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But they can't compare to the country (or former country) stars. Taylor Swift ring a bell? Could any of the old money "touch" that? I don't think so.
Even Dolly Parton would be considered "new money". Here family didn't come from $$$. "She has described her family as being 'dirt poor'." Nashville was always the place that poor southern country artists could "make it".
You know this how? Or are you just one of the many morons on city-data that thinks "oh, Nashville...COUNTRY MUSIC!!!!1"
Can any old money touch Taylor Swift? Ask Thomas Frist.
The only experiences that I ever had with old money southerners were a long time ago. I'll get the bad one out of the way first. I worked for her and she was near retirement age way back then. She'd married an Ivy League man and that seemed very important to her. She could be very very nice--to the right people--but the minute those people were out of the room her disposition would change and she could be very cruel to the next person. Phony. Of the teenagers who helped out at work after school, she highly favored the well to do ones and tried to get rid of the less well off. Yes, she was a snob and only wanted to associate with others who were like her.
She was definitely very intelligent and was well educated. Her speech was soft and slow with a drawl. She always dressed beautifully although in a classic "preppy" style and her hair was always perfectly done. She told of a trip back home where her AA nanny (or whatever she called her) saw her on the street and recognized her. She seemed to love this woman who had mostly raised her yet she was blatantly racist. Her words could cut through someone like the blade of a knife. She also used to say, "Bless your heart."
Enough about her. The only other old money southerner I knew was a male. His last name would be instantly recognizable. He was a down to earth, normal person who had fled from the pressures and perceived phoniness of his family. He was ivy league educated and his family had homes in quite a few places. His family could never figure out why he didn't want to follow in their footsteps and they were always trying to get him back.
He had a Civil War sword on his wall and he used to tell family stories about his ancestors--amusing little anecdotes of what some of them had said back 100+ years ago. He was a nice guy and was a good sport, fun to be around.
When I knew him he was dating a young woman who was "new" money. She was chasing him, always trying to impress him, but he wasn't having any of that. She was much more of a snob that he was, in fact, he was not a snob at all. He had no need to prove anything.
One time we dropped in on him unexpectedly at the mother's northern home in the summer. Since it was August and we had been traveling, we were dressed in shorts and T shirts. Wow. She lowered herself to shake our hands but quickly retreated and we never saw her again. She was as cold as ice.
To tell you the truth, I don't have a great impression of old monied northerners or southerners. But at least they usually have manners (well, the women I have mentioned had manners, of a sort when they wanted to.) But at least in both cases they are educated and are charitable to the less fortunate. They are usually soft spoken and not ostentatious. That's more than I can say for new money, be it northern or southern.
Old money northerners? The Boston brahmins have all died off. I don't know if I've ever met any old money northerners; the old money southerners probably stood out because, coming from the south, they talked differently.
I was just wondering what yankees impressions of old moneyed southern upper crusters was? We all know the stereotypes about poor southern "rednecks" but what about the old moneyed people living in Charleston or along the Garden District in New Orleans.
You never hear yankees talk about them, they always talk about Appalachia or trailer trash or whatever, so I'd like to know your thoughts on that.
Do they consider them like the Boston "Brahmins" or the old money of the Hamptons? Or is it another class altogether. What about Texas oil millionaires/billionaires?
We choose not to talk about them or draw idle impressions. It's unbecoming to say the least. It's just not like us to talk about people the way they do in some circles... We always prefer the high road.
In college I was driving back from my university in the Northeast with my friend (and roommate) back to my home state of Louisiana and we stopped in Nashville to visit another friend (and fellow college student) and stayed at his house.
He happened to live in a very ritzy neighborhood in Brentwood, all lots had at least five acres and there were many country music stars that lived in the same subdivision as he did.
All of the homes were gigantic and were more of the order of something you would see in Dallas (new money) than you would have expected to see in Nashville. No "Belle Meade" look but more like this:
That happens to be Sean Payton's (coach of the Saints) ex-wife's home. He bought that for her as part of the divorce settlement. He lives in a condo in New Orleans.
So I don't really agree that "new money" goes for Colonial in the Nashville area. More like brand new, modern, large, with large lots.
If you'll re-read my post, you'll see that I make a distinction between the clueless glitz of the Music Industry's Rich White Trash, and the Phoney Coloney mansions of the Fake Old Families. The 'bad' examples you've listed fall squarely within the former category: really clueless, overgrown conglomerations that look more like tumors than designs, which appeal to people who generally aren't very smart, and who have not grown up exposed to better things. Musicians, actors, and sports monkeys fall within that category.
The 'good' example you chose, lies within the category of 'Florid Victorian' homes, which I said the 'Real People' preferred. That's an Early Victorian in New Orleans' Garden District, where sad misfits among the 'Real People' - outcasts from 'Lovely Old Families', have been going to rot and die, for generations. That house is an early Victorian, in the Garden District. You've CONFIRMED my observations, rather than refuting them. Thank you.
