{"id":29966,"date":"2023-10-29T18:01:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T17:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=247568"},"modified":"2023-10-29T20:13:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T19:13:08","slug":"who-is-ward-mcallister-in-the-gilded-age","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/who-is-ward-mcallister-in-the-gilded-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Ward McAllister in The Gilded Age?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The real Ward McAllister, friend to Mrs Astor and Mrs Bertha Russell in The Gilded Age, is based on a real gentleman in 19th-century New York society\u2026 <\/p>

By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Sunday, 29 October 2023 at 17:01 PM<\/p>

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Ward McAllister (played by Nathan Lane in The Gilded Age<\/em>) is remembered as a socially ambitious Southern gentleman from Savannah, Georgia. Born in 1827, McAllister later moved from Georgia to California with his father, establishing a law firm and making a fortune.<\/p>\n

By the mid-1800s, he had made a name for himself as a social arbiter in East Coast society, after touring Europe and observing closely how wealthy Americans conducted themselves.<\/p>\n

\"Ward\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
The real Ward McAllister. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Cultivating a network within such circles (he founded the Society of Patriarchs in 1872, which comprised of a group of 25 \u2018worthy gentlemen\u2019 from New York society), McAllister was soon regarded as a tastemaker.<\/p>\n

He would often cherry-pick friends from both old money and new, matchmaking where he saw an expedient opportunity that would better society (and perhaps burnish his own reputation along the way).<\/p>\n

\"Ward\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Ward McAllister, played by Nathan Lane (centre) in period drama \u2018The Gilded Age\u2019, was a social arbiter in late 19th century New York. (Alison Rosa Cohen \u00a9 2021 Heyday Productions, LLC and Universal Television LLC)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Together, he and the famed Mrs Astor<\/a> worked together to shun undesirables and elevate the deserving, protecting (as they saw it) the traditions of the old families, including during the War of the Operas<\/a>. He\u2019s often credited with the phrase, \u2018the Four Hundred\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are only about four hundred people in fashionable New York Society,\u201d he told the New York Tribune<\/em> in 1888. \u201cIf you go outside that number,\u201d he warned, \u201cyou strike people who are either not at ease in a ballroom or else make other people not at ease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years later, the New York Times<\/em> published an \u2018official\u2019 list of the Four Hundred deemed acceptable by McAllister and other social judges of the day.<\/p>\n

His book Society As I Have Found It<\/em> was published in 1890. He died in 1895.<\/p>\n