The acclaimed social historian provides an in-depth look at eight society women who shaped upper class culture from the Gilded Age to WWII. Astor. Rockefeller. McCormick. Belmont. Family names that still adorn buildings, streets, and charity foundations. While their men blazed across America with their oil, industry, and railways, the matriarchs founded art museums, opera houses, and symphonies that functioned almost as private clubs. Linked by money, marriage, privilege, and power, these women formed a grand American matriarchy—and they ruled American society with a style and impact that make today’s socialites seem pale reflections of their forbears. Stephen Birmingham takes us into the drawing rooms of these powerful women, providing keen insights into an American society that no longer exists. Caroline Astor, who, when asked for her fare boarding a streetcar, responded, “No thank you, I have my own favorite charities.” Edith “Effie” Stern deciding that no existing school would do for her child, so she had a new one built. And the legendary Isabella Stewart Gardner replying to a contemporary who was overly taken with their Mayflower ancestors: “Of course, immigration laws are much more strict nowadays.” These women had looks, manner, and style, but more than that, they had presence—a sense that when one of them entered a room, something momentous was about to occur; Birmingham opens a window to the highest levels of American society with these profiles of American “royalty.”

The Grandes Dames of America knew just what they wanted and precisely how to get it, and when faced with criticism, malice or jealousy, they would rise above their detractors and usually persevere. Preeminent social historian Stephen Birmingham takes us into the drawing rooms ...

This critically analytical filmography examines 45 movies featuring "grande dames" in horror settings. Following a history of women in horror before 1962's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which launched the "Grande Dame Guignol" subgenre of older women featured as morally ambiguous leading ladies, are all such films (mostly U.S.) that came after that landmark release. The filmographic data includes cast, crew, reviews, synopses, and production notes, as well as recurring motifs and each role's effect on the star's career.

Presents biographical portraits of ten notable twentieth-century women, including Jacqueline Onassis, Clare Boothe Luce, Pamela Harriman, and Kitty Carlisle Hart.

Les grandes dames by Arsène Houssaye is a rare manuscript, the original residing in some of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, typed out and formatted to perfection, allowing new generations to enjoy the work. Publishers of the Valley's mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life.

Called "a feminist classic" by Judith Shulevitz in the New York Times Book Review, this pathbreaking book of literary criticism is now reissued with a new introduction by Lisa Appignanesi that speaks to how The Madwoman in the Attic set the groundwork for subsequent generations of scholars writing about women writers, and why the book still feels fresh some four decades later. "Gilbert and Gubar have written a pivotal book, one of those after which we will never think the same again."--Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Washington Post Book World

This book maps the most active and vibrant period in the history of British women's writing. Examining changes and continuities in fiction, poetry, drama, and journalism, as well as women's engagement with a range of literary and popular genres, the essays in this volume highlight the range and diversity of women's writing since 1970.