What is the Use of Struggling?: The Real-life History of The Gilded Age in NYC, Season 3 Episode 4

The lavish Vanderbilt-Marlborough wedding ceremony in the Church of St. Thomas. From The Illustrated London News, November 23, 1895.

Bridesmaids wearing white

The bridesmaids dresses worn at the Vanderbilt-Marlborough wedding, seen on the front cover of Vogue, 1895. They were white with blue accents.

The wedding of Caroline Astor to Marshall Orme at the Astor Mansion at 350 5th Avenue, November 18, 1884. Carrie Astor, who is depicted in the Gilded Age, had eight bridesmaids. Over 10,000 roses decorated the house for the occasion, and 1,000 invitations were sent out. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated, November 29. 1884, Vol 59, Issue 1523.

At the time, it was not unusual for weddings, particularly larger society weddings, to have bridesmaids who wore white. Their dresses would complement the bride’s and also represent the innocence of the bridesmaids, as conventions held that they should be unmarried (for example, in the show Miss Marian Brook and Miss Caroline Astor serve as two of the bridesmaids). It was also common to see bridesmaids in other colors, usually pastels, such as pink.

Madame Donovan

An advertisement for Catherine Donovan’s services as a dressmaker. From The Hotel Guests’ Guide to the City of New York, edited by Charles Edwin Prescott, 1872.

Gladys elects to wear a wedding gown crafted by the American dressmaker Catherine Donovan, rather than getting one made by the House of Worth. Born in Ireland, Catherine immigrated to New York as a child and worked at A.T. Stewart’s department store, where her dressmaking talents were recognized. She quickly gained a following of society women and made enough to buy property along Madison Avenue, where she opened a store to their delight. Although she made dresses for the elite ladies of New York, she also imported dresses from Paris, and would tailor them for her clientele.

Consuelo Vanderbilt’s wedding dress, along with the dress made for her mother Alva for the occasion, and a glimpse of the hats that the bridesmaids would wear. From The Chicago Daily Tribune, October 29 1895, Vol 54 Iss 302.

Mme. Donovan, as she liked to be styled, is credited with crafting Consuelo Vanderbilt’s wedding dress, made out of a cream-colored satin and decorated with lace and sprays of orange blossoms. She also made two of the bridesmaids dresses, along with much of the rest of Consuelo’s trousseau, which included 4 travelling gowns (one to be selected as the all-important “going away” outfit), 12 additional dresses, and undergarments embroidered with roses. Mme. Donovan also worked on wedding outfits and trousseaus for Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Florence Temple Griswold, and Lily Spencer-Churchill.

Models of fashionable bodices provided by Mme. Donovan to Vogue, 1894.

Interestingly, Mme. Donovan was repeatedly accused of smuggling when she brought dresses back from Paris. For example, in 1893 five of her trunks were seized and the contents were kept over failure to report the duty on the garments. The total worth of the dresses, which included gowns from Worth, Paquin, and Felix, was over $25,000. A month after the incident, the goods were auctioned off to the public, with the prize Worth gown sold for the bargain price of $150.

St. Thomas Episcopal Church

Looking up 5th Avenue from 52nd Street, showing St. Thomas’ Church, 1876. This view offers an excellent opportunity to see the neighborhood when mansions were just starting to be built. From Valentine’s Manual of the City of New York, edited by Henry Collins Brown, 1919.

The first iteration of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church opened on Broadway and Houston Street in 1826. Funded by some of the most powerful city residents, including William Backhouse Astor, Sr., it quickly attracted wealthy Knickerbockers. The original church was done in the Gothic style, and following a fire in 1851 it was rebuilt and expanded. However, this wasn’t enough for much of the congregation, who pressured church leadership to move uptown, within easier reach of their increasingly grand mansions.

St. Thomas Church, 1898. From Munsey’s Magazine.

A plot of land on 53rd Street and 5th Avenue was purchased, and a large new edifice planned, designed by Richard Upjohn, who also designed the third iteration of Trinity Church. One of its distinguishing features was the 260 foot tall Gothic Revival tower, along with its arched triple doorway, colorful stained glass rose window, intricate carvings, delicate woodwork, and a blue painted ceiling with stars and ornaments. Opened in October 1870, the ceremonies featured three bishops and over 150 other clergy, and once opened it could seat 1,600 congregants, with room for 800 more to stand.

