page 1 of 2 SEARCH I BROWSE TIPS I SET PREFERENCES ABOUT JSTOR I CON PRINT DOWNLOAD CITATION/STABLE URL TABLE OF CONTENTS Your ac STOR Souther Read about JSTOR and Accessibility. EXIT JSTOR SAVE CITATION VIEW SAVED CITATIONS You have saved 0 citations p. 138 of 137-138 (2nd of 2 pages) Select Another Page Previous Item in Journal Next Item in Journal Previous Page Next 138 Reviews of Books professor of law, a public-spirited citizen, a strong pillar of the Episcopal Church, an internationally known attorney, a frequent worker on the upper levels of Republican politics, and a one-term appointee to the United States Senate. Though he no longer teaches law or sits in the Senate, he continues even today his energetic pursuit of his other occapations, and therefore his material comes up to the moment, The best part of this autobiography is its candid analysis of the genus senator (pp. 135-223) all users of the Congressional Record should start to read this section, and they are likely to follow it through unless they are of the "sacrosanct" or "stuffed-shirt" breed of human animal. It will help to avoid silly notions as to what a senator is and what he thinks he is. Other passages, on such episodes as the fight against the League of Nations and the Republican Convention of 1940, are limited to Pepper's own angle of participation; and from them readers may scarcely guess of the venom in Lodge or of the paid claqueurs who raised the Philadelphia convention hall rafters with yells for Willkie's nomination. Comment on "T. R." is penetrating (pp. 81, 90-92); but Pepper misjudged La Follette (p. 146) and evidently had no relish for detail on Penrose and Vare. His almost uniform urbanity deserts him in some passages touching the New Deal, such as that wherein he remarks that "while we now have most of the evils of totalitarian government we are administering it wastefully and inefficiently" (p. 283). A certain relish for comment on seamy sides of the F. D. Roosevelt administra- tion is to be expected from anyone of the author's background and beliefs. He belongs with the liberal-conservative class, which prominently led in American decisions prior to Wilson; this class has contributed considerably more to American upbuilding than many historians are willing to credit to them. As Mr. Pepper ob- serves. his class is handicapped by its more fortunate status and naturally finds it hard "to appreciate the anxieties of the so-called "underprivileged" to imagine Y. http://www.jstor.org/view/00028762/di951266/95p02146/1?config=jstor&frame.../0lcc9933410050b2b259&dpi 1/6/2003 JSTOR: American Historical Review: Vol. 51. No. 1. p. 138 Page 2 of 2 WILL 11 IS IFK.C LE we Hungry au can airs HAIRASCO by SECURY 11. eyes. 11 is all achievement to realize the handicap, as the author shows by his analysis of why capitalism needs a dynamic church (p. 200). Much concerning legal cases and practice before the United States Supreme Court adds to the interest of this book. Herein is repeatedly stressed the value of habits of conference and compromise in a democracy. Some historians, as well as Mr. Pepper, apprehend a trend among Americans to substitute for these habits those of intolerance and of resort to force. Not all are as optimistic as the author, who, as is the wont of most writers, closes his narrative by writing a foreword; there Mr. Pepper testifies to our future: "Just as I am confident of personal im- mortality 50 I believe that through the grave and gate of death America will pass to a joyful resurrection. Perhaps it is only wishful thinking, but my belief is that as America goes so will go the world." Swarthmore, Pennsylvania JEANNETTE P. NICHOLS Previous Page Next p. 138 of 137-138 (2nd of 2 pages) Select Another Page Previous Item in Journal | Next Item in Journal SAVE CITATION | VIEW SAVED CITATIONS You have saved 0 citations Philadelphia Lawver: An Autobiography, Review author[s]: Jeannette P. Nichols The American Historical Review io 1945 American Historical Association PRINT | DOWNLOAD | CITATION/STABLE URL | TABLE OF CONTENTS JSTOR HOME | SEARCH | BROWSE | TIPS | SET PREFERENCES | ABOUT JSTOR | CONTACT JSTOR | TERMS & CONDITIONS 2000-2003 JSTOR hhttp://www.jstor.org/view/00028762/di951266/95p02146/1?config=jstor&frame.../0lcc9933410050b2b259&dpi= 1/6/2003 George Wharton Pepper. Philadelphia Lawyer: An Autobiography. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1944. 1889: Northwest Harbor becomes the Wharton's summer home and "there have only been three summers in fifty-four years when we have failed to visit our beloved Mt. Desert in the old days an ideal vacation ground for anybody who loved mountains and sea and enjoyed the companionship of people of culture." (p. 318) They stayed at the Kimball House until concerns about the impact of hotels on the children, they built in 1900 a cottage of their own on School House Ledge. (p. 322) Island was a "happy combination of wilderness and civilization." (p. 318) In Sept. 1900 Pepper claims that he and a friend were, I believ e, the first "to walk in one day [the 17 miles] from Bar Harbor to Northeast Harbor over nine intervening mountains." "Out of doors all day and engaged, for my part, in strenuous pastime on land and sea " "The Maine natives are shrewd and observing folk." (p. 319) "Your Maine native is firmly determined to mind nobody's business but his own." (p. 320). "Maine men seldom betray emotion but they have great depth of feeling." (p. 321). When he first came to MDI the people seemed to be "to be of a finer type than most of those who live there today[1944]." For association with "summer folk" has done the natives no good, and standards of honesty have declined in the zeal to optimize the needs of seasonal visitors. Pepper also vacationed in the Adirondacks where he climbed Marcy. He climbed Katahdin in 1904. Concerned that the Northeast Harbor site was not sufficiently sugged, in 1907 he found a location just north of Pretty Marsh at Goosemarch Point, a location almost inaccessible except by water. Bought 10 acres of land which included two small islands in 1907. Called Tern Rock Camp it continued to be their residence for more than three decades. (p. .326). No mention of Eliot, Dorr, Rockefeller, or road construction issues relative to Sec. Work. PEPPER, George Wharton (1867-1961) Biographical Information Page 1 of 1 Biographical Directory of the PEPPER, George Wharton, 1867-1961 United States Congress Senate Years of Service: 1922-1927 Party: Republican PEPPER, George Wharton, a Senator from Pennsylvania; born in Philadelphia, Pa., March 16, 1867; prepared privately for college; graduated from the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1887 and 1774 A Present from that university's law department in 1889; was admitted to the bar in 1889 and commenced practice in Philadelphia, Pa.; Biography professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania 1894-1910, and trustee of the Research Collections university 1911-1961; chairman of the Bibliography Pennsylvania Council of National Defense New Search during the First World War; lecturer at Yale University 1915; member of the commission House History Page on constitutional revision in Pennsylvania 1920-1921; appointed as a Senate History Page Republican and subsequently elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Boies Penrose and served Copyright Information from January 9, 1922, to March 3, 1927; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1926; chairman, Committee on the Library (Sixty- eighth Congress), Committee on Printing (Sixty-ninth Congress); Republican national committeeman 1922-1928; resumed the practice of law in Philadelphia, Pa.; died in Devon, Pa., May 24, 1961; interment in Old St. David's Churchyard Cemetery, Wayne, Pa. Bibliography American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Pepper, George Wharton. In the Senate. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930; Zieger, Robert. 'Senator George Wharton Pepper and Labor Issues in the 1920s.' Labor History 9 (Spring 1968): 163-83. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000219 1/31/2003 PEPPER, George Wharton (1867-1961) Guide to Research Papers Page 1 of 2 Biographical Directory of the PEPPER, George Wharton, 1867-1961 United States Congress Guide to Research Collections American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia St. Charles Seminary Philadelphia, PA Papers: Correspondence in Walter George 1774 d Present Smith papers, 1775-1972. Appointment necessary. Biography Hagley Museum and Library Research Collections Greenville, DE Bibliography Papers: In Hamilton M. Barksdale papers, New Search 1892-1918; and J. Howard Pew papers, 1902-1971. House History Page Senate History Page Historical Society of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Papers: Correspondence and papers in Pennsylvania Council of National Defense records, 1917-1918. Herbert Hoover Library West Branch, IA Papers: 1922-1927 and 1934-1956. 