Society in America - Book Series

  Eight U.S. Cities at Mid-Century 
   Those interested in collecting books published in a series, or readers curious about the social history of eight American cities around 75 years ago, will find these publications by E.P. Dutton worth considering.
   I suppose I should have led with the adjectives used to describe the citizens in six of the cities to attract your attention. Here they are and do you think you can match the adjective to a city without looking: "Amiable", "Lusty", "Proper", "Romantic", "Serene", and "Spectacular"? Apparently those living in Memphis and Washington are not so easily characterized.
  The purpose of the publisher was to “to portray the individual characteristics, to underscore the idiosyncrasies, and to trace the growth of sectional societies with special emphasis on local traditions and on the personalities who embodied them.”  You will likely recognize the title of the first book on the list below and will know about the author of it for other reasons.
  You will also probably associate Babe Ruth and Mencken with Baltimore, but not realize it was also the birthplace of Bromo-Seltzer. 
   It is doubtful that you know about Fanny Trollope's bizarre bazaar in Cincinnati in the 1830s, but the book is worth our attention for that reason alone. 
   All of these books are available via Amazon or AbeBooks, but before you buy them, you should know that some are fully available on the Internet Archive. That is true, as well for Fanny's thoughts which are found in "Domestic Manners of the Americans", which is also purchasable as a paperback from Penguin. If you live in London, The Proper Bostonians is in storage up at Western and more books by Amory are found there and are mentioned below.

The Proper Bostonians, Cleveland Amory.
From: "Books" Boston's Closed Corporation," Time, Oct. 20, 1947.
"In The Proper Bostonians, young (30) Cleveland Amory, a Social Registerite himself, has set out to examine his peers. The book is the first of a series which Dutton will publish about U.S. society (others to come: New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Santa Fe). Culled largely from First Family writings and conversations with Beacon Hill contemporaries, Amory’s smoothly phrased findings are not likely to ruffle the poise of the Cabots and the Lowells. Still, many a less proper Bostonian will find much here to delight him."

The Amiable Baltimoreans, Francis F.F. Beirne.

From: The blurb of the JHU Press reissue of the book in 1984. "The first umbrella in America and a Washington monument that predates the one in the nation's capital were raised in Baltimore. A renowned beauty of the city, Betsy Patterson, married Jerome Bonaparte, but was forbidden by her brother-in-law, Napoleon, from ever setting foot in France. A century later, Wallis Warfield, another Baltimorean, made her own assault on European royalty. Baltimore is the city of Babe Ruth and H.L. Mencken and the final resting-place of Edgar Allan Poe. "The gastronomic metropolis of the Union," according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, it is also the home of Bromo-Seltzer.

First published in 1951, The Amiable Baltimoreans presents 250 years of anecdotal history about the city—its buildings, its institutions, its customs, and most of all, its people. Informative, amusing, and sometimes discomforting, it offers an incomparable look into the city's past and revealing insight into the way it seemed to one informed observer thirty years ago."

The Serene Cincinnatians, Alvin F. Harlow. From: "Book Captures Cincinnati's Quirks at an Interesting Time for the City: Our History," Jeff Suess, The Enquirer, Jan. 22, 2023.
"The publication of the history book "The Serene Cincinnatians" by Alvin F. Harlow in October 1950 was the talk of the town. Shillito's department store and John G. Kidd & Son booksellers advertised to preorder copies for $4.50 in the local newspapers. A display of the book at the Cincinnati Public Library – that's the Old Main Library at 629 Vine St. – filled six street windows and several cases in the lobby. The Enquirer and the Cincinnati Post ran articles on the book's release, as well as reviews and commentary on the response. That's a lot of coverage for a history book....

The New York-based author spent months visiting local libraries, historical societies and The Enquirer, as well as hours in conversation with old-timers who filled his notebook with intimate knowledge and anecdotes. Cincinnati had a reputation for being old-fashioned. Harlow opened the book with the city's indignation over the then-recent coverage of the opening of the Terrace Plaza Hotel in 1948. The milestone modernist hotel was revolutionary for its time, yet Time magazine began its story: "Dowdy, old-fashioned Cincinnati gets a new hotel this week." Cincinnati was a place where you could still find chimney sweeps in 1950, a city that basked in its traditions, Harlow wrote. Yet, it also was a city of firsts – the first airmail by balloon, the first professional fire department, the first and only railroad to be owned by a municipality, the Cincinnati Southern Railway....

What sets Harlow's work apart were those gossipy anecdotes that reveal Cincinnatians may not have always been serene, but they were real people....

Details you won't find in other books. One highlight was Harlow's description of Frances Trollope's infamous bazaar. The Englishwoman had come to Cincinnati in 1828, drawn by the young city's reputation for culture, and hoped to make her fortune with her unique marketplace on Third Street near Broadway. There is continued fascination with this curiosity. Harlow called Trollope's Bazaar "a weird creation, predominantly Moorish-Arabesque, as one critic described it, with touches of Gothic and God-knows-what. "In its semi-basement was an elegant coffee-house and bar, the floor above was the store, with an ice cream and oyster parlor, also elegant, back of it, while the whole top floor was a ballroom ... "In the store, she stocked jewelry, pictures, laces, bric-a-brac and articles of virtu (rare objects), which she bought mostly at retail prices and marked up, naively supposing that in so colorful a setting and from a cultured Englishwoman, the dazzled bourgeoisie would buy at any price. But they did not." After the failure of the bazaar, Trollope returned to England and wrote a scathing account of her time here in "Domestic Manners of the Americans" (1832). Harlow spent several pages throughout the book countering many of Trollope's criticisms, thus "The Serene Cincinnatians" serves as something of a rebuttal some 118 years later."

