Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've attended a bunch of private school admissions events this fall, and I'm getting my first glimpse into a VERY distinct preppy / wasp-y crowd. They're not really Cave Dwellers (although surely some of their parents and grand-parents were) -- very few seem to work for the administration or in the government. In fact, they seem apolitical unless you count wearing a Barbour jacket as a religion. The most common threads I've been able to discern is that most are white and either from DC or the South, they all know each other well, and even though I know there are other exclusive country clubs out there, they are basically all members of the Chevy Chase Club. Who are these people: where is the money from, how were they raised, and how do they spend their time?

My dear interlocutor,

Your inquiry reads like the field notes of a well-intentioned ethnographer who has wandered, quite by accident, into a habitat populated by that curious American subspecies: the Modern Metropolitan WASP, a creature neither as endangered nor as monolithic as the folklore would have one believe.

You observe, quite astutely, that these individuals do not conform to the old “Cave Dweller” archetype—those laconic Brahmins who once glided between Kalorama, the Cosmos Club, and the Wilson administration without ever disturbing a single pleat of their seersucker. No, today’s iteration is far more diffused, and—dare I say—more democratic in its pedigree, though they will never admit as much.

The money, as you ask, tends to emerge from the same three tributaries that have nourished this class since the Coolidge administration:

Legacy wealth, discreetly laundered through trusts so ancient they predate the Internal Revenue Code;

“Quiet” corporate success—defense contractors, regional banking families, clever people who own unpleasantly lucrative logistics companies; and

The New Southern Gentry, who discovered sometime in the Reagan era that Washington was the perfect place to winter both their fortunes and their children.

As for how they were raised, one must picture the sort of childhood in which manners are taught before multiplication tables, and where the great moral transgressions of youth consist not in rebellion per se, but in wearing boat shoes before Memorial Day or failing to write a prompt thank-you note to Aunt Eloise for the monogrammed stationery she bestowed.

They were reared on a diet of Episcopalian restraint, tennis lessons, laconic summer camps in Maine, and a vaguely stoic orientation toward life that insists one never—ever—acknowledge ambition while privately tending to it with horticultural precision.

And how they spend their time now?
Well, were you to plot their existence on a calendar, the coordinates would be familiar:

September through November: school admissions events, performed like ritual courtship dances;

Weekends: lacrosse or squash, depending on latitude;

Holidays: dutiful pilgrimages to the ancestral home, often a clapboard structure in the Carolinas containing more portraits of stern-looking ancestors than modern appliances;

Summers: a rotation between Nantucket, the Outer Banks, and a lake somewhere in New Hampshire whose name you would never know unless born into it.

They are not apolitical, mind you; they are post-political. To them, politics is something that happens on C-SPAN, not the dining room table. Their chosen parties are not elephants or donkeys but rather the Chevy Chase Club, the Sulgrave, and—for the truly cosmopolitan—the Metropolitan Club of Washington.

In sum, these are people who navigate life with the serene confidence of those who assume—often correctly—that the world will continue to be upholstered in their preferred fabric.

I admire your curiosity. Observe them closely. They are, after all, one of America’s last reliably performing cultural ecosystems.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the term was actually intended to describe this exact group: people who were old DC (or at least one spouse is) but largely apolitical. I'm not saying that is what these people are, but the term might not be far off. Here is their profile:

- Wesley Heights/Spring Valley/CCV/Georgetown
- Christ Church (Georgetown)
- Blue Igloo/Little Folks/Little Graces
- Beauvoir
- STA/NCS (but more Holton lately)
- Ivy for smarties/athletes, mid-tier northeast lib arts for the rest, UVA/UNC/Vandy/Duke for Southerners, Sewanee/Trinity for non-academically inclined
- Commercial real estate
- Met Club, Sulgrave, CCC
- MV, Nantucket, Gibson Island, Jackson Hole, Maine

Did I miss anything?

A friend belongs to one of these clubs and was invited to a “meet up” with some other ladies. She arrived and it turned out to be a meeting of women trying to get others to write negative letters about a woman applying for membership. When she asked them why they didn’t like her - none of them could give a concrete answer or example. They didn’t like her because.

This is what you are dealing with. The mean girls in middle school….

Sure this happened. Are you a member of any of them? Were you there? Otherwise. Stfu.