3 folders. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Harrisburg, PA Papers: 71 items (1895-1955) of political correspondence, patronage recommendations, and biographical data contained in various collections. Finding aid. Radcliffe College Schlesinger Library Cambridge, MA Papers: In Dorothy Dunbar Bromley papers, 1897-1986; and Vira Boarman Whitehouse papers, 1889-1957, available on 1 microfilm reel. Temple University Libraries Urban Archives http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/guidedisplay.pl?index=P000219 1/31/2003 PEPPER, George Wharton (1867-1961) Guide to Research Papers Page 2 of 2 Philadelphia, PA Papers: In Joseph Krauskopf papers, 1885-1923. University of Pennsylvania Libraries Philadelphia, PA Papers: 1910-1953. 70 cubic feet. Includes correspondence (1910- 1953), speeches (1916-1956), VIP correspondence, and genealogical materials. Also ca. 150 miscellaneous items (1885-1957) including correspondence, poems and drawings, scrapbook of diplomas, certificates and citations, medals and decorations, and political and collegiate memorabilia. Yale University Libraries Manuscripts and Archives New Haven, CT Papers: In Harold Phelps Stokes papers, 1908-1969; Jerome New Frank papers, 1918-1972; Edwin Montefiore Borchard papers, 1910-1950; Henry Lewis Stimson papers, 1846-1966; and Newman Smyth papers, 1874-1924. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/guidedisplay.pl?index=P000219 1/31/2003 E. Digby Baltzell PHILADELPHIA GENTLEMEN 168F pp THE MAKING OF A NATIONAL UPPER CLASS 138 The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois CHAPTER I Introduction But the fact is that not only property, but the two TO MY WIFE institutions of property and social stratification are in the same position of moral ambiguity. Both are necessary instruments of justice and order, and yet both are fruitful of injustice. Both have, no less than government, grown up organically in traditional civi- lizations in the sense that they were unconscious adaptations to the needs of justice and order. The revolts against both of them by both the radical Christians and the radical secular idealists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries tended to be indisa ninate. REINHOLD NIEBUHR LEADERSHIP and some form of stratification are inherent in all human social organization. From the time of Plato's utopian Republic, and his pupil Aristotle's more realistic Politics, the "few" and the "many," the "rulers" and the "ruled," and the "Classes" and the "masses" have been staple terms in the language of social thought. Only in that delightful land of Oz are there more generals than privates, and surely Alice might have found a "classless society," like un-wet water, only in Wonderland. Yet perhaps man has always dreamed of a golden age, free of the inevitable inequal- ities of all historical class situations: When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the Gentleman? Although scientific realism is deified in our time, modern social theory, from Rousseau through Marx to the present, betrays, never- theless, a utopian tendency to measure the good society, often equated with democracy, in terms of such sociological monstros- ities as "majority leadership" or the "classless society." Robert Michels, for instance, in his well-known study of European labor movements, comes to the pessimistic conclusion that democracy is impossible because of what he calls the "iron law of oligarchy. "1 While Michels is certainly right about the inevitability of "minority ( ) (4) Introduction Introduction (5) leadership," his conclusion, which assumes, falsely, the alterna- Lowell, or Taft families have undoubtedly enriched the egalitarian tives, oligarchy or democracy, leads only to confusion. soil of American life. Granted, all complex societies-aristocratic, democratic, or total- This is the study of an hereditary.upp class, based on business itarian-are oligarchical in that the few rule the many. A less wealth and power, which has grown up in Philadelphia during the utopian, more empirical test of democracy is whether the inevitable two hundred or more years since the city's founding by that ec- "minority of leaders," or oligarchy, is both accountable to the rest centric Quaker aristocrat, William Penn, in 1682. It is not our of the population and drawn from all social levels and not solely intention to attack the evils of hereditary wealth and the long- from the ranks of a few privileged families. Parliamentary repre- established family traditions in Philadelphia. We are concerned sentation, the two-party system, and universal suffrage, for example, with an historical analysis of the structure and function of upper- are important, if imperfect, means of securing accountability; the class institutions. While assuming the desirability of established inheritance tax, the abolition of entail and primogeniture, and institutions which create an upper class consciousness-of-kind and universal free education are all designed to mitigate the advantages more or less primary group solidarity, we shall nevertheless often of birth and to foster social mobility in an open class, rather than refer to the abuses of privilege and the all too human frailties a classless society. ² which inevitably prevent the proper functioning of such institu- In modern America, virtue and social mobility have become tions. Finally, in many ways this is an analysis of the adequacy synonymous. Our vices are often perverted virtues, however, and of American institutions fostering, among the rich and the too much social mobility, especially at the elite level, perhaps may powerful, a sense of noblesse oblige, an old sociological concept weaken the traditional means of checking the power of leaders. which seems to have found no place in the literature of contem- If power and authority are the bricks and mortar of all social porary American social science. structures, an upper class, based on inherited wealth and position, Philadelphia has been chosen as the central focus of this analysis is but the organic institutionalization of power and authority of American upper class institutions for several reasons: First, within a traditional circle of privileged families. The revolutionary there was the need to study the problem of social stratification in vanguard and party elites in modern dictatorships, or "Café Society" a large metropolitan area. During the nineteen thirties and forties, in this age of lonely crowds and mass communications, are but American sociologists, with elaborate staffs trained in interviewing other, and perhaps more mechanical, ways of organizing the con- techniques, the filling out of schedules, and the Operation of IBM sciousness of kind and primary group solidarity of a privileged machines, made numerous, painstaking investigations of the social leadership. Although "Café Society" or the party elite may cer- systems in the small community. Very little systematic research, tainly be more democratic in their criteria for membership in the however, has been done on the metropolitan class structure. Phila- inner circle, perhaps an hereditary upper class may prove to be delphia, a major American city since colonial times, not only a more effective mediating group in institutionalizing the account- provides a particularly good laboratory for studying the structure ability of authority. After more than a century of concentrated of well-established, urban institutions; it also is a convenient start- attack on the evils of hereditary wealth and property, the problem ing point for an analysis of the development of a national upper of the accountability of power in an atomistic mass society has class in America which cuts across local boundaries to include arisen to challenge the assumptions of the Western intellectual fashionable families in all the older urban centers from San Fran- world. Certainly the liberal tradition, firmly grounded in the eight- cisco to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or Baltimore. A description eenth century intellectual's mistrust of all established institutions, of the development of