3. Dinner Parties to Honor Dogs
The Gilded Age was indeed an era of extremes. Around 1900, one-third of the country’s urban population was close to starving, and the average annual income of the bottom 90% of society was only $380, equivalent to about $8600 today. At the same time, the filthy rich had no idea how to spend all that cash. Moreso, the wealthy were not using their money to feed the poor, starving workers who made them rich to begin with when they could host a grand dinner party, complete with an indoor lake and swans with the guest of honor as the dog. That’s right, for the dog. After all, who doesn’t love a good dinner party?
Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish hosted such a dinner party at the fancy Delmonico’s Restaurant in Lower Manhattan, close to the inner-city slums were families of workers were huddled together in cramped, unsanitary tenements. Delmonico’s boasted an indoor pond that cost $10,000 and often hosted dinner parties for the rich and fabulous. Its décor mimicked that of European royalty, particularly Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of the United Kingdom. When Mrs. Fish hosted the party for her dog, she adorned him with a collar worth $15,000, worth about $375,000 today.