24. The Social Network: The Knickerbocker Queen | Caroline Schermerhorn Astor

This week, we take a turn in a whole new direction by wandering through high society in 19th century New York City. The Knickerbockers had their own peculiar ways, and the Queen Bee of all of them was Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, who with the assistance of Ward McAllister, dictated the terms of the city's emerging elites with the creation and implementation of The 400. 

But in 1883, a sassy southern belle, Alva Smith Vanderbilt, shook Knickerbocker society to its very core by throwing a party, which brought the Gilded Age to New York City. 

Let's investigate!

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