I should have explained what the Fake Old Families often have fortunes which are two or three or four generations old. They're smart cookies - good counterfeits - often, along the way, having switched to better religions, and better surnames. They have most of the right credentials: the right schools, deb cotillions, top Greek organizations at college... They are in brainy fields, at the top of the heap, in the Financial Sector, in Insurance, or in Pharmaceuticals/Technology. Or they own utilities. You get my drift.
Most people think that the Fake Old Familiesare"Old Money Southern Upper Crust".
If you'll re-read my post, you'll see that I make a distinction between the clueless glitz of the Music Industry's Rich White Trash, and the Phoney Coloney mansions of the Fake Old Families. The 'bad' examples you've listed fall squarely within the former category: really clueless, overgrown conglomerations that look more like tumors than designs, which appeal to people who generally aren't very smart, and who have not grown up exposed to better things. Musicians, actors, and sports monkeys fall within that category.
The 'good' example you chose, lies within the category of 'Florid Victorian' homes, which I said the 'Real People' preferred. That's an Early Victorian in New Orleans' Garden District, where sad misfits among the 'Real People' - outcasts from 'Lovely Old Families', have been going to rot and die, for generations. That house is an early Victorian, in the Garden District. You've CONFIRMED my observations, rather than refuting them. Thank you.
I should have explained what the Fake Old Families often have fortunes which are two or three or four generations old. They're smart cookies - good counterfeits - often, along the way, having switched to better religions, and better surnames. They have most of the right credentials: the right schools, deb cotillions, top Greek organizations at college... They are in brainy fields, at the top of the heap, in the Financial Sector, in Insurance, or in Pharmaceuticals/Technology. Or they own utilities. You get my drift.
Most people think that the Fake Old Familiesare"Old Money Southern Upper Crust".
Got it! Sorry, you were using "coded" language as people from the deep South often do.
I think you are saying there are three classes of rich people. In an effort to help others here, I am trying to decode your phrasing. Note to others, these are her terms not mine.
1. "Real People" - you also call these "Lovely Old Families". These are old money families that continue in the industries that made them rich, I assume. These are multi-generational families, sometimes 15 generations of wealth, but minimum 5 generations or so. There is a subcategory of these, "outcasts of real people", those living off trust funds. These prefer "Victorians".
2. "Fake Old Families" - You are referring to "previous new money" that has had money for a couple of generations to maybe 4 generations so they have to "fake it" to blend in with "lovely old families". They have all the credentials of the old families like Ivy League but they aren't 100% there. You are saying these people prefer colonials.
3. "Rich White Trash" - "New People", I call them "new money". These are people from poor backgrounds that "earned" all the cash they got. They don't care about the status quo and drive the gentries crazy. They tend to flaunt their new found wealth.
I agree with your assessment of 1 & 2. What I don't agree with is 3.
I proved that the "New People" which I assume are the "rich white trash" you refer to, as being what I call "new money". They prefer what most people call "McMansions". Large, out of place homes without any historical context to the environment they are in.
you've actually lived in the Northeast (for college, at least), I suspect most of the northerners on this thread haven't. What differences did you notice between wealthy families in the Northeast vs south?
you've actually lived in the Northeast (for college, at least), I suspect most of the northerners on this thread haven't. What differences did you notice between wealthy families in the Northeast vs south?
Good question. I'd be interested in the answer too. New money in the NE is easy to spot. Old money? I'm now thinking that I may have grown up with a few but they made themselves practically invisible as opposed to the insufferable new money people with their bragging ways, games of oneupmanship, trophy items like cars, clothing, flashy jewelry, etc. But the town I grew up in also had quiet wealthy people who lived in big old rambling houses and mostly kept to themselves. The furnishings in their homes were mostly family heirlooms, nothing new, nothing flamboyant. Now that I do genealogy, I'm realizing from their last names, that their ancestors came over on the Mayflower. These were the nicer people in town, the old money. Although, I do think they did try to keep "lesser" people out and they definitely had their cotillions and exclusive country club so there was the snob element.
It would be interesting to learn how the wealthy families of the northeast differ from the wealthy families of the south.
you've actually lived in the Northeast (for college, at least), I suspect most of the northerners on this thread haven't. What differences did you notice between wealthy families in the Northeast vs south?
I would say it comes down to two things:
Old money families in the Northeast tend to be (compared to the Southeast):
* much more liberal,
* less gossipy,
* quiet, subdued, behind the scenes
New money families in the Northeast tend to be (compared to new money in the SE):
* much more conservative fiscally,
* more flashy,
* ruder.
I would say there is a bigger difference between old & new money in the North than the South.
In the South, like Gloria says, there is a class that is new money that pretends to be old money. You don't have that in the North. You can't fake it up there. They know who belongs and who doesn't.
