© Julie Saad Photography
Gilded New York, on view at the Museum of the City of New York Through March
As the Nazis surly knew, there is perhaps no more bitter form of discrimination than to be excluded and ignored. Such treatment is at the forefront of dehumanization. Well before deportation to actual death camps, Hitler’s edicts systematically eliminating the participation of Jews accustomed to taking an active and crucial role in German society, certainly took a terrible toll. And today in New York, if one is gay, or African American, to be marginalize, compartmentalize and even altogether banished from sight is fairly routine.
In part this diminishment of blacks and gays derives from skewed reasoning. Even though Americans, we represent, it's felt, a distinct and separate subset of Americans. So, although there are few instances when examining these “subsets”, that one would fail to find whites and heterosexuals offering a context against which to objectively make an evaluation, when it comes to straight whites, particularly those who are rich, however eccentric, it’s a different story.
This explains the one dimensional character of two new special exhibitions, Gilded New York, at the Museum of the City of New York, and Beauty’s Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America, at the New-York Historical Society.
In a November 21, 2013 New York Times appraisal of these offerings Karen Rosenberg perceptively references how critics and art merchants have attributed recent colossal figures realized for paintings and sculpture at auction, as evidence of the onset of a new Gilded Era: “At such a moment, it may be useful to take a hard look at the old one, the late-19th-century period defined by the aggressive buying sprees of a few newly minted industrialists.” She says. This observation prompts Ms. Rosenberg’s further critique concerning exclusivity, excess, inequality and tastes.
Pendant brooch, ca. 1900, Platinum, diamond, sapphire Tiffany & Co., Museum of the City of New York, Bequest of Mrs. V. S. Young
“ Art lovers, be warned: These shows are about lifestyle, not connoisseurship. Collecting, as seen here, is a particularly transparent form of social gate-keeping. And the exhibitions dutifully guard those gates: They don’t tell us much about the Gilded Age’s extreme disparities of wealth, aside from passing mentions in the glossy catalogs.
They do, however, have much to say about the imbalance of money and taste: that the spending of unfathomable amounts of money on art, fashion, parties and real estate had a tendency to stave off any discussion of taste."
Whether or not one finds the efforts undertaken on behalf of yesterday’s supper-rich class to elevate themselves, either aesthetically uplifting, or in the best taste possible, wrought by exceptional craftsmen with the utmost skill, formed from the finest materials, they certainly still impress. Inaugurating the Museum of the City of New York’s Tiffany & Co. Foundation Gallery, Gilded New York explores the city’s visual culture at the end of the 19th century, the dawn of America's ascendancy as the world's great supper-power. As never before the city’s elite then flaunted unprecedented riches, lavishing a king's ransom on ornate showplace-houses meant to last for centuries as dynastic seats. And, just as Russian, Chinese and Middle Eastern multi-billionaires today pay whatever it takes to acquire the world's most storied art treasures, American plutocrats a century ago, similarly swept up all that was lovely or precious within a wide grasp. One hundred works of art, including elegant attire, jewelry, portraits, and decorative objects, dazzling accouterments created between the mid-1870’s and the first decade of the 20th century, express their bid to be recognized as an aristocracy second to none.
Julian Francis Abele (1881-1950), the first African American to attend le Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, was chief designer of the architectural firm of Horace Trumbauer of Philadelphia. Indicative of his role in masterminding the firms later work, beyond the greater refinement of detail and the felicity of design following his arrival, is a remark he once made, "The lines are all Mr. Trumbauer's, but the shadows are all mine..." To anyone familiar with the rigorous training at the French academy, who has viewed a line elevation, versus a drawing articulated and given dimension, by subtle shadows painted with watercolors, this statement speaks volumes.
In 1909, Julian Abele, designed one of the Trumbauer firm's greatest
townhouses, a residence for James B. Duke, on Fifth Avenue at 78th Street. The wealthy Duke was an associate of Peter A. B. Widener, and the founder of American Tobacco Company, as well as the benefactor of Duke University. Based on architect Etiene Laclotte's Hôtel Labottière, constructed in Bordeaux in 1773, Duke's house was described by architect Philip Johnson as "perhaps finer than the original."
But not one of the items on display is in any way representative of the heritage or contribution of African American or LGBT New Yorkers. Given that the city’s elite constituted a coterie which excluded Jews, most Irish Roman Catholics, and indeed nearly all Catholics irrespective of ancestry, this mightn't seem surprising. It was after all, as well, an epoch when people were presumed to be heterosexual even when evidence suggested otherwise. Radical, 'confessed' lesbians and gays were deemed dangerously outré, deviant outcasts. Almost universally poor, African Americans were widely reviled, irrespective of accomplishment or even when miraculously wealthy. So the improbability of the inclusion of representations of people so marginalized, even in some tangential way, naturally enough, might be a foregone conclusion.