St. Thomas Church, 1900. From The New Metropolis, Memorable Events of Three Centuries, 1600-1900 by E. Idell Zeisloft.

Many society weddings were held at St. Thomas, including the aforementioned Vanderbilt-Marlborough wedding. Other society weddings included the Whitney-Pagets, Goelet-Kers, and even former President Benjamin Harrison. The old church burned down in 1905 and a new church, designed by Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram G. Goodhue, opened on the site in 1913.

Mr. Astor and his Yachts

Launch of the yacht Ambassadress from City Island, 1877. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper 1877-10-13, Vol 45 Iss 1150.

Lina’s husband, William Backhouse Astor Jr., was the grandson of John Jacob Astor, and came into considerable wealth that allowed him to seek the pleasures of life. His marriage to Lina was largely one of convenience for him, and he spent much of his time away from his wife and New York society, much preferring to entertain on his yachts. Above is the Ambassadress, which was the largest private sailing yacht in the world at the time, billed as a veritable floating palace.

The Nourmahal after she was launched in Delaware. From Harper’s Weekly, May 17. 1884.

In May 1884, the Nourmahal was launched. The 232 foot-long Nourmahal was designed for a tour around the world, but Astor did not live to see this. However, before his death he spent many hours at sea with both important businessmen and his various mistresses, letting his wife rule the society roost in New York.

The “Larchmont” Asylum

Views of Waldemere-on-the-Sound, including the house (top), its entrance (middle), and the drawing room (bottom). From The Medical Directory of the City of New York, 1895.

Mrs. Bruce mentions that her husband has been in an asylum for the past 7 years, one located in Larchmont. This may refer to a sanitarium located in Mamaroneck, the town of which Larchmont is a part. The Waldemere Sanitarium, also known as Waldemere-on-the-Sound, was established in an area known as Orienta, partway between Mamaroneck Village and Larchmont Village.

Patients at Waldemere-on-the-Sound could take a stroll along the picturesque tree-lined esplanade (top), or spend time taking in the fresh air from Long Island Sound (bottom). From The Medical Directory of the City of New York, 1895.

Established in 1889 by Dr. Elon N. Carpenter, the sanitarium specialized in treatment of mental and nervous disorders, along with alcohol and narcotic “habitués” taken in on a case-by-case basis. However, it was a relatively small operation, with a maximum of 12 patients at a time, who lived in the house and were treated by Dr. Carpenter and his staff on premises. It is worth noting that there was a distinction between a sanitarium, which usually housed private patients, and an asylum, which was often larger and associated with a hospital or charity organization.

The Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, 1881. It sat approximately where the Low Library is presently. Macy Villa, which was built in 1885, is still standing on the Columbia campus. From The Society of the New York Hospital, 1771-1921.

For example, the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, which was located in what is now Morningside Heights until 1889, when it moved to White Plains, was operated by the New York Hospital. It initially housed those who were deemed “insane” by the courts or police, and these “inmates” were not charged, although this system changed when the Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum opened. After this point, it only accepted those who could pay. Poor individuals would be sent to Blackwell’s Island (or Ward’s Island after an additional building was built there). For those impacted by mental illness who lived outside the city and were in a similar situation, they could be sent to the Utica State Hospital, and in 1871 the Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane opened in Poughkeepsie.

Melancholia

An advertisement for Vin Mariani, which could be used to treat melancholia. It was also enthusiastically billed as “tonic coca wine,” as it contained coca leaves. From The Western Medical Reporter, November 1889.

This was somewhat of a catch-all term for mental disorders that we would essentially call clinical depression and its associated disorders. An 1883 definition by physician Thomas Clouston demonstrates what it could entail: “mental pain, emotional depression, and sense of ill-being, usually more intense than in melancholy, with loss of self-control, or insane delusions, or uncontrollable impulses towards suicide, with no proper capacity left to follow ordinary avocations, with some of the ordinary interests of life destroyed.” (From Melancholia to Depression: Disordered Mood in Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry by Åsa Jansson, 2021).

Contemporary treatments, which depended on the severity of the melancholia (which of course depended largely on the physician making the diagnosis) included an equally wide range: bed rest, confinement, restraining, calisthenics, hydrotherapy, dietary restriction, “moral education,” invasive surgery (particularly if someone was also considered to be hysterical, necessitating a removal of the uterus), and a bevy of different drugs, including opium and cocaine.

Catch up on all of The Gilded Age posts from Season 3: