Social class was prevalent and largely property-based in the colonies. The Colonial Elite Overview In New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies, the elite were wealthy farmers or urban merchants; in the South, they were wealthy planters. British Americans’ reliance on indentured servitude and slavery to meet the demand for colonial labor helped give rise to[…]
Colonial opulence had to be displayed behind closed doors. At first glance, the portrait appears to be George Washington with a paunch and a sharp nose. The standard costume is there: white vest and britches, a navy coat trimmed in red, powdered wig, bright blue eyes, and a jauntily perched tricorne. The picture is dated 1790, putting it[…]
If you were lucky enough to exist in the wealthiest sets of society… The “Gilded Age,” a term coined by American author and satirist Mark Twain, was in many ways an era of stark extremes in our nation’s history. Ninety percent of the nation’s families earned less than $1,200 per year by the height of[…]
The message in medieval manuscripts is clear: The rich are good, the poor are trouble. Gluttony—overindulging in food or drink—was one of the seven deadly sins of the medieval European church. In the medieval view, the story of Adam and Eve established gluttony as man’s original and worst sin. Tempted by the snake, they ate[…]
With the establishment of the medieval towns, Italian city-states and maritime republics, the patriciate was a formally defined class of governing wealthy families. Introduction Patricianship, the quality of belonging to a patriciate, began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a class of patrician families whose members were the only people allowed to exercise many political[…]
One reason why the steel magnate spent so much of his fortune building libraries across the nation and abroad is that he saw handing large fortunes to the next generation as a waste of money. The same ethos that turned Andrew Carnegie into one of the biggest philanthropists of all time made him a fervent[…]