Ashcans to Ballgowns: Insights to New York’s Gilded Age
Ashcans to Ballgowns: Insights to New York’s Gilded Age
Lecturer: Mary Alexander
This lecture will explore two contrasting perspectives of New York city at the turn of the century – a period of vast magnate fortunes, urban poverty, new money vs old money, rapid expansion and unprecedented technological change. In fact, it offers intriguing parallels with today. What role did art, architecture, couture and fashion play in the rise of the nouveaux riches in the Gilded Age? In the opening scene, we will be spectators at the glittering Vanderbilt Ball held in their mansion on Fifth Avenue in 1883. Who was there? what did they wear? who painted their portraits? and what was the origin of the famous Astor/Vanderbilt feud fuelling city gossip? What were the leisure and cultural activities of this privileged elite who shopped in Paris for art and couture and spent summers at their ‘cottages’ in Newport?
In contrast, we will marvel at the expanding city through the eyes and imagery of the Ashcan painters – John Sloan, George Bellows, William Glackens and Everitt Shinn. Exploring the natural beauty of the Manhattan open skyline and sunsets before the high rise skyscrapers, we will travel to work on the elevated railways, watch the raw energy of the night-lit building sites and the bustling ships being unloaded on the waterfront, visit a vaudeville show, wander in Central Park, and be shocked by the eviction of poor immigrant tenants on the lower east side. Our summer holiday will be a day train ride to Coney Island.
Mary Alexander has more than thirty years’ experience as a lecturer, with a BA in History and History of Art and an MA with distinction in History of Art from University College London. Her experience includes public lectures in museums, tutoring for the Open University, being a visiting lecturer at Christie’s Education in London, and a museum curator at Platt Hall, the Gallery of Costume, in Manchester.
Mary is now a freelance lecturer to various arts, heritage and antiquarian societies. She also worked in London and New York, organising conferences and special events. She has authored various articles on design and visual awareness issues and is an enthusiastic member and President of The Arts Society Glaven Valley.