this national, metropolitan upper class will has too often failed to realize that both the democratic and aristo- be an important task of this book. Secondly, Philadelphia provides cratic social processes are, like Siamese twins, indivisibly bound an excellent example of a business aristocracy which has too often together in all healthy societies. Such patrician traditions of leader- placed the desire for material comfort and security above the ship and accomplishment provided by the Roosevelt, Adams, duties of political and intellectual leadership. While this is an (6) Introduction Introduction (7) all too common characteristic of modern commercial upper classes the company of other executives and scientists more congenial in general, both in Europe and America, the gradual withdrawal than that of a peasant or manual laborer. In this way different of the Philadelphia gentleman away from public service and into habits of speech, manners, and dress are built up and transmitted the counting house is a concrete illustration of a secular trend in from one generation to the next. In addition, the tendency for this country which began with the rise of great fortunes after the families of similar social station to live near each other in the same Civil War. community leads to the choice of marriage partners from families The Elite and the Upper Class. A systematic treatment of with approximately the same background. All these forces are at social stratification usually has to arrive at some specific number of work in the Soviet Union, and it is safe to predict that they will class levels. It is important to realize, however, that one divides a eventually result in the emergence of a class system resembling in community into as many class levels as one must for the purposes many ways that in the Unite States. "f at hand. Class levels are logical concepts to be used for analytical "Twenty years ago," the English expert on the Russians, Edward purposes: to fail to realize this and to "discover" in any community Hallett Carr, wrote in 1951, school was started in the Kremlin three, six, or nine classes is to run the risk of reification (the taking in Moscow for children of high party and Soviet officials. Nobody as real that which is only conceptual).4 supposes that its function was to enable these children to start For the purposes of this book, then, we shall act as if there equal with other Russian children." were two aspects of high class position, an elite and an upper The upper class concept, then, refers to a group of families, class. The elite concept refers to those individuals who are the whose members are descendants of successful individuals (elite most successful and stand at the top of the functional class hier- members) of one, two, three or more generations ago. These fam- archy. These individuals are leaders in their chosen occupations or ilies are at the top of the social class hierarchy; they are brought professions; they are the final-decision-makers in the political, up together, are friends, and are intermarried one with another; economic or military spheres as well as leaders in the law, engineer- and, finally, they maintain a distinctive style of life and a kind ing, medicine, education, religion and the arts. Regardless of social of primary group solidarity which sets them apart from the rest origin or family position, whether Negro, Gentile or Jew, all suc- of the population. As Dixon Wecter put it: "A group of families cessful and productive men and women are included within our with a common background and racial origin becomes cohesive, elite concept. and fortifies itself by the joint sharing of sports and social activities, In any stable social structure, certain elite members and their by friendship and intermarriage. Rough and piratical grandfathers families will quite naturally over the years tend to associate with had seized their real estate, laid out their railroads, and provided one another in various primary group situations and thereby for their trust funds. The second and third generation, relieved develop a consciousness-of-kind and distinctive style of life. From from the counting house and shop, now begin to travel, buy books Middletown to Moscow, this is a universal social process. In their and pictures, learn about horses and wine, and cultivate the art second study of Middletown, for instance, the Lynds found that of charm."8 "around the families of the now grown-up sons and sons-in-law Although this book will be concerned primarily with an analysis of the X clan, with their model farms, fine houses, riding clubs, of the growth and development of an American metropolitan upper and airplanes, has developed a younger set that is somewhat more class, we shall constantly stress the relationship between an upper- coherent, exclusive, and self-consciously upper class."5 Similarly, class way of life and the present and past accomplishment of the in Moscow, Barrington Moore, Jr., finds "evidence of a cultural elite individuals who, in the long run, make this way of life pos- separation of the new holders of high status from the masses of sible. C. Wright Mills has stressed the importance of tracing the the population. In their leisure time the intelligentsia mingle more relationship between the upper class and the elite in the following with one another than with the uneducated. It requires no great passage: "Are the intermarriage chances, the flow of prestige, insight to perceive that a Soviet executive or scientist would find influenced by what happens in banks? What is the distribution of (8) Introduction Introduction ( 9 ) legal skill, by family, by firm? Are there overlaps between the Proper Philadelphia Institutions. After first establishing the boards of banks, the elders of churches, and the prestige of min- nature of upper-class leadership in the Philadelphia business and isters? Are 'social circles' and religious affiliations subtly inter- banking community in 1940, we will devote the major part of this woven with financial interests?" It is to be hoped that these study to an intensive analysis of how the small, Proper Phila- B questions asked by Mills will be partially answered in this book. delphia world was set off from the rest of the community by a common historical tradition and institutional structure which, over Who's Who and the Social Register: the years, nourished the growth of a distinctive style of life and Elite and Upper-Class Indices value system. (For convenience and sriety, "Proper Philadelphia" as well as "Proper New You Boston, or San Francisco" will be Who's Who in America, a listing of brief biographies of lead- used interchangeably with the term "upper class.") In large part, ing individuals in contemporary American life, and the Social this analysis will consist of an historical discussion of upper-class Register, a listing of families of high social class position, will be institutions: the family, the neighborhood, the church, the private used as indices respectively of an elite and upper class. 10 In 1940 school and university, and the social club. separate volumes of the Social Register were issued for each of The tap root of any upper class, that which nourishes each twelve large metropolitan areas in this country: New York, Chicago, contemporary generation with a sense of tradition and historical Cincinnati-Dayton, Buffalo, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. continuity, is a small group of families whose members were born Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. to that class, and whose ancestors have been 'to the manor born' Of the approximately 12,000 residents of these twelve cities who for several generations. This institutional analysis, then, will begin were listed in Who's Who in that year, about one-fourth were with the history of when and how the founders of some sixty also listed in the Social Register. In other words, the members of Proper Philadelphia families first rose to positions of wealth and the upper classes had considerable influence on the elite in these power. We shall show how these family founders, a majority of cities. whom were included in the Dictionary of American Biography h Chapter II will discuss the rise of a national upper class in (a convenient index of an historical elite), came to the fore in America during the last decades of the nineteenth century, and Philadelphia's cultural and economic life during three fairly dis- how the Social Register was founded in response to the need for tinct historical periods. First, there were the eighteenth-century a formal listing of this new, inter-city plutocracy. The chapters merchants and statesmen who produced Proper Philadelphia's which follow will be concerned primarily with the historical Golden Age; these first family founders were followed by the pre- development and contemporary structure of the Philadelphia up- Civil War founders of family manufacturing firms and investment per class and its influence in the local elite in 1940. The nature of banking houses; and, finally, there were the late nineteenth- and h this contemporary relationship between the elite and the upper early twentieth-century entrepreneurs who founded newer, and class will be based on an analysis of the brief biographies of the often fabulously wealthy, family lines. 