The Season: A Social History of the Debutante

Gentility, with its basis in proper behavior, soon transformed all manner of people into critics, because it made every activity into a performance.

It’s easy to escape into the aesthetic part of a larger social system and to forget that assertive, unchallenged white power often shows up in a battered old Mercedes.

Genteel poverty slowly became both cultural ideal and ready excuse—southerners would deemphasize wealth and magnify lineage to dissociate themselves from wealthy northerners, a practice that continues today.