New poster here. I was involved with membership admittance at a club. No one is blackballing people for the sake of blackballing them or for no reason. What may have happened is a bad rumor may have gotten to one of the ladies (think affair, racist, etc.). WASP protocols dictate that you wouldn't broadcast that sort of thing, especially if it's a rumor someone told you in confidence. They may share it in confidence with someone like me, or someone else senior in the club with varying amounts of detail. Same thing for the young male that another poster mentioned with older folks being "jealous." These clubs let in good looking young males all the time, what may have happened is one of the older member's daughter's friend at *insert NE boarding school or private school in D.C.* heard that, that "good looking young guy" was rumored to have sexually assaulted a girl after a party (the assault isn't the issue to those guys because boys will be boys but rather that the girl comes from a "good family" with a parent or relative they may know) so they black ball him.

My family is WASP (10+ generations) and educated at NE boarding schools. These circles are tight and small, everyone knows everything about everyone, so if you don't know why, sometimes there's a reason why good applicants may not get in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the term was actually intended to describe this exact group: people who were old DC (or at least one spouse is) but largely apolitical. I'm not saying that is what these people are, but the term might not be far off. Here is their profile:

- Wesley Heights/Spring Valley/CCV/Georgetown
- Christ Church (Georgetown)
- Blue Igloo/Little Folks/Little Graces
- Beauvoir
- STA/NCS (but more Holton lately)
- Ivy for smarties/athletes, mid-tier northeast lib arts for the rest, UVA/UNC/Vandy/Duke for Southerners, Sewanee/Trinity for non-academically inclined
- Commercial real estate
- Met Club, Sulgrave, CCC
- MV, Nantucket, Gibson Island, Jackson Hole, Maine

Did I miss anything?

A friend belongs to one of these clubs and was invited to a “meet up” with some other ladies. She arrived and it turned out to be a meeting of women trying to get others to write negative letters about a woman applying for membership. When she asked them why they didn’t like her - none of them could give a concrete answer or example. They didn’t like her because.

This is what you are dealing with. The mean girls in middle school….

Sure this happened. Are you a member of any of them? Were you there? Otherwise. Stfu.

New poster here. I was involved with membership admittance at a club. No one is blackballing people for the sake of blackballing them or for no reason. What may have happened is a bad rumor may have gotten to one of the ladies (think affair, racist, etc.). WASP protocols dictate that you wouldn't broadcast that sort of thing, especially if it's a rumor someone told you in confidence. They may share it in confidence with someone like me, or someone else senior in the club with varying amounts of detail. Same thing for the young male that another poster mentioned with older folks being "jealous." These clubs let in good looking young males all the time, what may have happened is one of the older member's daughter's friend at *insert NE boarding school or private school in D.C.* heard that, that "good looking young guy" was rumored to have sexually assaulted a girl after a party (the assault isn't the issue to those guys because boys will be boys but rather that the girl comes from a "good family" with a parent or relative they may know) so they black ball him.

My family is WASP (10+ generations) and educated at NE boarding schools. These circles are tight and small, everyone knows everything about everyone, so if you don't know why, sometimes there's a reason why good applicants may not get in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've attended a bunch of private school admissions events this fall, and I'm getting my first glimpse into a VERY distinct preppy / wasp-y crowd. They're not really Cave Dwellers (although surely some of their parents and grand-parents were) -- very few seem to work for the administration or in the government. In fact, they seem apolitical unless you count wearing a Barbour jacket as a religion. The most common threads I've been able to discern is that most are white and either from DC or the South, they all know each other well, and even though I know there are other exclusive country clubs out there, they are basically all members of the Chevy Chase Club. Who are these people: where is the money from, how were they raised, and how do they spend their time?

My dear interlocutor,

Your inquiry reads like the field notes of a well-intentioned ethnographer who has wandered, quite by accident, into a habitat populated by that curious American subspecies: the Modern Metropolitan WASP, a creature neither as endangered nor as monolithic as the folklore would have one believe.

You observe, quite astutely, that these individuals do not conform to the old “Cave Dweller” archetype—those laconic Brahmins who once glided between Kalorama, the Cosmos Club, and the Wilson administration without ever disturbing a single pleat of their seersucker. No, today’s iteration is far more diffused, and—dare I say—more democratic in its pedigree, though they will never admit as much.

