The upper crust

A bread and butter treatment of the upper crust--a perfectly respectable collective portrait which goes back to 1692 when a British Governor Fletcher established a formal society of sorts which would be more firmly structured into a Knickerbocracy by 1800. The first thirty per cent of the book is roughly an acknowledgement of names, mansions, affairs, etc. leading up to the social suzerainty of Caroline Astor, who wore diamonds even on her back, and her social arbiter Ward McAllister. Her only competition--that of Alva Smith who married and divorced (heavens) a Vanderbilt and became Mrs.…