770 Philadelphians who were listed in the 1940 Who's Who. Of On the whole, the 'old' family clans were founded before the these 770 members of the city's elite, 226, or 29 per cent, were Civil War. Even in 1940, those of more recent wealth were still a also members of the local upper class. Their Who's Who biogra- considered 'new.' '11 Continuity in change, however, is the mark h phies show how the members of the upper class (the 226 listed of a healthy society. The descendants of these family founders, P in the Social l Register ) differed significantly, in occupation, place whether they were East India merchants, colonial statesmen, of residence, religious affiliation, education, and club membership, pioneering manufacturers, railroad executives, coal barons, or trac- it from the rest of the elite (the 544 not listed in the Social Register) tion tycoons, have intermarried and been assimilated into the who were drawn from a wide variety of social class and ethnic fairly homogeneous subcultural world of Proper Philadelphia. In backgrounds. addition to piling up great fortunes and founding family dynasties, (10) Introduction Introduction ( 11 ) these men also established various upper-class institutions which, along the Main Line be discussed in any detail. Too often, social in turn, structured this process of assimilation by providing ways criticism of the privfleged classes has treated the member of the and means for the old and new rich to play and learn and worship Social Register as superficial "socialites," irresponsibly outside the together. They built up the fashionable Victorian neighborhood main stream of American life. Although this view may reinforce a around Rittenhouse Square after the Civil War, and then moved hypocritical definition of democracy, it is nevertheless bad sociol- their families out to such secluded suburbs as Chestnut Hill, ogy; and it is not borne out in the Philadelphia Social Register, which was planned and developed almost single-handedly by one which listed, with certain ethnic exceptions, almost all the most large landowner, and the Main Line, an early suburban preserve powerful bankers and businessmen in the city in 1940. d for Pennsylvania Railroad executives. While most of them were Even more disturbing are the sophisticated critics of American originally Quakers, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and even Baptists, society who reinforce this popular view of the 'leisure classes.' The they soon built fashionable Episcopal churches around the Square highly entertaining, if often inaccurate, writings of the late Thor- and out in the suburbs, where the vast majority of their more stein Veblen, for instance, inadvertently played down the facts of genteel descendants were to worship eventually. They founded power by their very emphasis on the conspicuously consuming local private schools for their children, and also the University leisure-time activities of America's new plutocracy at the turn of of Pennsylvania which played an important role in preparing their the century. 13 Even the serious sociology of W. Lloyd Warner, in descendants for useful careers in law and medicine. And, of stressing the fact that the old family leaders in Yankee City were course, they had their exclusive clubs; election to membership looked up to because they "knew how to act" or possessed an was the final mark of entrance into the brotherhood of Proper inherited good taste in furniture, may have confused a by-product Philadelphia. with the basis of privilege. 14 lo In the course of the twentieth century, as transportation im- Perhaps Harvey Warren Zorbaugh, in The Gold Coast and the proved and the national corporation serving a national market fa Slum, has succeeded in reinforcing the popular stereotype of the became the norm, the New England Episcopalian boarding schools "socialite" more successfully than most serious sociologists. 15 In hi and the more fashionable Eastern universities began to educate this early sociological classic, one of the few references to the Social th an inter-city and national upper class. These fashionable family- Register in the literature of sociology occurs in the following surrogates taught the sons of the new and old rich, whether from paragraph: ge Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or San Francisco, the subtle The "social game" is a constant competition among those who are nuances of an upper-class way of life. After World War I, the old "in" for distinction and pre-eminence; a constant struggle upon the school tie, or the "Ivy Leaf" and "Porcellian Pig," became totem part of those who are not "in" to break into the circles of those who are symbols of pedigreed associational status recognized all over in. Perhaps as good a criterion as there is of social position, which is the hd America (at least within upper-class circles). Wherever possible, goal in the "social game," is the Social Register, a thin blue book which then, we shall stress the fact that Proper Philadelphia is part of a one can own only by virtue of having one's name in, containing a complete list of Chicago's socially acceptable, with their universities, national upper class with a similar way of life, institutional struc- their clubs, their marriages, their connections, and their deaths. To have an ture, and value system. one's name in the Social Register "one must not be 'employed' [sic!]; one hi must make application; and one must be above reproach. "16 pr Leadership, and the exercise and retention of power within a Some people of course have always played the "social game," small and hereditary group of families, is the ultimate end and and they have not always, or only, been members of the upper it justification for an upper-class way of life. For this reason, anec- class. But few of the Proper Philadelphians who built up family dotes about the charming idiosyncrasies of Proper Philadelphia G fortunes have had either the time or the inclination to play the will be avoided in favor of institutional analysis.¹ Nor will the game; nor, for the most part, have their socially secure descendants. behavior patterns of the leisured classes enjoying their leisure Moreover, exclusive private schools, neighborhoods, and social (12) Introduction Introduction ( 13 ) clubs are not necessarily frivolous aspects of the "social game" but, new businessmen had replaced the merchant-statesmen as typical rather, an important means of consolidating a continuity of particu- Proper Philadelphians. lar and partial power in the serious world of affairs. Even that The half-century following the Civil War, of course, produced ubiquitous upper-class rite of passage-the debutante ritual-serves a fabulous plutocracy whose handsome mansions surrounded Rit- the latent function of containing family wealth and power within tenhouse Square. Although the "Protestant ethic" still spurred on a small select circle; the democratic whims of romantic love often the parvenu, Proper Philadelphia increasingly preferred the rich- play havoc with class solidarity. ness of the Anglican ritual, and, in many subtle ways, a rigid code of drawing-room manners gradually replaced the more ancient Recent American social science has suffered from an unfortu- moral values. The capitalist-entrepreneur still dominated the family nate "time-provincialism": sociology without history and psychol- firm as well as the patriarchal household. As the century waned, ogy without biography has become the norm. Throughout our however, the fashionable investment bankers were busy creating discussion of the development of Proper Philadelphia institutions, a corporate concentration which would, of course, eventually spell the changing economic and social conditions upon which they the end of the family firm and