An examination of WASP culture through the lives of some of its most prominent figures. Envied and lampooned, misunderstood and yet distinctly American, WASPs are as much a culture, socioeconomic and ethnic designation, as a state of mind.
From politics to fashion, their style still intrigues us. WASPs produced brilliant reformers—Eleanor, Theodore, and Franklin Roosevelt—and inspired Cold Warriors—Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, and Joe Alsop. In such dazzling figures as Isabella Stewart Gardner, Edie Sedgwick, Babe Paley, and Marietta Tree they embodied a chic and an allure that drove characters like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby mad with desire.
They were creatures of glamour, power, and privilege, living amid the splendor of great houses, flashing jewels, and glittering soirées. Envied and lampooned, they had something the rest of America craved.
Yet they were unhappy. Descended from families that created th
