Ephemeral New York presents: “Life Below the Stairs in Gilded Age New York”

Longtime Ephemeral readers know I have a special interest in the underside of the Gilded Age: the roughly 16% of the city’s population who worked “in service” managing the cooking, cleaning, driving, and washing inside the mansions and brownstones of upper class households.

On Thursday, October 19 at 7:00 pm, I’ll be at Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island to give a presentation about servants of the Gilded Age city: “Life Below Stairs in Gilded Age New York.” Using visuals and first-person accounts, I’ll explore how wealthy New Yorkers navigated the domestic side of life—and the often tense relationships they had with the people they employed.

Old Westbury Gardens is a beautifully restored Long Island mansion with 200 acres of grounds and gardens built for the John S. Phipps family in 1906. Click her for information on tickets, and here’s a link to getting to Old Westbury Gardens by car and train (it’s roughly an hour from Midtown). Hope to see some Ephemeral readers there!

[Top image: MCNY, 93.1.1.20444; second image: Oldwestburygardens.com]