Got it! Sorry, you were using "coded" language as people from the deep South often do.
I think you are saying there are three classes of rich people. In an effort to help others here, I am trying to decode your phrasing. Note to others, these are her terms not mine.
1. "Real People" - you also call these "Lovely Old Families". These are old money families that continue in the industries that made them rich, I assume. These are multi-generational families, sometimes 15 generations of wealth, but minimum 5 generations or so. There is a subcategory of these, "outcasts of real people", those living off trust funds. These prefer "Victorians".
2. "Fake Old Families" - You are referring to "previous new money" that has had money for a couple of generations to maybe 4 generations so they have to "fake it" to blend in with "lovely old families". They have all the credentials of the old families like Ivy League but they aren't 100% there. You are saying these people prefer colonials.
3. "Rich White Trash" - "New People", I call them "new money". These are people from poor backgrounds that "earned" all the cash they got. They don't care about the status quo and drive the gentries crazy. They tend to flaunt their new found wealth.
I agree with your assessment of 1 & 2. What I don't agree with is 3.
I proved that the "New People" which I assume are the "rich white trash" you refer to, as being what I call "new money". They prefer what most people call "McMansions". Large, out of place homes without any historical context to the environment they are in.
Possibly, I should begin further explanation, by clarifying just how OLD truly old "Upper Crust" American families tend to be. The magic lies not in their traditions, nor in their enculturation, nor even in their wealth. It's truly in their very GENES. Intelligence is hardly the only heritable mental trait. Some traits move people forward. Some traits hold people back. And then there are the physical traits, which frequently put a person in a position to deploy his/her winning mental traits. Old families benefit from THOUSANDS of years of de facto selective breeding. They've got just the right blend and intensity of 'traits'.
The ascendancy of these people goes back past Colonial times, past the Sephardic Diaspora, past even the Norman Conquest/Almanach de Gotha/Domesday Book. Plenty of these people can (or could) trace their ancestry to the kings of Ancient Judea and the Senators of Pre-Imperial Rome. Italy's noble Emo family (http://www.villeinitalia.com/en/blog...capodilista-2/) were hardly the only ancient clan to have escaped the devolving Middle East and the wreckage of Ancient Egypt, to reestablish themselves in Europe.
In that way, threads of what was good about the Ancient World's genome melded (again and again, over the course of millennia) with what was good about the miraculous people coming down out of Scandinavia. The result was the miracle that is European Civilization. And the creme of Europe is related to the creme of America. Many of America's finest families have genetic lines going back to the very dawn of civilization. Their genetic traits allow them to rebound from oblivion. Whether their wealth flows in streams unbroken for centuries, or their wealth is lost and regained, they are who they are. And those of us who are NOT among their number will never "earn" our place among them. Either you are, or you aren't.
Personally, I rather enjoy my standing within the demimonde, and have no problem acknowledging the superiority of the 'Real People'. I've even done my part in helping some of them retain their ascendancy. It's the Fake Old Families who make me itch all over - and not in a good way.
But I should make it clearer that I consider there to be two extremes among 'New People'/'New Money'. There's the clueless White Trash (and other flavors of trash), whom ersatz theologian Betty Bowers refers to as "The Inexplicably Rich" (the buyers of the McStupid McMansions). And then, there are the smart cookies, the Fake Old Familes who DO have a clue. Sometimes, they have ALL the clues. "Colonial" mansions may make me want to crack open my skull, so that I can scratch my itching brain - truly, they are visual Poison Ivy, to many of us. But such homes do reflect smart strategy, for a certain stratum of society. Those houses DO, in a dinky, repressed way, confer enough legitimacy upon their owners, to facilitate movement within the world of power-brokering conformist Go-Getters.
One example (not a great example, since it is hardly typical) of a definite outsider, but a smart cookie, who married another outsider (a really, REALLY, REALLY smart cookie) - who went on to build a big, giant, Phoney Coloney manor house - is the poignant tale of Pat Kluge: Forbes Welcome
Here's T&C's take on the situation (remember, they also, in the past, have fawned over Imelda Marcos, Nabila Kashoggi, and the Pahlavi Dynasty) Patricia Kluge Interview - Patricia Kluge Quotes and PhotosI particularly like this quote: "There is a lot of colonial blue blood in Virginia, and they are constitutionally unimpressed with anyone from outside the commonwealth."
Here's the House: http://www.washingtonian.com/article..._land-2000.jpg But I've gotta admit: even though they picked a repressed style, and the thing is a gargantuan MESS, at least they pushed the 'Georgian' envelope as far as they could, in the direction of decadence.
I like that John Kluge, who made the money, was a Presbyterian, until he met 'HER', and that the estate has been snapped-up, at pennies-on-the-Dollar, by another Presbyterian (Donald).
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