Yet, considering the exploitation of black labor, know-how and consumption, partly facilitating the riches and lifestyle of utter luxury afforded Gilded Era multi-millionaires helps to enlarge the topic of glittering trappings. Moreover, so potent and original are the gifts of America's perennial outlaws, gays and blacks, that even in the rarefied realm apart of the supper-rich, a vital influence was felt despite every effort to safeguard high society from such 'coarsening' influences.
1883: Peter Marié, Esquire (1825–1903), in fancy dress for the William K. Vanderbilts' celebrated costume ball.
In New York, a distinct majority of the Catholic families accepted into 'good society', had been refugees, fleeing the uprising of slaves at the close of the 18th century, leading to the Haitian Revolution. The scion of such a clan, Peter Marié's maternal grandfather was a planter who owned a large estate. He was assassinated at a banquet being held to celebrate the cessation of hostilities between Haiti's slaveholders and the black revolutionaries. A Roman Catholic, but rather rich, the 'confirmed bachelor' was a popular socialite famous for his courtliness and extravagant entertaining. Undoubtedly gay, 'bachelorhood' did not deter from his tremendous social success.
Between 1889 and 1903, Marié assiduously pursued debutantes and young matrons, not for amorous purposes, but for the sake of their pictures. Beseeching certain ladies for the honor of allowing him to commission their portrait in miniature, his subjects helped him to form a collection immortalizing women in society whom he believed epitomized female beauty.
There was little to fear from 'the help', inasmuch as, after the Civil War among New York's bon ton, African American servants were increasingly avoided. There were of course conspicuous exceptions. Ever since F. D. R.’s stint as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, both as an economy, and as a gesture of charitable helpfulness, Eleanor Roosevelt made a point of exclusively and unfashionably engaging black servants. Customarily black household help were paid much lower wages than their white counterparts. Few love a bargain as much as the rich. Yet outside of the South, in lavish establishments like the Astors’, Vanderbilts’, or Drexels’, more costly white servants, who were mostly Irish and other European immigrants, where hired for the greater cachet they conveyed.
1891: A group of Peter Marié's beauties photographed at Newport by Italian born photographer Louis T. Alman. Second from the right, in the front, is Miss Grace Wilson, who became Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt.
A dandy, an aesthete, a raconteur, and bon vivant, as a consummate snob, Peter Marié was not above allowing exalted social standing and wealth to influence, and at times, to cloud his vision. Often initially commemorated by photographs from which the small group of artists he favored might later captured a painted likeness, this accumulation of nearly 300 watercolor-on-ivory miniatures stands today as a vivid document of New York’s Gilded Age aristocracy.
This remarkable group of images form an arresting aspect of the special exhibition, Beauty’s Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America, at the New-York Historical Society. Yet, by the time of Marié's death in 1903, both on account of the high status of the sitters and due to many being painted from photographs, instead of from life, his once precious miniatures were found lacking. Rejecting Marié's bequest, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Museum asserted, the pictures were not even really art. Not only did he feel it possible to identify on the city's streets, numerous subjects as lovely as Peter Marié's beauties, he ventured in the Times; "some of the miniatures do not even qualify as art, as they are not originals but paintings copied in Europe from photographs taken in the United States."
1891: Sallie J. Hargous by Fernand Paillet, watercolor on ivory. The subject was the daughter of L. S. Hargous of Pittsburgh. She married Lieutenant Duncan Elliott, U.S.A., a cavalry officer, on October 15, 1891.
At their Newport ‘cottage’, "Sherwood Lodge", for instance, southerners Mr. and Mrs. Pembroke Jones, always engaged black help. Proficient at expertly preparing 'down-home' delicacies, their cook indeed, was by far more widely renowned than the French chefs of the area’s most deluxe households. But more typically, nearby at the "Breakers", Anderson Cooper’s great grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, kept only white servants, with the sole exception of their laundresses. Living and working in a sequestered laundry building on the grounds, never seen by family or guests, these black women were responsible for the most arduous job there was associated with running an exacting and elite household. The luxury of fresh linen damask bed sheets daily, new napkins nearly a yard-square for dinners, for each person at each meal, and three changes of what one wore, every day, for everyone in the household, including servants, was not easily achieved.
