Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1390988 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 198 pages

Synopsis
The Challenge of Being Upper Class in America In American Blue Blood, William C. Codington brings us the Lightfoot family of Virginia and Philadelphia that for generations has been profoundly aware and proud of its aristocratic heritage. Since the country's founding, however, America has been at war with itself over issues of class, and, when confronted with the opposing democratic social currents of the late 20th Century, each Lightfoot family member must decide what is and what is not acceptable as an American. The resulting debate has created deep conflict between the siblings, between spouses, and between the generations. Tom Lightfoot, a young man attempting to establish himself professionally and socially, finds his aristocratic heritage an obstacle. At every turn he must struggle to reconcile it with mainstream democratic values. In a larger sense Tom's path to success, and the path to survival for the Lightfoot family as a coherent whole, is a passage through a battle of competing visions for the social framework of our country in the late 20th Century.

With few exceptions, narratives of upper class America have been written by outsiders, infiltrators, muckrakers, or hangers-on. This coming-of-age story, edited and with afterword by William C. Codington, has been written by a genuine insider. Front cover: "Between them was a portrait of Isaac Leigh, Philadelphia Quaker and abolitionist, whose resemblance to me most of the family called 'uncanny.' It was painted by Robert Charles Leslie, an American who studied under Benjamin West in London."

Customer Reviews

Upper Class Change in America
This novel helps us understand why upper class WASP culture (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) lost its exalted place in American society in the decades that ended the 20th Century.

The families portrayed in this novel are inheritors of the WASP culture that founded the American republic and in later generations founded and populated our exclusive suburban neighborhoods, such as the Philadelphia Main Line where this story largely takes place. Members of this culture created and sent their sons and daughters to exclusive boarding schools (Exeter, Andover, Lawrenceville, etc.)and the Ivy League Colleges (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc.). They were largely Episcopalian, their telephone book was the Social Register, and they hung out at clubs where tennis was played on grass and where blacks, Jews, and "ethnics" were not allowed.

In the later half of the 20th century the upper class WASP community was marginalized as standardized test scores, not family connections, determined who got accepted at elite schools and colleges. Meanwhile, technology was revolutionizing business and regional family companies all but disappeared. In short, as America moved toward "meritocracy," Old Money WASPs had a hard time competing. Furthermore, the generation of WASPs that came of age in the '60s and '70s had difficulty reconciling the elitism of their own culture with the democratic ideals for which their country was supposed to stand.

American Blue Blood deals with these themes through a Philadelphia Main Line family, the members of whom struggle to understand who they are supposed to be in the late 20th Century. The plot is primarily a coming-of-age story, and the characters are well drawn and believable.

This novel is worth a read for anyone interested in understanding what WASP culture once was, what it was up against, and what happened to it. This book is for that person who wants to learn all of the above, but who wants to do it by reading fiction as opposed to the works of University of Pennsylvania sociologist E. Digby Baltzell (The Protestand Estabishment, Philadelphia Gentlemen, Puritan Boston Quaker Philadelphia), Robert C. Christopher (Crashing the Gates), Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr. (Old Money), Joseph Epstein (Snobbery), David Brooks (Bobos in Paradise), etc., etc. All are great books and are also worth reading to understand upper class America.