all it meant to family power and were ultimately based will be emphasized constantly. We shall sense of responsibility. show, first of all, how Penn's city was ruled by a small Quaker The period between the two world wars marked the final stage oligarchy during most of the eighteenth century, and how these of this upper class history. The advent of the income tax, and the devout Quaker grandees founded several prolific family lines federal centralization accelerated by World War I, paved the way which have continued to produce important leaders in the city for the final triumph of an inter-city aristocracy based on affiliation for over two centuries. Eventually, however, the Indian Wars, with fashionable boarding schools, universities and clubs rather the general increase in wealth, and the ideas of the Enlighten- than prominent family position alone. These economic trends ment, which infected so many scions of good Quaker families paralleled the social and sexual revolution of the twenties: the during their quest for education abroad, all combined to pro- emancipation of women, the decline of male and parental author- duce a new Anglican gentry during Philadelphia's Golden Age ity, combined with the final destruction of the "Protestant e thic" -the years following the Revolutionary War. Federalist and Angli- all served to weaken the power of the family. can Proper Philadelphia was at that time the host to the New The steady stream of immigrants from southern and eastern World's most sophisticated and talented leaders. A class of gentle- Europe who came to America between 1880 and 1918 were to men, steeped in the classics as well as the political theory of Locke eventually change the traditional ethnic composition of the elite; and Rousseau, reluctantly had taken the lead in rebellion against and especially the predominantly Anglo-Saxon upper-class position the British Empire, and subsequently wrote the new nation's con- of leadership. As the descendants of these new immigrants would stitution after lengthy deliberation on Philadelphia's Independence not, however, materially change the ethnic composition of Ameri- can leadership until after World War II, this is another reason for Square. focusing this study on the pre-war era. After the War of 1812, a new bourgeois ethic entered the genteel There were other signs of change in the air by 1940; even drawing rooms around Washington and Independence Squares; though most of them waited for the close of World War II to Proper Philadelphia was busy assimilating the pioneers of Ameri- assert themselves. This was, of course, the period of the gradual ca's soon-to-be-predominant business class. These were the days of retreat of the entrepreneur in favor of the large corporation em- the founding of family firms, both in manufacturing and banking; ployee; the investment banker began to lose power and prestige the consolidation of coal-mining interests; and the founding of as the large corporations, large insurance companies, and the such Proper Philadelphia institutions as the Pennsylvania Railroad federal government began to invade the money market; at the and the Philadelphia Club. By the close of the Civil War, these same time public relations, invented by that proper Princetonian, Ivy Lee, became the newest rage; clean-cut young men from fash- ( 14 ) Introduction CHAPTER II ionable universities went into advertising rather than Wall Street. The bank account and the trust fund, life blood of an upper class, were replaced by the expense account and elaborate corporation The American Metropolitan retirement plans. It was the beginning of the new corporate feudal- ism and atomistic society of rank (cradle-to-the-grave security for Upper Class and the Elite those who play the game); local ties and family prestige were to be replaced eventually by the coat of arms of the "company man," that new aristocratic nomad who would move from suburb to Unlimited political democracy in America, for suburb, in city after city, especially in the early years of his mar- instance, does not prevent the growth of a raw riage when, in a previous age, he would have been busy establishing plutocracy, or even an aristocratic prestige group, himself in some local community. which is slowly emerging. The growth of this "aris- tocracy" is culturally and, historically as important Philadelphia has been going through a cultural, civic and politi- as that of plutocracy, even though it usually goes cal renaissance since the end of World War II. Perhaps this is one unnoticed. of the best reasons for concentrating on the pre-war period-when MAX WEBER conservative gentlemen-bankers and businessmen were still in con- trol of the city. Fashionable Philadelphians are still powerful today in many areas, and leadership in the new reform movements in- THE history of Western Civilization has been, in many ways, the cludes many Proper Philadelphians, but the new social forces as- story of the rise and fall of great metropolitan centers: Athens and serting themselves in the city must eventually result in new bal- Rome in the ancient world, Constantinople in the age of transition, ance of power between the traditional upper class and other centers Paris, along with Naples, Venice, and Milan in the Renaissance, of influence. In the exciting decade of reform since the war, life in London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and, finally, Philadelphia has changed, but it is still too soon for any objective New York in the twentieth, each in its day, marked the center of assessment of the changes. pomp and power in the western world over a span of twenty-five All this suggests that 1940, the eve of America's entry into the centuries. And in each city, at the zenith of its power, an aristoc- Second World War to save democracy, may definitely have racy of wealth or an upper class emerged. The last years of the marked the end of another era in the history of Proper Philadel- Republic in Rome, when the Senate was an aristocracy of wealth, phia. While the era may, in fact, have ended in 1929, in our rapidly and the "Gilded Age" in America when the Senate was known as changing society the top echelons of any elite usually remain in the "Millionaires' Club" may be similar sociological periods. command beyond the historical period in which they made their In the same vein, American history is partly reflected in the way to the top. It must be borne in mind that the Philadelphians rise of different cities to positions of affluence and power: Salem listed in Who's Who in 1940 made their way, on the whole, before, and Newport rose to prominence along with the merchant shipper or just immediately after, World War I. The 1930's were indeed a of the eighteenth century. Atlanta, Charleston, Richmond, New new era on the national political scene, but in Philadelphia, the Orleans, and Mobile were centers of affluence in those chivalrous same business leaders remained at the helm all through the Depres- days just before the Civil War when the planter aristocracy domi- sion. A depression usually consolidates the power of those in nated the United States Senate. Within the last few decades, Los control at its beginning; modern war, on the other hand, is pro- Angeles and Detroit manifest a modern opulence as they supply the ductive of new elites and new family founders. Thus, with the demands of a mass culture for movement and entertainment. Not exception of a few references to the present for historical contrast, the least indicative of the trend of our times is the growth of the we shall center our discussion on Proper Philadelphia prior to nation's capital as the result of the shift in power from Wall Street World War II. to the government bureaucracy. 15 ) 168 ) The Old Family Core of the 1940 Elite The Old Family Core of the 1940 Elite ( 169) The Peppers and Ingersolls have been leading Proper Phila- Dr. William Pepper and William Mifflin Wharton, a Philadelphia delphia families for several generations. In 1940 there were nine lawyer. 