Demeaned due to their poverty and lack of education, African Americans were viewed as a pervasive joke, permeating American life in innumerable forms, from scurrilous figures of fun in advertisements, to cartoons found even in some of the most lofty journals. To what end, blacks served as a reviled reminder to whites that they were civilized, beautiful, intelligent and superior. As with this cartoon, celebrating African American ingenuity, what the Williams & Walker team took from humor and hate meant to harm blacks, was to always make what was spoofed, far more attractive than ridiculous.
"Recon dis rig 'll done dassle dat common trash"
"Dat gal ain't dressed up lak dis book says"
" Mammy, kin Ah hab dis yer ole pisce ob paw's pants-laig an' dis no-count baskit?"
"Dis now, Miss Stuck-up, jcs gase at what am de berry latest!"
More readily, the more subversive means by which African Americans infiltrated and helped to transform the world of white swells, was via the stage. Imagine, no 'smart phones', internet, or TV. Instead, with many millions to expend, in a nation where most are contented to earn two dollars a day, to amuse themselves, the rich must make do with an endless repetition of the same highly contrived dinners, dances, sport and travel. The ritualistic formality of etiquette imitative of the English nobility and association with the same small group of predictable companions gave this life a certain tedium. The theatre was an approved outlet against boredom as well as a wonderful place to encounter something 'new', something different.
How astute of Aida Overton Walker, a black dancer, choreographer, comedienne, and singer to appreciate the power for positive change she welded, Nichelle Gainer who produces the wonderful website, Vintage Black Glamour, points out. In her 1905 editorial in the Colored American entitled, "Colored Men and Women on the Stage", Ms. Gainer related recently, the chanteuse who popularized the cake walk and hit songs like "I Want To Be An Actor Lady", wrote rebuking African American snobbery.
"Some of our so-called society people regard the Stage as a place to be ashamed of.... In this age we are all fighting the one problem—that is the color problem! I venture to think and dare to state that our profession does more toward the alleviation of color prejudice than any other profession among colored people. The fact of the matter is this, that we come in contact with more white people in a week than other professional colored people in a year and more than some meet in a whole decade."
The Cakewalk!
Bert Williams, born Egbert Austin Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922), dreamed of attending Stanford University to become an engineer. Not able to afford tuition, working as a singing waiter instead in hotels in San Francisco, he met and teamed up with George Nash Walker, 1873-1911, then performing in traveling medicine shows. Emulating white duos billing themselves as "coons", Williams and Walker decided to market themselves as the ultimate spooks, the "Two Real Coons." In 1896, they appeared in a Broadway production called The Gold Bug at the Casino Theater and never looked back.
Celebrated African American performers, George Nash Walker and Bert Williams joined forces after meeting in San Francisco, around 1892. Their alliance offered a winning presentation of comic, if stereotypical song-and-dance numbers, dialogues and skits. Derived from early 19th century white minstrels in black-face, such teams persisted late into the 20th century via the antics of Amos and Andy broadcast on television. Ordinarily, dark-skin Walker would be expected to play the stooge. But to their credit, the partners realized that by challenging expectations, and reversing roles, they were much funnier. Slender, taller, darker Walker adopted the slick persona of a preening dandy. Spending copiously all the money he could borrow or trick out of the hapless Williams, a lugubrious, long-suffering fool. While Williams’ half-hearted efforts, large and small, were chagrined at every turn, George Walker, sang and strutted his way into the hearts of a host of admiring women theater-goers.
Both delighted audiences with the refinement of their pretentious manners, contrived speech and elaborate, highly contrasted attire. Exemplary of the age-old slur that blacks were partial to exaggerated, loudly patterned, brightly colored clothes, cut with effete and extreme precision, both in their dress and manner, they nonetheless managed to introduce to their burlesque of stylishness, an element of true elegance.
An opportunity to do their own show was realized with In Dahomey. Williams and Walker teamed up with Will Marion Cook, Jesse Ship, and poet-lyricist Paul Laurence Dunbar to produce the musical comedy, replete with African themes, original ragtime music and elaborate and effective scenery and props. A farce involving a stolen necklace, inept detectives and unscrupulous royalty, the show was a resounding success, touring throughout the United States following a London production with a command performance before Queen Alexandra.
Williams and Walker’s captivated audiences with their brilliant appearance in the musical farce The Gold Bug. It was in this vehicle that their interpretation of the cakewalk so captured the public’s imagination, that for the remainder of their career spanning more than a dozen years, and even afterward, they were so closely identified with this dance, that many regarded the duo as having invented the cakewalk.
