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In HBO’s The Gilded Age Episode 5, we meet Mrs  Astor's Mr. McAllister played by Nathan Lane.

Mr. Ward McAllister is the key Bertha Russell  

needs to open the doors into  Mrs Astors New York Society.

So you might wonder about this Mr McAllister.

Who exactly was Mrs Astors' Mr McAllister and  was he a real historical person? Not to mention  

what part did he have to play in shaping New  York’s high society during the Gilded Age?

To begin with, Ward McAllister was indeed a  real,living breathing person from history.

He met Mrs. Astor when he was 45 years old and she  was 42 years old.They met through his subscription  

balls which where funded by a society that he  founded in 1872 called the Society of Patriarchs.

The Society of Patriarchs was a group of 25,  

expanding later to fifty, prominent  and wealthy businessmen from New York  

Society whom McAllister considered men of  worth, respectability, and responsibility.

The Patriarchs Balls were modeled on the most  popular Balls of the British aristocracy at  

that time. Each member of the Society was  entitled to invite nine people to the ball  

made up of four ladies and five gentlemen,  thereby making invitations difficult to  

obtain and subsequently establishing  the attendees as deemed fit for society.

The balls generally started around  ten o'clock in the evening with  

stylized dancing up until dinner  which was served after midnight.

Before moving to New York in 1852, McAllister  had toured Europe and became a connoisseur of  

French cuisine so, as you might well expect, the  dinners were always prepared by a French chef.  

To make the balls even more exclusive,  international guests of European aristocrats  

were often invited to the balls giving the  Americans a chance to rub elbows with nobility.

McAllister's main drive was to turn  Americans into European-like aristocracy  

as this cartoon in a New  York publication points out.  

From his earlier travels around Europe, McAllister  became an expert in fashionable dress, balls,  

foods, wines, and dances. All of which  made him an important asset to Mrs. Astor.

Mr McAllister and Mrs Astor were  if nothing else, kindred spirits,  

because they held in common the view that Society  in America was in urgent need of Guidance.

According to McAllister, “Profiteers, boors,  

boorish people, people with only money must  be kept out.” Thus both Ward McAllister  

and Mrs Astor set out to shape New York  Society based upon their elitist views.

In fact, Ward McAllister and Mrs. Astor came up  with a list of 400 who were deemed to be the cream  

of the crop of New York Society. In truth, there  were never really 400 names on the list and the  

publication of the names, on the list became Mr  McAllister's downfall, but more on that later.

So how did Ward McAllister decide Who  would be admitted into New York Society?

According to McAllister, in order to be admitted  into Society you must have the three B's.  

Birth, Background and Breeding. Ward McAllister divided New York Society  

into two groups. The Nobs and the Swells.  The Nobs were from the old families and  

were automatically admitted into Society (unless  they were blacklisted for social wrongdoings).

The Swells had to prove themselves.  

They were admitted into New York Society  by proving that they had proper clothes,  

dignified style of entertaining, conduct  and acquaintances. And of course, money.

McAllister proposed that the wealthy may share a  sense of belonging to a particular social class.  

A class consciousness that would  bring the finest of the best together.  

Mrs. Astor collaborated with McAllister to devise  a screening system to keep the right people in,  

while keeping the wrong people out. According to  contemporary writer and novelist Edith Wharton's  

memoirs, the wrong people were the new money  rich, merchants, Jews, divorcees, and the like."

Fans of Edith Wharton's novel,  Age of Innocence will recognize  

McAllister as Sillerton Jackson, the  go-to guy for proper form and manners.

All in all, McAllister, a short,  chubby balding Southerner became  

the arbiter-manager of high society  in New York in The Gilded Age.

For 90 minutes every morning,  

he would hold court to society’s queens  and offer them advice for their parties.

He was a tireless, efficient event designer  and manager. From the phrasing of an invitation  

to getting carriages ready for guests'  departure, Mr McAllister was the person to  

advise society matrons on social etiquette  and how to throw the best balls in town.

The Strange Alliance of  Ward McAllister & Mrs Astor

For Mrs Astor, McAllister  was the guardian at the gate.  

The first hurdle that Bertha Russell  had to surpass as we see in episode 5.  

He served an important purpose for Mrs Astor but  they were never friends, only allies to the cause.

McAllister oddly called Mrs Astor the Mystic Rose,  

referencing her as the heavenly figure in Dante's  Paradise around whom all in Paradise revolve.

Strangely enough, in real life McAllister was  not a huge social butterfly. His wife was a  

shut in and did not appear in society. She was  primarily cared for by their daughter, Louise.  

McAllister would have weekly dinners  at his house, but only for six guests,  

and only attended by Louise and himself as  hostess and host. They were not society affairs,  

but small intimate gatherings in his simple house  at 16 East Sixteenth. Mrs Astor never attended.

He himself did have money and was well  off but he was not filthy rich like so  

many of those he coached to fit into Mrs  Astor's idea of high society. And yet he  

never lived as though he was wealthy. He simply  interacted with those that had all the money.

In HBO's The Gilded Age, I think we  are going to see a lot of Mr McAllister  

throughout the rest of season one.  

Whether we will see Mr McAllisters downfall  later on in the series remains to be seen.

McAllister's Downfall

https://www.nysun.com/arts/father-of-the-four-hundred/18321/  (rewrite below)

In 1888, Ward McAllister spoke to the  press regarding the Four Hundred people  

whom he and Mrs Astor deemed worthy  in New York Society. Overnight,  

McAllister found the reporter had defined  their elitist soicety as Thee Four Hunddred.

At this point, he hadn't named  names but 4 years later, while  

marketing Mrs. Astor's ball of February  1, 1892, he spoke to the press again.  

This time he admitted that 400 was also the  capacity of Mrs. Astor's ballroom and he went  

so far as to provide the press with a list of  names which amouned to only 319 names total.

Much to their despair, McAllister's publicity  made them celebrities, and many resented it.  

Their feelings were nothing compared  with the rage of those left off the list.

Worse yet, he also published his memoirs entitled,  Society as I Have Found It. In the publication,  

McAllister exposed himself to be a dedicated  social climber of great determination. 

He portrayed a life of fighting for the  acceptance of those he believed his betters,  

entering their inner circle and gaining power to  exclude others who shared his very same ambitions.

The book, and his hunger for media attention,  was McAllister's downfall. The rich didn't like  

being exposed. They turned on him quickly  and shunned him for the rest of his life.

McAllister died after a brief illness on January  31st 1895. Only five Patriarchs and less than a  

score of the Four Hundred attended his services  at Grace Church. Mrs. Astor did not attend.