_PDF_ WASPS: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy

WASPS: The Splendors and Miseries of an
American Aristocracy
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Sinopsis
b An examination of WASP culture through the lives of some
of its most prominent figures. Envied and lampooned,
misunderstood and yet distinctly American, WASPs are as
much a culture, socioeconomic and ethnic designation, and
state of mind. b From politics to fashion, their style still
intrigues us. WASPs produced brilliant reformers—Eleanor,
Theodore, and Franklin Roosevelt—and inspired Cold
Warriors—Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, and Joe Alsop. In
such dazzling figures as Isabella Stewart Gardner, Edie
Sedgwick, Babe Paley, and Marietta Tree they embodied a
chic and an allure that drove characters like F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby mad with desire. They were creatures
of glamour, power, and privilege, living amid the splendor of
great houses, flashing jewels, and glittering soirées. Envied
and lampooned, they had something the rest of America
craved. Yet they were unhappy. Descended from families that
created the United States, WASPs felt themselves stunted by
a civilization that thwarted their higher aspirations at every
turn. They were the original lost generation, adrift in the waters
of the Gilded Age. Some were sent to lunatic asylums or
languished in nervous debility. Others committed suicide. Yet
out of the neurotic ruins emerged a group of patriots devoted
to public service and the renewal of society. In a
groundbreaking study of the WASP revolution in American life,
Michael Knox Beran brings the stories of Henry Adams and

Henry Stimson, Learned Hand and Vida Scudder, John Jay
Chapman and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney to life. These
characters were driven by a vision of human completeness,
one that distinguishes them from the self-complacency of more
recent power establishments narrowly founded on money and
technical know-how. WASPs shaped the America in which we
live: so much so that it is not easy to understand our problems
without a knowledge of their mistakes. They came to grief in
Vietnam and through their own toxic blood pride, yet before
they succumbed to the last temptation of arrogance, they
struggled to fill a void in American life, one that many of us still
feel. For all their faults, they pointed—in an age of shrunken
lives and diminished possibility—to the dream of a new life. em
em
b An examination of WASP culture through the lives of some of its most prominent figures. Envied
and lampooned, misunderstood and yet distinctly American, WASPs are as much a culture,
socioeconomic and ethnic designation, and state of mind. b From politics to fashion, their style still
intrigues us. WASPs produced brilliant reformers—Eleanor, Theodore, and Franklin
Roosevelt—and inspired Cold Warriors—Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, and Joe Alsop. In such
dazzling figures as Isabella Stewart Gardner, Edie Sedgwick, Babe Paley, and Marietta Tree they
embodied a chic and an allure that drove characters like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby mad with
desire. They were creatures of glamour, power, and privilege, living amid the splendor of great
houses, flashing jewels, and glittering soirées. Envied and lampooned, they had something the
rest of America craved. Yet they were unhappy. Descended from families that created the United
States, WASPs felt themselves stunted by a civilization that thwarted their higher aspirations at
every turn. They were the original lost generation, adrift in the waters of the Gilded Age. Some
were sent to lunatic asylums or languished in nervous debility. Others committed suicide. Yet out
of the neurotic ruins emerged a group of patriots devoted to public service and the renewal of
society. In a groundbreaking study of the WASP revolution in American life, Michael Knox Beran
brings the stories of Henry Adams and Henry Stimson, Learned Hand and Vida Scudder, John Jay
Chapman and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney to life. These characters were driven by a vision of
human completeness, one that distinguishes them from the self-complacency of more recent
power establishments narrowly founded on money and technical know-how. WASPs shaped the
America in which we live: so much so that it is not easy to understand our problems without a
knowledge of their mistakes. They came to grief in Vietnam and through their own toxic blood
pride, yet before they succumbed to the last temptation of arrogance, they struggled to fill a void in
American life, one that many of us still feel. For all their faults, they pointed—in an age of shrunken
lives and diminished possibility—to the dream of a new life. em em