11 His father, Dr. George Pepper, who fought in the Civil Pepper and ten Ingersoll conjugal family units listed in the Social War where he was wounded at Fredericksburg, unfortunately died Register; three Peppers and two Ingersolls were also listed in when young George was only six years of age. Although born Who's Who. George Wharton Pepper and R. Sturgis Ingersoll in his grandmother Pepper's house on Walnut Street, "a mark of were leading members of the bar, C. Jared Ingersoll was a railroad social respectability," George Wharton Pepper spent his boyhood executive, and William Pepper and O. H. Perry Pepper were on less fashionable Pine and South Sixteenth Streets, with pleasant physicians, Dean and Professor, respectively, of the University summers at his grandmother's estate in Chestnut Hill. He was of Pennsylvania Medical School. Brief biographical profiles of educated at home by his mother who believed in verbal memory George Wharton Pepper and R. Sturgis Ingersoll will indicate the of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and a "considerable difference between the two generations of first-family Phila- amount of poetry." The Peppers were devout Episcopalians, and delphians. Pepper was of the older and Ingersoll of the younger young George was baptized and confirmed at St. Mark's Protest- generation. ant Episcopal Church, at Sixteenth and Walnut Streets.He was a As we have seen, the Pepper fortune was founded by George member of the parish in 1940. Pepper, a successful merchant and brewer, whose descendants In 1883, young Pepper entered the University of Pennsylvania have been the city's first family of medicine for more than three as a rather "provincial but eager freshman." As he observes in generations. George Pepper's great-grandson, George Wharton his autobiography: Pepper, deviated slightly from family tradition when he entered Those were the days when the son went to the father's college the legal profession. He was the dean of the Philadelp ia bar pretty much as a matter of course. In our case the ties that bound us to in 1940. the University were unusually strong. My grandfather Wharton had Born in 1867, George Wharton Pepper was the grandson of been a trustee and my grandfather Pepper a professor in the Medical School. My father, my step-father and my uncle, Dr. William Pepper, had not only graduated from the college and its professional schools Table 16-Philadelphians in Who's Who in 1940 Who Were Also Listed in the but had all been members of the same Greek letter fraternity. Moreover, Social Register in 1900-Summary of Sociological Characteristics my Uncle William had recently been elected provost of the University. Somebody, in speaking of the Pepper family in relation to the Univer- SOCIOLOGICAL sity, has remarked that it has not been a succession but a dynasty.12 CATEGORIES AGE GROUPS The 34 Males The 35 Males After graduation from the University, Pepper went to the law Who Were Over Who Were Under 65 in 1940 65 in 1940 school from which he graduated in 1889 with high honors. That Neighborhood summer he spent with his future father-in-law to be and his fiancée Main Line-Chestnut Hill 61% 80% at Northeast Harbor, on Mt. Desert, which was destined to become Religious Affiliation his summer home for many years to come (this resort is probably Episcopalian 56% 66% the most fashonable and popular Proper Philadelphia resort to Type of Schooling Private Schools 50% 70% this day). The next fall, Pepper went to work for Biddle and (Groton, St. Paul's, St. Mark's) ( 3%) (23%) Ward, a Philadelphia law firm and, in addition, held a teaching (Episcopal Academy) (20%) (9%) fellowship at the law school. For half a century, George Wharton College Attended Pepper has been one of the leading "Philadelphia lawyers." University of Pennsylvania 53% 46% Senator Boies Penrose died in office in 1921. The following Harvard, Yale, Princeton 3% 40% January Governor Sproul came down to Philadelphia where he Club Affiliation Philadelphia Club 69% met George Wharton Pepper at the Philadelphia Club and offered 39% Rittenhouse Club 39% 26% him the Senate seat for Penrose's unexpired term. Pepper hesitated 170) The Old Family Core of the 1940 Elite The Old Family Core of the 1940 Elite (171) at first ("Never in my life have I felt the itch for public office. many leaders of the present "ulcer" generation. "Glancing astern" and asked for some time to think the matter over. Three days in his autobiography, Pepper observes that "after all, it is in the later, after talking the matter over with a few close friends, Pepper home that my greatest happiness has been found." agreed to serve. On January 9, 1922, in the presence of Chief Justice Robert von Moschzisker and General W. W. Atterbury, The Ingersolls have been prominent members of the Philadel- President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Governor presented phia bar since the eighteenth century. The first member of the Pepper with his formal commission to serve. family in America, John Ingersoll, came to Salem, Massachusetts, Senator Pepper spent almost two terms in Washington, was from Bedfordshire, England, in 1629.13 His grandson, Jared Inger- re-elected in 1922, and finally defeated in 1927 due to the opposi- soll, a distinguished lawyer and King's Attorney in Connecticut, tion of the powerful Vare machine which had consolidated itself was appointed Stamp-Master-General for New England, in 1765, in Philadelphia after the death of Boies Penrose. The years in the and remained a Tory during the Revolution. At one point during Senate had severely strained his financial resources and the return the war, he was staying in the same Philadelphia boarding house to Philadelphia, from this point of view, "was a welcome relief." with the fiery patriot, Samuel Adams. John Adams described his George Wharton Pepper has been a long-time and devoted cousin's boarding house companions as "a curious group consisting trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Ameri- of characters, as opposite as North and South. Ingersoll, the stamp can Philosophical Society, a past president of the American Law man and Judge of Admiralty; Sherman, an old Puritan, as honest Institute, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as an angel and as firm in the cause of American Independence and a member of the Franklin Institute. He is the author of as Mount Atlas; and Col. Thornton, as droll and funny as Tristram ten books, including, The Borderland of Federal and State De- Shandy. Between the fun of Thornton, the gravity of Sherman, cisions, Pleading at Common Law, and Digest of the Laws of the formal Toryism of Ingersoll, Adams will have a curious time Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Rittenhouse, University, of it. The landlady, too, who has buried four husbands, one tailor, and Racquet clubs and his wife (deceased) was a member of two shoemakers, and Gilbert Tenant, and still is ready for a fifth the Acorn Club. and still deserves him too, will add to the entertainment.' Senator Pepper, as he is even now called by his friends, married Jared Ingersoll, son of Judge Ingersoll of Connecticut, was the Charlotte Root Fisher, daughter of Professor George Park Fisher founder of the Philadelphia Ingersoll clan. After graduating from of New Haven and Yale, in 1890, and they had two children. Their Yale, in 1765, he came down to Philadelphia and read law under son was an architect of some repute in the city, and their daughter Joseph Reed. During the Revolution, he was in London complet- is married to an investment banker and broker. The Pepper home ing his education at the Inner Temple. Upon his return to Phila- is in Devon on the "Main Line." delphia, he became the city's leading lawyer, including both This brief biography of Senator Pepper illuminates the nature Robert Morris and Stephen Girard among his clients. According of the gentleman of wide and worthwhile interests in the com- to Charles A. Beard, his practice "was larger than any others munity. Characteristically, his earliest American ancestors were his opinions were taken on all important controversies, his services businessmen while their sons were physicians or lawyers. His engaged in every litigation."15 early religious training was followed by a lifelong service to the Although primarily concerned with his private law practice, Episcopal Church in many leading lay capacities. Although he Ingersoll attained a certain prominence in public life: in addition knew little of practical politics, he served when called and was to his membership in the Constitutional Convention, he was a soon defeated, because, as he himself admits, he did not cater delegate to the First Continental Congress, Attorney General of sufficiently to public opinion. His life has been both a happy Pennsylvania for two brief periods, and a candidate for the Vice and useful one with hard work sensibly blended with participation Presidency, on the Federalist ticket, in 1812. in athletics and life out of doors, a balance hardly attained by Jared Ingersoll's great-great-grandson, R. Sturgis