Dressed on stage, not 'to the nines', but rather, to the 'eighteens', Williams and Walker worked diligently to equal the production values of white shows. Handling most of the management responsibilities of their productions, they sought to elevate the professionalism in black theater. Toward this end they helped to establish, the Frogs, a social-fraternal quasi union. By 1906, Williams and Walker founded an actual actors' union for African-Americans, called The Negro's Society. Staring in two more successful plays, In Abyssinia and in their final show, Bandanna Land in1907, who can say what they might have accomplished had George Walker not fallen ill?
George Walker began to stutter and forget his cues and lines, touring with Bandana Land in 1909. Like music greats Bob Cole and Scott Joplin, he was afflicted in an era without a cure or even effective treatment, by the final stages of syphilis. George Walker spent his remaining days in sanatoria in Kansas and Michigan, before traveling to New York in hopes of finding helpful treatment for the paralysis resulting from his illness. On January 7, 1911, he died at a clinic on Long Island. Paresis was listed as the cause of his death and Bert Williams, his partner of sixteen years, paid for Walker’s medical expenses and burial at Oak Hill Cemetery in in his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. He was only 36-years old. A mere youth, Langston Hughes attended George Walker’s funeral at the modest Warren (now 9th) Street Baptist Church. Hughes was then living with his rancher-father, but was soon to move to live with his mother in Cleveland where he attended high school. Probably in sketching Aunt Hager's funeral for "Not Without Laughter", the writer was revisiting this event in the tiny church of his boyhood.
"The little Baptist Church was packed with people. The sisters of the lodge came in full regalia, with banners and insignia, and the brothers turned out with them. Hager's coffin was banked with flowers...wreaths and crosses with golden letters on them: ‘At Rest in Jesus,’ ‘Beyond the Jordan,’ or simply: ‘Gone Home.’...They were all pretty, but, to Sandy, the perfume was sickening in the close little church...The Baptist minister preached...The choir sang ‘Shall We Meet Beyond the River?’ People wept and fainted."
Quite willing to wear gauchely over-elaborate costumes on stage for a laugh, off-stage, George Walker and Bert Williams alike, were always impecably attired.
“That’s Why They Call Me ‘Shine,’” dates from 1910. According to Perry Bradford, himself a songster and publisher, the song was written about an actual man named Samuel Johnson, who was with George Walker when they were savagely beaten during the New York City race riot of 1900. "Piping the shine..." is a reference to their assault.
It seems there was a real Samuel Johson who was attacked in the riots. The intro lyric that refers to "Pipe The Shine" is a reference to beatings during the riots - See more at: http://jdurward.blogspot.com/2009/06/manic-monday-thats-why-they-call-me.html#sthash.11Wb2c20.dpuf
The music was composed by band leader Ford Dabney, an associate of James Reece Europe, while the seemingly self-deprecating lyric, which turns out to actually be defiant, was written by Cecil Mack. Born Richard C. McPherson, Mack was perhaps the co-founder of New York's first black-owned musical publishing concern. Both he and his writing partner were African-Americans. Taking over for her ailing husband in Bandana Land, doing his parts in his costumes, Aida Walker made a great hit with George Walker's number Bon Bon Buddie. In 1911, again wearing male drag, "That’s Why They Call Me Shine” was sung by Aida Overton Walker in the Broadway production of “His Honor: the Barber.”
It seems there was a real Samuel Johson who was attacked in the riots. The intro lyric that refers to "Pipe The Shine" is a reference to beatings during the riots. Without the intro as originally written, the song appears to be an insult to African Americans when it was actually written to lessen the pain of the name calling and claiming a dignity not afforded to them at the time. The "recorded by" list of the song is virtually every great black performer from 1910 to today as well as some of the best of the white blues performers who took it on as a jazz anthem. - See more at: http://jdurward.blogspot.com/2009/06/manic-monday-thats-why-they-call-me.html#sthash.11Wb2c20.dpuf
It seems there was a real Samuel Johson who was attacked in the riots. The intro lyric that refers to "Pipe The Shine" is a reference to beatings during the riots. Without the intro as originally written, the song appears to be an insult to African Americans when it was actually written to lessen the pain of the name calling and claiming a dignity not afforded to them at the time. The "recorded by" list of the song is virtually every great black performer from 1910 to today as well as some of the best of the white blues performers who took it on as a jazz anthem. - See more at: http://jdurward.blogspot.com/2009/06/manic-monday-thats-why-they-call-me.html#sthash.11Wb2c20.dpuf
It seems there was a real Samuel Johson who was attacked in the riots. The intro lyric that refers to "Pipe The Shine" is a reference to beatings during the riots. Without the intro as originally written, the song appears to be an insult to African Americans when it was actually written to lessen the pain of the name calling and claiming a dignity not afforded to them at the time. The "recorded by" list of the song is virtually every great black performer from 1910 to today as well as some of the best of the white blues performers who took it on as a jazz anthem. - See more at: http://jdurward.blogspot.com/2009/06/manic-monday-thats-why-they-call-me.html#sthash.11Wb2c20.dpuf
Verse 1:
Refrain:
Repeat Refrain.
