Audiobooks by Stephen Birmingham

"The acclaimed social historian provides an in-depth look at eight society women who shaped upper class culture from the Gilded Age to WWII. Astor. Rockefeller. McCormick. Belmont. Family names that still adorn buildings, streets, and charity foundations. While their men blazed across America with their oil, industry, and railways, the matriarchs founded art museums, opera houses, and symphonies that functioned almost as private clubs. Linked by money, marriage, privilege, and power, these women formed a grand American matriarchy—and they ruled American society with a style and impact that make today's socialites seem pale reflections of their forbears. Stephen Birmingham takes us into the drawing rooms of these powerful women, providing keen insights into an American society that no longer exists. Caroline Astor, who, when asked for her fare boarding a streetcar, responded, 'No thank you, I have my own favorite charities.' Edith 'Effie' Stern deciding that no existing school would do for her child, so she had a new one built. And the legendary Isabella Stewart Gardner replying to a contemporary who was overly taken with their Mayflower ancestors: 'Of course, immigration laws are much more strict nowadays.' These women had looks, manner, and style, but more than that, they had presence—a sense that when one of them entered a room, something momentous was about to occur; Birmingham opens a window to the highest levels of American society with these profiles of American 'royalty.'"

Stephen Birmingham (Author), Cory Herndon (Narrator)

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America's Secret Aristocracy

"An 'entertaining and perceptive' history of America's most exclusive families, from the Brahmins of New England to the Grandees of California (The Washington Post). America has always been a constitutionally classless society, yet an American aristocracy emerged anyway—a private club whose members run in the same circles and observe the same unwritten rules. Here, renowned social historian Stephen Birmingham reveals the inner workings of this aristocracy. He identifies which families in which cities have always mattered, and how they've defined America. America's Secret Aristocracy offers an inside look at the estates, marriages, and financial empires of America's most powerful families—from the Randolphs of Virginia and the Roosevelts of New York to the Carillos and Ortegas of California. With countless anecdotes about our nation's elite, including interviews with their modern-day descendants, Birmingham presents colorful portraits that capture the true definition, essence, and customs of America's aristocracy."

Stephen Birmingham (Author), Cory Herndon (Narrator)

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The Right People: The Social Establishment in America

"An enlightening and entertaining inside look at the lifestyles of America's extremely wealthy from the bestselling author of 'Our Crowd' It's no secret that the rich are different from the rest of us. But the rich, as author Stephen Birmingham so insightfully points out, are also different from the very rich. There's Society, and then there's Real Society, and it takes multiple generations for families of the former to become entrenched in the latter. Real Society is not about the money—or rather, it's not only about the money—it is about history, breeding, tradition, and most of all, the name. The Right People is an engrossing and illuminating journey through the customs and habits of the phenomenally wealthy, from the San Francisco elite to the upper crust of New York's Westchester County. It is a marvelously anecdotal, intimately detailed overview of the lives of the American aristocracy: where they gather and dine; their games and sports, clubs and parties, friendships and feuds; their mating, marriage, and divorce rituals—a potpourri of priceless true stories featuring the Astors, Goulds, Vanderbilts, Vanderlips, Dukes, Biddles, and other lofty names from the pages of the Social Register."

Stephen Birmingham (Author), Jason Leikam (Narrator)

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The Headmaster's Wife: A Novel

"Cultural shifts of the late twentieth century reveal dark secrets at an elite prep school, in this posthumously discovered novel by the author of Our Crowd. Located in bucolic Connecticut, the Crittenden School has long held a venerable reputation as one of New England's premier preparatory schools. However, times are changing, and that change is coming to Crittenden. In the midst of social upheaval, the headmaster's wife, Clarissa Spotswood, is thrust into faculty and student intrigues—a role for which she is woefully unprepared. Clarissa has spent the past thirty years quietly standing by her husband, Headmaster Hobart Spotswood, projecting the image of the model society wife. But this meticulous façade is shattered when Clarissa uncovers horrific events within the school's insular community. And interspersed with the drama is Clarissa's own journal entries revealing a secret history of her own. Previously unpublished, The Headmaster's Wife was written by the late Stephen Birmingham, author of notable works such as Real Lace and Life at the Dakota. Discovered after Birmingham's death, the manuscript was transcribed and edited by his son, Carey Birmingham. Contains mature themes."

Stephen Birmingham (Author), Callie Beaulieu (Narrator)

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'Our Crowd': The Great Jewish Families of New York

"The New York Times–bestselling history of the rise of the most powerful and privileged Jewish families in America They immigrated to America from Germany in the nineteenth century with names like Loeb, Sachs, Seligman, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. From tenements on the Lower East Side to Park Avenue mansions, this handful of Jewish families turned small businesses into imposing enterprises and amassed spectacular fortunes. But despite possessing breathtaking wealth that rivaled the Astors and Rockefellers, they were barred by the gentile establishment from the lofty realm of 'the 400,' a register of New York's most elite, because of their religion and humble backgrounds. In response, they created their own elite '100,' a privileged society as opulent and exclusive as the one that had refused them entry. 'Our Crowd' is the fascinating story of this rarefied society. Based on letters, documents, diary entries, and intimate personal remembrances of family lore by members of these most illustrious clans, it is an engrossing portrait of upper-class Jewish life over two centuries; a riveting story of the bankers, brokers, financiers, philanthropists, and business tycoons who started with nothing and turned their family names into American institutions."

Stephen Birmingham (Author), Mel Foster (Narrator)

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The Grandees: America's Sephardic Elite

"The New World's earliest Jewish immigrants and their unique, little-known history: A New York Times bestseller from the author of Life at the Dakota. In 1654, twenty-three Jewish families arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York) aboard a French privateer. They were the Sephardim, members of a proud orthodox sect that had served as royal advisors and honored professionals under Moorish rule in Spain and Portugal but were then exiled from their homeland by intolerant monarchs. A small, closed, and intensely private community, the Sephardim soon established themselves as businessmen and financiers, earning great wealth. They became powerful forces in society, with some, like banker Haym Salomon, even providing financial support to George Washington's army during the American Revolution. Yet despite its major role in the birth and growth of America, this extraordinary group has remained virtually impenetrable and unknowable to outsiders. From author of 'Our Crowd' Stephen Birmingham, The Grandees delves into the lives of the Sephardim and their historic accomplishments, illuminating the insulated world of these early Americans. Birmingham reveals how these families, with descendants including poet Emma Lazarus, Barnard College founder Annie Nathan Meyer, and Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, influenced—and continue to influence—American society."

Stephen Birmingham (Author), Mel Foster (Narrator)

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'The Rest of Us': The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews

"The New York Times–bestselling history of the Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland who altered the American landscape from New York to Hollywood. The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the 'old country' to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined, and in no time they were moving up from the ghetto tenements of New York's Lower East Side to make their marks and their fortunes across the country in a variety of fields, from media and popular music to fashion, motion pictures, and even organized crime. Among the unforgettable personages author Stephen Birmingham profiles are radio pioneer David Sarnoff, makeup mogul Helena Rubinstein, Hollywood tycoons Samuel Goldwyn and Harry Cohn, Broadway composer Irving Berlin, and mobster Meyer Lansky. From the author of 'Our Crowd', comes this treasure trove of fascinating tales and unforgettable 'rags-to-riches' success stories that celebrates the indomitable spirit of a unique community."

Stephen Birmingham (Author), Mel Foster (Narrator)

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Audiobooks by Stephen Birmingham

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