In the summer of 1902, all of Newport was buzzing: a European prince was coming to town, and Mamie Fish — one of the reigning hostesses of American high society — was throwing a dinner in his honor.
The young ladies practiced their curtsies. But what walked through the door that night was no prince, but did tell you everything about who Mamie Fish was.
She hadn’t started anywhere near the top. Raised in the Gramercy Park neighborhood in the 1850s, she watched her family’s fortune vanish and they relocated to the working class neighborhood of Astoria. She was barely educated, no beauty, and armed with nothing but a wit that could cut glass. It was enough to win Stuyvesant Fish, heir to one of New York’s oldest names and a future railroad president, who adored her for the rest of his life.
Mamie essentially invented the theme party at a time when New York society under Mrs. Astor and Ward McAllisterwas incredibly dull. Mamie’s response was to make it fun: live ducklings paddling down the dinner table, a harvest ball with golden pitchforks, a formal dinner for the dogs of Newport, and a party for the Czar of Russia who turned out to be her partner in crime, Harry Lehr, in a tinfoil crown.
Then the world changed around her — the press turned, her husband lost his railroad in a boardroom feud, and her 1913 Mother Goose Ball landed her on the wrong side of history.
This week, Tom sits down with Jennifer Wright, author of Glitz, Glam, and a Damn Good Time: How Mamie Fish, Queen of the Gilded Age, Partied Her Way to Power.
PLUS:
- Stand across from Mamie’s Stanford White mansion on the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue tour at boweryboyswalks.com.
- Listen to more glorious tales of the Gilded Age on The Gilded Gentleman Podcast hosted by Carl Raymond
- Support the show and get our patron-only podcast Side Streets at patreon.com/boweryboys.
This episode was edited and produced by Kieran Gannon
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