Joining their company in 1898 Ada Overton (14 February 1880 – 11 October 1914), of New York married George Walker a year later. Becoming their leading lady the versatile performer soon became famous in her own right, both as a droll comedienne and as a graceful dancer. As a choreographer and as a dancer alike, her modification of the cakewalk and other dances were warmly received. By 1903, Ada Overton was reborn as Aida Overton Walker.
Ca. 1900
Although she bewitched early-20th-century theater audiences with her original dance routines, Aida Overton Walker started under the impression that she was not a good singer. Only as the expedient replacement of an ill company member was it discovered she indeed possessed an enchanting singing voice. Mrs. Williams allied her loveliness not only with devastating talent, but a fashion-sense as developed and appealing as white stage stars like Lillian Russell and Lily Elise. Her reinterpretation of the low-down cakewalk into an elegant dance, made it her own. Her stardom and cakewalking fame helped open the door to the ‘Four Hundred’; making the cakewalk respectable, a generation ahead of Josephine Baker or Florence Mills, Aida Walker was frequently engaged by the leading hostesses of New York, London and Paris to instruct guests in the mysteries of a dance that had originated among black slaves on Southern plantations.
1907: Possessed of Paris inspired gowns and precious gems, Aida Overton Walker nonetheless retained an African American identity. Eschewed by whites between 1800 and 1930, she proudly wore hoop, or 'slave' earings, only not of plain gold, but paved in diamonds.
What made the cakewalk so appealing to white members of high society? Success stemmed from the same duality so often at the center of the appeal of African American cultural contributions, the contradiction of familiarity and difference.
Since the Renaissance, at royal and noble courts all across Europe, grandees have engaged in quadrilles, contredanses, German Dances, and the cotillion; types of patterned social dances, reminiscent of nothing, so much as bees or today's 'ELECTRIC SLIDE'. What's unknown, is the true origin of such activity. Were such dances adaptations of romp-like reels, the wedding dances of peasants depicted by Peter Brueghel, or did they originate instead as courtly dances in stately great halls? In the United States the square dance, where "figures" are called aloud by the caller, or a cotillion leader evolved from the working class retaining the ceremonial dances abandoned by those better off, or did it? The name cotillion still conjures up social fan-fare. The word is from the French cotillon, or "petticoat ". The term is thought to have been suggested by frequent and flirtatious glimpses of underskirts as the changing partners turned.
Be it a quadrille, a German, a square dance or a cotillion, each dance involves ‘competitive couples’ and a concluding ‘grand ’march’. With the arrival of such dances in America, via a ruling class eager to identify with their European counterparts, it was not long before black slaves, who served at such elaborate entertainments, in the 18th century, took them up too. Dance for the slaves became a means of emulating, and even perhaps, of mocking their masters.
As Aida Overton Walker explained it, "The cakewalk is characteristic of a race and in order to understand it and appreciate it and to become adept in it, it is necessary to keep your mind upon the judges, your partner, and especially upon what the cakewalk really is—a gala dance…"
Gay men certainly inhabited New York’s most exclusive precincts in the past. Among those who never married some were quite easy to spot. The Sun, Thursday, March 15, 1891 observed of such unencumbered gentlemen:
The wealthy bachelor is the most luxurious resident of fashionable Gotham as well as the most popular man in society. His morning begins at 11 o'clock when the average run of humanity has finished a half day's work. He lunches between 2 and 3 o'clock at his favorite club or a swell cafe d. He dines between 7 and 8 o'clock and he has his super at midnight, when the city has given itself over to Morpheus. He is as welcome at an evening party, dance, or soiree musicale as he is behind the scenes of the big theatres. The wealthy bachelor is as generous as he Is regular. The head waiter in one of the largest of the most fashionable restaurants said: "The unmarried men in society spend three times as much as the married men.
Edward M. Curtiss was thought an interesting single-hearted epicure. At sixty, he was regarded as "just as young as he used to be." He had some odd notions as to his old-fashioned dress, holding onto stock, and wearing straps under his trousers, until they were long out of vogue and he was laughed at. Once, attending a ball with a yard of his mother's rare point lace made into a ruffled shirt front, from that date on he was known as "Point lace" Curtiss.
