The day I wrote the earlier blog about
the real reason the Elite Social Class disappeared in America I ordered
a copy of the last Social Register published in America. The image of
the frontispiece is on the right. While this book was referred to as the Blue Book, maybe because of the phrase 'blue bloods' it was clearly not blue; it was black with red type.
The book is the Social Register of New York and was last published in 1960. The last Social Register published in San Francisco was 1958.
A list of the abbreviations that were used to refer to universities and clubs is on the left.
The three elements of note, in understanding the now disappeared elite class are: the three service academies, the British Army and the Marine Corps are listed;
fifteen colleges and universities (but not Stanford University) are listed along with three prep schools; nine organizations for founding Americans are listed such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, Signers of the Declaration of Independence and Daughters of Holland Dames.
The image on the right is a sample of the two page spread. The book has 841 pages of listings excluding the many additional reference and married name pages. The average page has 22 names on it, often including spouses names and children. The phone numbers, home address and country addresses are listed. There are no Jews among the 18,000 names in the book.