Memphis Down in Dixie, Shields Mcilwaine. From: “Memphis, Tenn., Past and Present,” Turner Catledge, New York Times, June 6, 1948. “Mr. Mcilwaine struck it rich for both his regional thesis (that the way to understand America is region by region) and his story-telling ability when he dug into the past and present of Memphis, Tennessee. For Memphis is such a mine of anecdote, romance and important history that one can pick and choose as he pleases, and then organize his total story in a manner to prove almost anything, or simply to be entertaining.”

The Romantic New Orleanians, Robert Tallant. From: Kirkus Reviews, Jan. 1, 1949: "Fifth in the series launched by the tremendously successful The Proper Bostonians- and as predictably good as one knew a New Orleans' book by Robert Tallant would be. With the wealth of first rate writing that has been done about that provocatively fascinating city, it is astonishing that he has found so much new to be said- and, for the greater part, succeeded in making it interesting even to the outsider. For actually it is virtually a Burke's Peerage translated into terms of New Orleans' inner circle. The Creole aristocracy, unlike that of any other place, depended not a whit on worldly goods- and despite the relatively small number of Creoles in a preponderantly American city, the French, and to a lesser extent the Spanish flavor, the mores and traditions of the old Creole conservative society, the attitude towards women, the pace of living- all are still permeated by that tiny element. New Orleans and her people are portrayed in profiles of personalities of the past; in flavorsome bits about the balls, the carnivals, the snobbery, the clubs, in genealogy spiced with gossip; in colorful passages of the city's history; in the growth away from- and back to- the French Quarter."

The Spectacular San Franciscans, Julia Cooley Altrocchi.

For a lukewarm review see: "West Coast City; THE SPECTACULAR SAN FRANCISCANS. By Julia Cooley Altrocchi. Society in American Series. 398 pp. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $4.50, by Jack Foisie, New York Times, July 24, 1949.

The Lusty Texans of Dallas, John William Rogers. From Kirkus Reviews, Jan. 1, 1950 "Seventh in the Society in America Series, this more than flatteringly pictures the growth of a cluster of cabins on a river bank into a modern metropolis -- a progress which has not smothered either the individuality or the initiative of the city or its citizens. It is a story that encompasses all aspects of this development -- geographical, economic, social and fashionable, cultural, religious, educational and informative. It highlights the heritage of the far past, takes the story from the arrival of John Neely Bryan and his one man community which was incorporated in 1856 as Dallas, and carries on its history as a frontier town that grew up by not following the pattern of other southwest towns. From the conventions and customs of the early days on to those of today, with the folklore and legend given full play, this emphasizes the isolation that brought independence, the particular climate and tradition of life that effected the people who have lived, and who still live, there. A pretty insistent volume, this." See also: “Texas Culture,” Washington Post, Mar. 25, 1951 and “Deep in the Mind of Texas,” Hoffman Birney, New York Times, Jan.21, 1951

Washington Cavalcade, Charles Hurd. From: “Hurd Tackles a Tough One in This City: Washington Cavalcade,” Sterling North, Washington Post, Jan. 18, 1948 “Hurd has written a gay, shallow, non-stop gossip column dealing with costumes, customs and eccentricities which might have been subtitled: ‘From Dolly Madison to Dolly Gann – A Tempest in a Teapot."

Post Script:

In 1952 Dutton celebrated its 100th birthday. They also published, with J.M.Dent & Sons of London, the Everyman's Library. The New York Times contains this article which provides these interesting tidbits: "The record best-seller of the company was the controversial "Under Cover," written before World War II by an author who signed the name John Roy Carlson. It sold 650,000 copies in ten months. Next on the Dutton best-seller list have been the books of A. A. Milne. "When We Were Very Young," "Winnie-the-Pooh," "Now We Are Six" and "The House at Pooh Corner," published in that order, have sold altogether 1,500,000 copies. In 1850 a book selling 3,000 copies at 75 cents to $1 was a best seller. The sales requirement has risen to about 50,000 today, Mr. Macrae estimated, and the price has risen to $3 to $6. As long as the public refuses to buy worthy books in large numbers, he added, the price will have to stay up. The best seller must help pay for the worthy, poor-selling book." "E.P. Dutton Marks Its 100th Birthday..." Jan. 4, 1952.

The Bonus: Even if you were born in this century, you may have recognized the name 'Cleveland Amory' and he may be more interesting to you than the books mentioned above. He wrote others, including The Last Resorts, which includes a chapter on "Palm Beach" - a popular place right now and known as a sunny place for shady people. You may have heard of him in relation to animal rights and more about his involvement is easily found. He appears on YouTube and here is an example: Man Kind? "In 1974 the US Fish and Wildlife Service produced a 26 minute documentary short featuring an interesting interview with the great writer, critic and animal advocate, Cleveland Amory, who has just completed a book entitled "Man KInd?" about how badly wildlife is treated. Amory started The Fund for Animals." Source:

For more details about the "Society in America" book series see:

Series Americana: Post Depression-Era Regional Literature, 1938-1980: A Descriptive Bibliography: Including Biographies of the Authors, Illustrators, and Editors, by Carol Fitzgerald.