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The season : a social history of the debutante Cover Image

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

Richardson, Kristen, (author.).

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"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780393608731
ISBN: 0393608735
ISBN: 9780393358537
ISBN: 0393358534
Physical Description: 276 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2020]
Copyright: ©2020.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

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

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction : Too many daughters -- Girl standard : understanding the currency of daughters -- Revolution and Republic : the antebellum North -- Frozen in time : the antebellum South -- Four Hundred and beyond : Old New York -- Transatlantic crossings: the Gilded Age -- 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.