During an epoch when rich single men described as elegant or ‘epicene’ were among the most popular hosts in society, Messrs. James V. Parker and Peter
Marie, fairly pride themselves on being the oldest entertaining bachelors
in town. Valued for conspicuous gallantry and as extra men for dinners and dancing at balls, their unattached state was generally viewed as highly ‘unusual’.
By the end of the 1880’s, a new generation of fashionable ‘confirmed’ bachelors came to the fore. Young men like Llspenard Stewart, not only were adept at helping hostesses, by selecting the most exquisite cotillion favors and leading and planning the cotillions for their dances, they also gave jolly and unconventional entertainments of their own, such parties to see vaudeville performances, proceeded by dinners and followed by suppers.
Although millionaire Robert Hargous, known as ‘Bobbie’, had French ancestry, his father had made the family’s fortune in Mexico. With his three sisters, Bobbie Hargous was noted for an olive completion and dark good looks. Yet he was also said to have a high-pitched voice and to be effeminate. He was also recognized for being, “ the one bachelor of New York who entertains on an elaborate scale.” It became his habit to give very intimate teas in his bachelor apartments at the Cumberland. There, each room was said to be a symphony in cream, rose or pale- blue satin and silver. Dexterous in the use of a chafing dish, Hargous was assisted by a valet, Shoto, brought back from a journey to Japan, along with a collection of porcelain, prints, suits of armor, robes, brocades, silk embroideries, and carpets.
1904: Aida Overton Walker. Photograph by Cavendish Morton in London
Such was the scale of Williams & Walker's London run of "In Dahomey" that they were as inundated with request for cakewalk lessons as John Singer Sargent was with demands for portrait commissions. The Walkers, ragtime and the cakewalk were the latest thing, and everyone who was anyone in London wished to be initiated in the marvelously suggestive and rhythmic mystery, able to be imparted by just three dark souls. Mrs. Walker adored the experience of being in demand. She particularly cherished the following
Dunrobin Castle, Sutherland. Lady Constance Mackenzie will' be very much obliged if Mrs. Walker will give her a dancing lesson on Monday at five o'clock in the evening. She is sorry she was unable to have them before. Please let Lady Constance know if Mrs. Walker cannot come, otherwise she will expect her at Stafford House, St. James, at 5 on Monday next
As to his exacting attire, “ When it comes to collars,” wrote a reporter from the Daily Leader, April 9, 1892, “I think no one man of fashion can quite equal the taste or the lavish display in styles of that prince among men of fashion, ‘Bobbie' Hargous. If ever "Collars and Cuffs," the lamented English prince, had a peer in his realm of peculiarity and idiosyncrasy it was in Bobby Hargous. And now, of course, Bobbie may be said to have come into his kingdom, all his collars and cuffs are made to order and in every possible variety permitted by the dictates of fashion…”
1912: Twice Aida Overton Walker portrayed the sensual Oscar Wilde heroine, Salome to acclaim
Mrs. Walker's diamond necklace could be converted into a tiara
The impact of Aida and George Walker's assured style, both regarding dancing, shoes and wardrobe was far reaching and certainly not lost on later husband and wife dance teams like the Chastles
1916: Vernon and Irene Castle
1904: George Walker, his wife dressed as a child, Bert Walker and Mrs, Walker on the end, appearing in "In Dahomey"
1904: George N. Walker in 'In Dahomey', tweaked fashion with just enough exageration to take it over-the-top yet still kept what he wore alluring
1911: In costume when she performed with the Smart Set Company's production of His Honor the Barber
Taking leave of New York and Newport early in the 1890’s Bobbie leased the
Gothic Palazzo Contarini-Fasan in Venice on the Grand Canal, known as the house of Desdemona. Tradition, maintained that Shakespeare's heroine was born and died there, but the palace surely never witnessed anything comparable to the young connoisseur. Usually in residence during the summer, attended by gondoliers liveried in white, traveling in a white gondola, Bobbie Hargous was a great favorite among ordinary people and Venetian society alike, both of whom referred to him the "American prince."
Bobbie Hargous leased Desdemona's Gothic style Palazzo Contarini-Fasan in Venice
As a languid dandy, as a faithful subscriber to the Bachelors Ball, well polished and easily drolleries, cotillion skills and largess, Robert Hargous was well thought of.Before the assent of Harry Lehr around 1900, he was the most sought after gay man in New York society. But finally, effecting what one newspaper termed “the Café au Lait Waltz”, just proceeding Lent in 1903, Bobbie Hargous who had mildly titillated society for decades, finally actually shocked some. “Mr. Hargous,” insisted one journal, “ is so perfectly so au fait in the entertaining line that he scarcely requires, any feminine aid, though fortunately his three sisters. Mrs. William Appleton, of Boston: Mrs. George B. de Forest and Mrs. Duncan Elliot of this city, ably assist him.” On March 7, 1903, according to the next day’s New York Herald Mrs. de Forest played the part of her brother’s hostess. Their party numbering about twenty, was seated at a round table placed at the end of the palm garden, of Delmonico’s. The table, cut off from the main room by a screen of palms, was laden with a great mass of growing spring plants In full bloom.
