We have several recent passings to catch up on, and the first is prominent Harvard sociologist Nathan Glazer.
Glazer burst on the scene in 1950 “The Lonely Crowd” and continued to study and publish on the subjects of the American melting pot and multiculturalism. Here is an obituary in Tablet, and a 2016 profile in National Affairs.
Glazer grew up in New York City, the son of Russian Jewish parents who spoke Yiddish at home. His father operated a sewing machine. Gradually disillusioned over the course of his career, he would write “I feel warmly attached to the old America that was acclaimed in school textbooks.” — CC
A breath of fresh air after Roger Stone.
“The Lonely Crowd” was on required reading lists in Sociology, Psychology, and History courses in the 1950s.
His clothing choices reflect the at least partial confirmation
of the Melting Pot theory in that a generation removed from
humble immigrants he adopted the aesthetic of the dominant WASP
social class. Put more colloquially, he followed the advice to:
“Dress British (Ivy), Think Yiddish”
I aspire to the academic crazy-hair he was able to develop in his later years.
Given the extraordinary contributions to this style we love of Jewish retailers, tailors and fashionable men, how is it that commentators keep insisting on calling it WASP? How is it that JFK gets swept into the WASP category as if his Catholicism was some insignificant feature? I’m troubled with this frequent assumption whereby an *American* dress style gets hatcheted down to a race (white) and sect (Protestantism).
Unrelated to the subject of this post and much less important, I would like feedback regarding the JPress OCBD with flap pocket. Fit? Collar roll? I’m through with Brooks and looking for a new source for OCBD’s.
There about half a dozen Ivy Style sponsors in the ad tower that pay for my time to bring you a post every day, how about starting with them?
Ok. I meant no disrespect to the tribute to Mr. Glazer. I value the opinions of those who are followers of Ivy Style.
I don’t think you need to apologize for that, it’s just why not write an email and then copy and paste it to each advertiser with what your questions are, and say hi you’re an avid Ivy reader and saw their ad. Then you can hear from them directly and judge for yourself, rather than going off the subjective opinions of others with different body types, budgets and other priorities.
@Ezra Cornell:
The acronym WASP has undergone a great deal of semantic change, to the extent that for many users of the term the letters may no longer stand for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It us used frequently to mean White Affluent Schooled Person(s), regardless of a precise national origin or specific Christian denomination or religion. Especially relevant in references to persons or families with old money ties in positions of certain power, notably those residing in certain pockets on the East Coast, hence its use to refer to style.
If you google Jewish WASP, you’ll find the term WASP being used with an extended meaning.
The phenomenon of semantic change is so common that it has been given different labels by different linguists at different times:
semantic shift, semantic progression, semantic development, semantic drift, semantic expansion, and semantic extension.
The sports coat in the top photo is superb. The cloth looks substantial and the lapel width is perfect.
Was unfamiliar with this gentleman. I loved reading the articles linked. Thank you CC.
I always find the lauding and acknowledgement of my He-Bros (cousin-kinsmen) to be highly salutary. Thank you for this; he was a fascinating thinker and mind, and likewise, a well dressed man, which fact, I had not previously been cognizant of.
Ezra, when you catch your breath and unclutch your pearls, please write an essay on why quintessentially American foods—namely pizza, hot dogs, and hamburgers—are not “American” at all. I’m certain we would all love to read it.
It is an upper class protestant elite of predominantly British origin that would include non-Anglo-Saxon elements such as Welsh, Scottish, and Irish protestants. In addition, non- British protestants may also be included:
Anglo-Saxon or English-American elites but also people of other Protestant Northwestern European origin, including Protestant Dutch Americans, Anglo-Scottish Americans,[1] German Americans, and Scandinavian Americans.[5][28] The sociologist Charles H. Anderson writes, “Scandinavians are second-class WASPs” but know it is “better to be a second-class WASP than a non-WASP”[29]( Wikipedia)
The ancient and distinguished Crowinshield family of Boston originated from a German immigrant to
the Bay Colony in the last 1600s. The very WASP(y) Ben Bradlee editor of the Washington Post during
Watergate was a Criowinshield on his mother’s side.