Talk:Social Register

Kyra Sedgwick
I took Kyra Sedgwick off of the café society list because she is from a very old New England family. -P — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.212.73.10 (talk) 01:02, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

effects
I would like to create a place where individuals can participate in discussing the effects and 'defects' of the social register. Although this idea of creating such a book was most likely started with good intentions, it has created a haven for criminals, virtually a 'hit-list'. Now, some may think that the social register may have more pros than cons, but on the contrary, more likely is it to be used for evil than good. Let's say today I begin concocting a plan to hit up the most wealthy residents in Pennsylvania. How else would I find these names, if it wasn't for the social register. So, I create a flawless arrangement noting the houses with the most valuables. All I must do then is look up the addresses and phone numbers for these houses. So, yes, the social register may have been a great invention, but I do not believe we should still print these hit-lists annually. (Anybody remember the 'Wall Street Gang' of 1980)

Written by: Veritäs

That's a naive point of view. Damages from white collar crimes far outstrip the blue collar crimes. i.e. The social register is likely a list of the most dangerous criminals.

I have personally seen many copies of the Kansas City Social Register from the 1920s through 1950s in the Kansas Collection of the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, so I included it in the list of cities on the page. 65.28.2.172 01:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Philadelphia was omitted, so you can imagine how accurate the article was! I've added some references, deleted Mr Keller's Rahway railroad, and the wishful thinking that African Americans were in the Social Register. Unlike those above, I neither wish to defend the Social Register nor dish it, but let's make an accurate article about it. --Wetman 20:11, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I know of at least one African American in the "Social Register".


 * Back then? According to a listed site here the "Green Book" of D.C. didn't allow them until the 1970's (Book not run by founder at that time)


 * NO, I meant NOW. Back then there probably weren't any African Americans in the "Social "Register"

New York elite

 * Please excuse me, gentlemen, but where might I find a 19th-century or Edwardian list of New York's leading families who were not amongst the nouveau riche? (anon. edit by User:Anglius)


 * I don't suppose User:Anglius is the least bit interested, but the split in C19 New York was between the pre-Civil War mercantile upper class and the new industrialist money founded on railroads and manufacturing. --Wetman 07:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh this is good.
 * I was not aware of that, my dear 'Wetman.' I appreciate the information.--Anglius 19:08, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

What the hell is this?
So there's a massive clique of people that publishes a members list? And the president always is a member? This sounds a little like conspiracy bait. 205.166.61.142 03:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The President always gets added if he's not already in it. --JHP 07:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It's elitism in all its glory! :D (It actually is looking at it from a social science perspective)  Signature brendel  17:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It's actually just a way to keep track of the most inbred Americans in existence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:982:8200:59D0:6F43:F9CA:D3AD:81F (talk) 18:36, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Bourgeois exclusiveness
Publications like these are what you try to get yourself into if you lack real social stature. Like Burke's Landed Gentry, the Social Register is mainly for nobodies. DinDraithou (talk) 03:12, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll add that one of the ways it works is to include a few people of real stature (1%), without their consent, amongst the "middling bourgeois gentry", who are about 95% of those listed. The remaining 4% belong to the "special bourgeois gentry". It is not a publication for the nobility because it serves no clear purpose, whatever the claims made. Very, very few American families would qualify even as gentry in Europe, but in the United States all you need is a haute colonial or Mayflower descent, and maybe a little bit of land, to qualify as "aristocracy"... even if you totally lack any old military associations, which are the chief requirement in Europe, regardless of the total age of a family.

To futher illustrate, if you've ever read Burke's Landed Gentry you can actually find Irish princely families included, which is a ridiculous demotion given their traditional status in Gaelic society and when the French and the rest of Catholic Europe recognize them as Counts at the very least. See British nobility for more about the position of the gentry in England, Scotland and Wales. DinDraithou (talk) 19:14, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Encyclopedic tone?
Encyclopedic tone?

"Except now, the 2018 Social Register has deleted every living U.S. President for some reason, but VP's still listed, hopefully a clerk error because Mrs. Ronald Reagan still listed in the 2018 book."

--23.119.204.117 (talk) 18:13, 20 December 2017 (UTC)