Delminicoe's
Bobbie Hargous guest of honor; Mrs Arthur Paget, later Lady Paget, née Mary (Minnie) Paran Stevens (1853-1919) was the daughter of a wealthy American hotelier, Paran Stevens, who died in 1872 leaving his daughters the fantastic sum of ten million dollars. Her husband was General Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur Henry Fitzroy Paget (1851-1928), a soldier, diplomat and grandson of the 1st Marquis of Anglesey. Lady Paget was one of the tiny group of advantageously married American heiresses in the Prince of Wales's set. As a fabulously wealthy member of London society, with a London residence in Belgrave Square, she was recived in fashionable circles worldwide.
Ostensibly, the dinner was held to honor the departure from the city of a well-born local girl who had done quite well for herself. Mrs Arthur Paget, later Lady Paget, née Mary (Minnie) Paran Stevens other guests included Mrs. Frederic Neilson, Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, Mr. and Mrs. William Jay, Mr. James V. Parker, Mr. Charles M. Robinson, Mr. Elisha Dyer, Jr., Mr. Stuyvesant Le Roy, Mr. and Mrs. T. J. Oakley Rhinelander, Mrs. George Law, Baron Kap-Herr and, remarkably, Mr. and Mrs. Jules S. Bache.The presence of the Jewish financier and art collector on the list is significant.This was the very beginning of acceptance in society of a tiny influx of exceptionally rich and cultivated Jews. Harry Lehr, the man who succeeded Bobbie Hargous as socity's pet gay 'thing', is said to have been there. What about his wife, the very rich Elizabeth Drexel Lehr, or his patron, the ascerbic but witty social leader, Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish? Otherwise, dinning on the usual fare of diamond-back terrapin, with celery salad and canvas-back duck, with hominy, accompanied by champagne, the excellent dinner was standard for a repast hosted by Hargous. Only after dinner was over, moving on into the adjoining Winter garden, where his guests treated to something rather special. It was not unheard of to have performers in from some popular musical to entertain one’s guests after dinner.
Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, formerly Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt of Newpore's "Marble House"
At Newport by now, Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish had already delighted her company with a black ragtime band, replete with ‘pickaninnys’ cradled in hollowed-out watermelons."In Dahomey" had only opened in January, but it was already acclaimed as a winner. But to engage Mr. and Mrs. George Nash Walker, stars of the first all African American production to appear on a Broadway stage, to bid them to come to sing and dance the cakewalk, this was unique! Equally unprecedented was the Walker’s gracious reception. After they danced, and had taken refreshment, the host and his guest of honor, danced in turn with the pair. Compared by some papers to the recent White House dinner where Theodore Roosevelt entertained Booker T. Washington, the educator, Bobbie Hargous dinner was by far more subversive. For no sooner had their host and Mrs. Paget completed their spins with the Walkers, than other guestS clamored for an opportunity to challenge a taboos of longstanding. Such interracial intimacy certainly existed in the cafes of the Tenderloin, among black and white 'sports', consorting with actresses and prostitutes, but 'mixed' dancing on Fifth Avenue, was radically new!
Harry Lehr, in drag and out, the man who succeeded Bobbie Hargous as socity's pet gay 'thing'
Elizabeth Drexel Lehr, whoes fortune made it unnesicarry for her gay husband to work
Jules S. Bache
Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish
1903: Mr. and Mrs. George Nash Walker
"In Dahomey" was a rollicking farce involving a stolen necklace, inept detectives and unscrupulous royalty. The Walker's were astute enough to exploit its resounding success, directing their press agents to spread the news of their participation at Bobbie Hargous' select dinner dance at Delmonicoe's widely. Unfortunately, the invidious nature of prejudice one suspects, caused some guest to regret having their name's in the paper in association with having danced and socialized with 'Negros'. This must account for the contradiction of some white journals suggesting that ladies had objected and the party rapidly broke up, after Bobbie Hargous was Mrs. Walker's partner, versus black papers emphasis of the excitement and enjoyment this elite group had had with the black performers. So delighted was the host for one, that one account says he insisted on sending the Walkers home in his carriage. "Thank you sir. That's very kind of you. But we prefer to take our own, if you don't mind...," Aida Walker is supposed to have responded. The Saint Louis Republic March 14, 1904 noted,"the following day Mrs. Walker was the guest of the dinner dance's guest of honor Mrs. Arthur Paget at the Waldorf-Astoria, that night she was the guest of Mrs. George Law of 10 East 54th Street at a second dinner for Mrs. Paget."