Ingersoll, ( 220) Neighborhood and the Class Structure Neighborhood and the Class Structure (221) Benjamin Disraeli, in an age less addicted to environmental the beauty and simplicity of life on the island. President Eliot of determinism than our own, once said that man is not the creature Harvard, Bishop Lawrence of Massachusetts, and Bishop William of circumstances but circumstances are the creatures of men. Thus, Duane of New York ("William of Albany" who wore gaiters after as the "promoters"-Jay Cooke, Peter A. B. Widener, and John the Anglican tradition) were leaders, sometimes autocratic, of the Wanamaker-set the tone of the Old York Road neighborhood, or early island community. The intellectual tradition has been car- Baldwin and Pennsylvania Railroad executives put their stamp on ried on by such permanent summer residents as Walter Lippman, the Main Line, the less conforming, more intellectual families like Arthur Train, F. Marion Crawford, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and the Furnesses and Willcoxes symbolized the atmosphere of Media, Philadelphia's S. Weir Mitchell and Horace Howard Furness. Wawa, or Wallingford which has persisted to the present day. S. Weir Mitchell, who had returned to Newport each year since The Summer Resort: an Inter-city Upper-Class Neighborhood. he first visited relatives there at the age of twelve in 1844, came For many generations, the American upper classes have gathered to Bar Harbor for the first time in 1891 in order to avoid the new- during the summer months at various fashionable summer resorts. rich then taking over Newport. For many years Mitchell was the Newport and Saratoga Springs were popular as early as the eight- recognized leader of the walking and talking set which was the eenth century: "Over a hundred Philadelphians, for instance, voy- backbone of Bar Harbor society in the days before the cocktail aged to Newport for summer sojourns between 1767 and 1775, turned conversation into chatter and the automobile abolished there to mingle not only with native New Englanders but also with walking. In those days George Wharton Pepper was one of the wealthy South Carolinians, Georgians, and West Indians who were leaders of the vigorous life on the island. In September, 1900, he likewise investing the profits from commercial enterprise in a few was the first "to walk in one day from Bar Harbor to Northeast over months of expensive recreation in the refreshing northern climate. nine intervening mountains. From the beginning, these fashionable resorts have been inter- The early city visitors to the island stayed at farmhouses; later, city upper-class neighborhoods. As recently as 1930, Newport was boarding houses were opened; and, finally, hotels and cottages the birthplace of James W. Gerard's famous list of the "Sixty-Four were built. The most famous early hotel in Bar Harbor, "Rodick's," Men Who Run America." Of these sixty-four men, according to was built in 1882. Between 1890 and World War I, Bar Harbor Cleveland Amory, "no less than fifty were recognized men-about- became one of America's most stylish resorts. By 1894, the year resorts."94 J. P. Morgan, a well-known man-about-resorts, once Joseph Pulitzer built the resort's first hundred-thousand-dollar described the beauty of escaping from the world of affairs to a "cottage," Morgan and Standard Oil partners were the bastions of homogeneous summer neighborhood such as Bar Harbor: "You can Bar Harbor's wealthy community. After the turn of the century, do business with anyone," he said, "but you can only sail a boat Philadelphia's A. J. Cassatt and E. T. Stotesbury were energetic with a gentleman."80 leaders of summer society; they were followed by the Dorrances Mount Desert, a beautiful island "down east" on the coast of and Atwater Kents after the first war. Maine, has been the most popular Proper Philadelphia summer The Proper Philadelphia tradition is symbolized at Bar Harbor resort for over half a century. On the island formal and fashionable by the Pot and Kettle Club which was founded in 1899 by six Bar Harbor, and more informal and wholesome Northeast Harbor, members of Philadelphia's Rabbit Club.98 The membership is are summer versions of Boston and Philadelphia. Mount Desert is a limited to fifty men, who, at one time, were said to control 85 per national upper-class summer resort where the winter residents of cent of the nation's wealth. Although this is certainly an exaggera- Chestnut Hill (in Boston or Philadelphia), meet their more opulent tion, there were often as many as thirty-five yachts anchored off friends from Park Avenue, Lake Forest, or Grosse Point. Several the club's float during a regular dinner meeting. Like the Rabbit generations of Pulitzers, Fords, Rockefellers, Palmers, and Mc- and the Fish House in Philadelphia, the Pot and Kettle is a gentle- Cormicks have grown up on this fashionable island. men's eating club where numerous toasts, including one to the The earliest summer visitors to Mount Desert were artists. They President of the United States, are an important part of every were soon followed by intellectuals and clergymen who enjoyed formal occasion. One summer tradition was slightly altered. Dur- ( 222) Neighborhood and the Class Structure CHAPTER X ing the height of the New Deal, in spite of the fact that Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of five Presidents ever to have been enter- tained at the club, the traditional toast to the President of the Religion and the Class Structure United States was replaced by a toast to the Constitution of the United States. One of the very few Proper Philadelphia women listed in Who's Who in 1940, Mrs. J. Madison Taylor, a distinguished miniature Hardly a generation ago when business men were painter, was a leader in Bar Harbor's intellectual, artistic, and fash- establishing themselves and making new social con- tacts, they encountered the question: "To what ionable worlds for many years. When she died in 1952, Mrs. Taylor church do you belong?' Evidently it was never was preparing for her seventy-fifth consecutive summer on the asked accidentally. MAX WEBER island. The fashionable (Episcopalian) churches have always played an important part in the Island's social life. During the summer, when life during the week is less hectic, many Easter-Christmas- funeral-wedding families attend church every Sunday. While morn- COMMENTING on the mores of the carriage trade, Ralph Waldo ing prayer is usually held in the church, evensong is often held on Emerson once remarked that "no dissenter rides in his coach for the lawn of some estate overlooking the sea. The headmasters of three generations; he invariably falls onto the Establishment." This Groton and St. Paul's-Endicott Peabody and S. S. Drury-were chapter will attempt to show how the members of the American summer residents of Northeast Harbor for many years. Each sum- metropolitan upper class, deeply rooted though their ancestors mer on a Sunday in August, Dr. Drury held communion service for were in the Calvinism of New England or the Quaker faith of Phila- boys and alumni of his school. delphia, gradually returned to the Anglican communion of the The fashionable summer neighborhood fosters the development Protestant Episcopal Church. Before discussing this Episcopalian of upper-class solidarity on a national scale in America, and sum- upper class, especially Philadelphia's Quaker-turned-Episcopal mer romances on the enchanting island of Mount Desert have not gentry, a word should be said about religion and the class struc- infrequently resulted in inter-city family alliances. Among other ture as a whole in America. such alliances, the grandson of Joseph Pulitzer (St. Louis) is now Religion and the American Class Structure. "However much married to a granddaughter of Samuel M. Vauclain, a former presi- details may differ," writes Liston Pope of the Yale Divinity School, dent of the Baldwin Locomotive Works who built one of the Main "stratification is found in all American communities, and religion Line's show places; the wife of Nelson Rockefeller (New York) is always one of its salient features."1 The middle classes in America is the granddaughter of George Roberts of the Pennsylvania Rail- have been traditionally Protestant, while labor, especially the un- road; and the former Louise De Koven Bowen, descendant of an skilled, has tended to be Catholic. Historical circumstance, rather old Bar Harborite from Chicago who lent her social prestige to the than the "Protestant