New Magazine Takes Peek At Upper Crust
All the best people are talking about the recent appearance of the Social Register Observer. It’s a twice-yearly magazine from the publishers of the Social Register, the century-old listing of the names, addresses and club memberships of society families.
Haven’t received a copy yet? Oh, there’s been some mix-up.
While you’re attempting to resolve it, here is a little digest of the summer issue.
We begin with a full-page photo of Miss Jean Shedd Armour, debutante. She is a lovely thing, and not incidentally the granddaughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. A. Watson Armour III (Jean Shedd Schweppe) of Lake Forest, Ill.
The alert reader will recall that there is a baked-ham and hot-dog family named Armour based somewhere in Illinois. Maybe young Jean Shedd is poised to inherit some bacon.
Yes, much of this magazine is exactly, hilariously what one would expect.
A historical piece on the Social Register in Southern California notes that “the original settlers in these areas were moneyed people from good backgrounds, and they simply brought their money, background, and the determination to enjoy the finer things in life with them.” One prominent filmmaker merits a whole piece in this issue, but then he is most definitively our kind of people.
A provocative profile of Whit Stillman, who made the well-regarded movies “Metropolitan” and “Barcelona,” notes he is “the great-grandson of financier James Stillman and grew up in Manhattan and Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y.,” and attended the right schools.
Stillman makes movies about society folk, whom he thinks have been unfairly caricatured by Hollywood and by journalists. Membership in this elite, he argues, is not all about money or conformity to strict social standards.
“I would say what marks this class is the extremely thoughtful manners and kindness,” says Stillman.
The magazine adds: “It is this kindness and consideration for others that he believes makes for a porous, inclusive upper class in this country. A class not based on riches, but shared interests.”
Of course it’s always been tough to share those interests - charity balls, summer places, art collecting - without the riches, but let’s not be pedantic.
This is a magazine for the sociologist in all of us, a place to examine such questions as why the most colorful American entrepreneurs and geniuses always seem to be followed by generations of drab descendants who treasure nothing more than discretion.
The magazine comes with a subscription to the Social Register.
xxxx