Rather reminiscent of some media today concerning President Obama, and even his family, for some journalist Aida Walker could do no right. Even offering accolades for talent, business acumen and success, their temptation to snidely sneer, invariably proved irresistible.
107 West 132nd Street, the house that the Cakewalk bought!
NY PRESS JUNE 24 1903
Through The Lorgnette
When Mrs. Aida Overton Walker, the Negro dancer, referred to Mrs. Arthur Paget last winter as "my friend Mrs, Paget," everyone smiled and pitted the Negress for her confidence in the whims of a great woman of fashion. Mrs. Walker insisted that "her friend" would play sponsor to her professionally when she reached London just this service, too, seemed Incredible. But the laugh is on the doubters. Mrs.Walker has triumphed, and at the wave of Mrs. Paget's hand Mrs. Walker attained the goal for which all mummers strive. She was "commanded" to Cakewalk before the King. In all history no singer or dancer of this order has ever been exalted by one of the "royal commands," and because Mrs. Walker is of dusky tint the honor Is magnified. Nor was this all. A future King, little Prince Edward. shook hands with the black dancer, "it was a very nice dance." murmured the little Prince, and those words will-forever be treasured by the woman whose forefathers labored in cotton field's.Cakewalks at $100 Apiece
It is only natural and almost pardonable that Mrs. Walker should be conscious of her own importance. Those achievements have brought with them a shower of wealth as well as laurel wreaths and Mrs.Walker's "lugs" are astonishing. Soon after she was exploited as Mrs. Paget's protege a Fifth Avenue girl decided she would like to join the cake-walking throng, and she sent for Mrs. Walker to discuss terms for lessons. Mrs. Walker call. She was driven in her own modest brougham and a white footman scampered In front of his swarthy mistress With the manner of a duchess the dancer sauntered into the girl's drawing room. She wielded her Jeweled purse with the air of a Western millionairess and her plantation accent was swallowed Up by the mellifluous "burr" peculiar to Englishwomen. "My terms," said Mrs. Aida, "are $100. for four lessons. After these you will know how to Cakewalk gracefully." But the Fifth avenue girl was gasping with surprise, and determined to learn this famous step from a person of lesser importance.
Touring throughout the United States following a London production with a command performance before the Royal Family, owning a house in Harlem, keeping a private conveyance, owning beautiful clothes and flashing jewels, the Walkers were in a class by themselves, compared to most blacks. For some, indicative of the potential and possibility kept fettered among African Americans, such outstanding exceptions proved to be unbearable.
Romantically born on St. Valentines Day, Ada Overton had gotten her start touring with Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, known as Sissieretta Jones, who was born January 5, 1868 or 1869-June 24, and died in 1933. The African-American soprano, who sang in Europe before monarchs, was quite famous as "The Black Patti", referencing the great Italian opera singer Adelina Patti. An inspirational model for Overton, both in terms of the way she presented herself, as a true diva, Jones also eventually influenced Overton in terms of the variety of her repertoire. Jones' repertoire included grand opera, light opera, and popular music. As she matured as an artist, Aida Overton Walker sought the same kind of challenges, hence her efforts to make the cakewalk both elegant and respectable. This also no doubt spured her desire to take up 'serious' dance, preforming Salomme.
Although Aida Walker originally became famous through partnership with her husband and Bert Williams, her popularity was olny flourished all the more in the years following George Walker’s death. The Williams and Walker troupe might have disolved, But Mrs. Walker's work with the Smart Set company was launched.. Subsequently, as leader of her own vaudeville company, she remained widely acclaimed. Several of the lady-like troupe members lived with her, in her Harlem home, a brick and brownstone row house at 107 West 132nd Street. Aida Yes, Aida Overton Walker firmly maintained her position as the reigning female talent in black vaudeville and musical theater after 1911. Many critics contended that she was only just apporching the zenith of her carreer At the time of her death in 1914. How gauling it must have been to see the Vernon and Irene Castle so thoroughly appropiate the popular ragtime dance craze she'd helped to initiate. A century ago, it was so easy to sicken and die. There were and are many ways to contract the kidney disease that killed her, but was it connected to her husband? Lying in state in the new St. Philip's Episcopal Church, thousands passed her bier, she was widely mourned and only 34.
Circa 1911:
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