ethic" alone, has been the most important service of Jane Addams' Hull House, now lives in Chestnut Hill factor in the American situation. On the whole, throughout our as the wife of young John Wanamaker, vice-president of his great- history, the earliest arrivals have constantly been thrust upward grandfather's department store. in the social and economic structure as each new wave of immi- Romance has brought great loyalty to this romantic island. In grants has taken its place at the bottom of the occupational hier- 1889, for example, George Wharton Pepper, who spent that sum- archy. Colonial stock in this country was primarily Protestant; even mer with his fiancée and father-in-law-to-be, saw Mount Desert as late as the first census in 1790, for example, Catholics made up for the first time. "Thereafter," he writes in his autobiography, less than 1 per cent of the population. But the Irish who came in "there have been only three summers in fifty-four years when we the eighteen-forties and fifties, and the millions of immigrants from have failed to visit our beloved Mt. Desert. "99 southern and eastern Europe who flooded these shores at the turn 223) ( 410) Notes to Pages 201 to 222 Notes to Pages 223 to 232 (411) 52. Edward W. Hocker, op. cit., 79. Pitirim Sorokin, Social Mobility, cellent description of the founding of p. 274. (New York: Harper & Brothers, the Episcopal Church. 53. George H. Burgess and Miles 1927). 13. Frank Cousins and Phil M. C. Kennedy, op. cit., p. 645. 80. See "Executive Trappings," Chapter X Riley, The Colonial Architecture of 54. See Who's Who biography. Time, Jan. 24, 1955. Philadelphia, (Boston: Little, Brown 55. J. W. Townsend, The Old 81. See Robert Strausz-Hupe, RELIGION AND and Company, 1920), p. 221. "Main Line,' (Philadelphia : Privately Power and Community, (New York: THE CLASS STRUCTURE 14. Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Jay Printed, 1922), p. 21. Frederick A. Praeger, 1956). This Cooke, Financier of the Civil War, 56. Ibid., p. 28. excellent collection of essays points (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs and 57. Ibid., pp. 51-52. out the dangers of a society of rank 1. Liston Pope, "Religion and the Company, 1907), Vol. II, pp. 483- 58. Ibid., pp. 60-61. and the consequent weakening of "the Class Structure,' The Annals of the 485. 59. Ibid., p. 83. private sectors of society." American Academy of Political and 15. Matthew Josephson, op. cit., p. 60. Ibid., p. 84. 82. Compare Boyd's Blue Book, Social Science, Vol. 256, (March 319. 61. Ibid., pp. 83-84. Elite Directory with Philadelphia Club 1948), p. 89. See also the classic work 16. James Thayer Addison, op cit., 62. George H. Burgess and Miles List (1914) on this subject, H. Richard Niebuhr, p. 205. C. Kennedy, op. cit., Appendix E. 83. See obituary of Dr. David Ries- The Social Sources of Denomination- 17. Frank D. Ashburn, Peabody of 63. W. Townsend, op. cit., p. 86. man, Sr., Philadelphia Evening Bulle- alism, (New York: Henry Holt and Groton, (New York: Coward Mc- 64. John Gunther, Inside U.S.A., tin, June 4, 1940. Co., Inc., 1929). Cann, Inc., 1944), p. 30. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 84. See 1940 Social Register. 2. Matthew Josephson, The Robber 18. Cleveland Amory, The Proper 1947), p. 604. 85. Rufus M. Jones, Haverford Col- Barons: The Great American Capital- Bostonians, (New York: E. P. Dutton 65. John J. Macfarlane, History of lege, A History and an Interpretation, ists, 1861-1901, (New York: Har- and Company, Inc., 1947), p. 107. Early Chestnut Hill, (Philadelphia: (New York: The Macmillan Com- ccurt, Brace and Company, 1934), 19. Boston Daily Herald, May 15, pp. 320-321. 1836. Taken from a student's disser- City History Society, 1927), p. 68. pany, 1933), p. 1. 66. Cleveland Amory, The Proper 86. Logan Pearsall Smith, Unfor- 3. George Eaton Simpson and J. tation-in-progress. Bostonians, (New York: E. P. Dutton gotten Years, (Boston: Little, Brown Milton Yinger, Racial and Cultural 20. Andrew Landale Drummond, & Co., Inc., 1947), p. 196. and Company, 1949), p. 31. Minorities: An Analysis of Prejudice Story of American Protestantism, 67. Horace Mather Lippincott, A 87. John W. Jordan, A History of and Discrimination, (New York: (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1951), Narrative of Chestnut Hill, Philadel- Delaware County Pennsylvania and Harper and Brothers, 1953), p. 515. p. 187. phia with some account of Springfield, its People, (New York: Lewis His- 4. Liston Pope, Millhands and 21. Van Wyck Brooks, New Eng- Whitemarsh, and Cheltenham Town- torical Publishing Company, 1914), Preachers, (New Haven: Yale Uni- land: Indian Summer, 1865-1915, (New York: E. P. Dutton and Com- ships in Montgomery County, Penn- Volume II, pp. 460-461. versity Press, 1942), p. 124. sylvania, (Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, 88. Ibid. 5. Max Weber, The Protestant pany, Inc., 1940), pp. 184-203. Old York Road Publishing Company, 89. Scharf and Westcott, op. cit., Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 22. Cleveland Amory, op. cit., p. 1948), p. 18. translated by Talcott Parsons, (Lon- 105. Vol. III, pp. 2321-2322. 68. Ibid., p. 78. 90. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 1406. don: Allen and Unwin, 1930), p. 1. 23. Charles J. Cohen, Rittenhouse 91. Joshua L. Chamberlain, Uni- 6. Congregationalist, June 21, 1876, Square, (Philadelphia : Privately 69. Ibid., p. 86. 70. Ibid., p. 87. versity of Pennsylvania, Its History, p. 196. Quoted in Henry F. May, Printed, 1922). 71. Ibid., pp. 115-116. Influence, Equipment, and Character- Protestant Churches and Industrial 24. Alexander V. G. Allen, Life and 72. Frank Willing Leach, "Old istics, with Biographical Sketches, America, (New York: Harper and Letters of Phillips Brooks, (New York: Philadelphia Families XLIV," The (Boston: R. Herndon Company, Brothers, 1949), p. 51. E. Dutton and Company, 1901). 25. Dixon Wecter, op. cit., p. 478. North American, Philadelphia, June 1901), p. 384. Also see Horace How- 7. Clarence Day, God and My 26. Robert K. Bosch, Ecclesiastical 16, 1907. ard Furness, "DAB" biography. Father, from The Best of Clarence Background of the American Episco- 73. Horace Mather Lippincott, op. 92. See Philadelphia Architecture Day, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pate, (Unpublished manuscript in the cit., p. 133. in the Nineteenth Century for exam- 1948), p. 5. author's possession). 74. Josiah Granville Leach, Genea- ples of Frank Furness's work. 8. George Wharton Pepper, Phila- 27. See Vida Dutton Scudder, logical and Biographical Memorials of 93. Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh, delphia Lawyer, (Philadelphia: J. B. Father Huntington, Founder of the the Reading, Howell, Yerkes, Watts, op. cit., p. 7. Lippincott Company, 1944), p. 98. Order of the Holy Cross, New York: Latham, and Elkins Families, (Phila- 94. Cleveland Amory, The Last Re- 9. Dixon Wecter, The Saga of E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., delphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, sorts, (New York: Harper & Brothers, American Society, (New York: 1940). 1898), p. 257. 1952), p. 8. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937), p. 478. 28. Ibid., p. 35. 75. Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Jay 95. Ibid., p. 4. 10. Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in Re- 29. See George Hodges, Henry Cooke, Financier of the Civil War, 96. Ernest Earnest, S. Weir Mitch- volt, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Codman Potter, Seventh Bishop of (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & ell, (Philadelphia: University of Penn- 1955), p. 152. New York, (New York: The Macmil- Co., 1907), Vol. II, p. 33. sylvania Press, 1950), p. 15. 11. See W. J. Cash, The Mind of lan Company, 1915). 76. P. A. B. Widener, Without 97 George Wharton Pepper, op. the South, (New York: Doubleday 30. Dixon Wecter, op. cit., p. 479. Drums, (New York: G. P. Putnam's cit., p. 318. Anchor Books, 1954). 31. Gustavus Myers, History of the Sons, 1940), Chapter III. 98. Cleveland Amory, op. cit., p. 12. See James Thayer Addison, The Great American Fortunes, (New York: 77. Ibid.. pp. 52-53. 308. Episcopal Church in the United States, The Modern Library, 1937), p. 378. 78. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 99. George Wharton Pepper, op. 1789-1931, (New York: Charles Scrib- 32. Dixon Wector, op. cit., p. 480. October 26, 1943. cit., p. 318. ner's Sons, 1951), pp. 65-73. An ex- 33. See Frederick Lewis Allen, The