The money, as you ask, tends to emerge from the same three tributaries that have nourished this class since the Coolidge administration:

Legacy wealth, discreetly laundered through trusts so ancient they predate the Internal Revenue Code;

“Quiet” corporate success—defense contractors, regional banking families, clever people who own unpleasantly lucrative logistics companies; and

The New Southern Gentry, who discovered sometime in the Reagan era that Washington was the perfect place to winter both their fortunes and their children.

As for how they were raised, one must picture the sort of childhood in which manners are taught before multiplication tables, and where the great moral transgressions of youth consist not in rebellion per se, but in wearing boat shoes before Memorial Day or failing to write a prompt thank-you note to Aunt Eloise for the monogrammed stationery she bestowed.

They were reared on a diet of Episcopalian restraint, tennis lessons, laconic summer camps in Maine, and a vaguely stoic orientation toward life that insists one never—ever—acknowledge ambition while privately tending to it with horticultural precision.

And how they spend their time now?
Well, were you to plot their existence on a calendar, the coordinates would be familiar:

September through November: school admissions events, performed like ritual courtship dances;

Weekends: lacrosse or squash, depending on latitude;

Holidays: dutiful pilgrimages to the ancestral home, often a clapboard structure in the Carolinas containing more portraits of stern-looking ancestors than modern appliances;

Summers: a rotation between Nantucket, the Outer Banks, and a lake somewhere in New Hampshire whose name you would never know unless born into it.

They are not apolitical, mind you; they are post-political. To them, politics is something that happens on C-SPAN, not the dining room table. Their chosen parties are not elephants or donkeys but rather the Chevy Chase Club, the Sulgrave, and—for the truly cosmopolitan—the Metropolitan Club of Washington.

In sum, these are people who navigate life with the serene confidence of those who assume—often correctly—that the world will continue to be upholstered in their preferred fabric.

I admire your curiosity. Observe them closely. They are, after all, one of America’s last reliably performing cultural ecosystems.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TLDR most of this. I'm most of what OP describes. White, rich (by any normal standards), Catholic (so not WASP), live in NW DC, and kids were at top privates in DC. And I have a Barbour jacket filled at all times wit dog poop bags.

And, I worked my ass off to be able to do what I do, professionally and personally. Am neurotic, and have been ultra high achieving through school (public high school ivy college and law school). I'm blessed to be unusually gifted intellectually, and have put that gift to very good results. If you were to see me in the neighborhood, you'd have no idea my background, and might assume multigenerational wealth. This is similar to several friends in my neighborhood. All to say it would be incorrect to assume certain clothing or other external attributes indicates a person's background, talents or work ethic.

What's up with all the rich Catholics in NW DC? Seems way more prevalent than the rich WASPs these days.

-West coast interloper married to a MoCo Jew, both of whom need to work for their supper until retirement

Yeah,I live in Chevy Chase, which people think is Waspy but almost everyone I know I Catholic or Jewish.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've attended a bunch of private school admissions events this fall, and I'm getting my first glimpse into a VERY distinct preppy / wasp-y crowd. They're not really Cave Dwellers (although surely some of their parents and grand-parents were) -- very few seem to work for the administration or in the government. In fact, they seem apolitical unless you count wearing a Barbour jacket as a religion. The most common threads I've been able to discern is that most are white and either from DC or the South, they all know each other well, and even though I know there are other exclusive country clubs out there, they are basically all members of the Chevy Chase Club. Who are these people: where is the money from, how were they raised, and how do they spend their time?

My dear interlocutor,

Your inquiry reads like the field notes of a well-intentioned ethnographer who has wandered, quite by accident, into a habitat populated by that curious American subspecies: the Modern Metropolitan WASP, a creature neither as endangered nor as monolithic as the folklore would have one believe.

You observe, quite astutely, that these individuals do not conform to the old “Cave Dweller” archetype—those laconic Brahmins who once glided between Kalorama, the Cosmos Club, and the Wilson administration without ever disturbing a single pleat of their seersucker. No, today’s iteration is far more diffused, and—dare I say—more democratic in its pedigree, though they will never admit as much.

The money, as you ask, tends to emerge from the same three tributaries that have nourished this class since the Coolidge administration:

Legacy wealth, discreetly laundered through trusts so ancient they predate the Internal Revenue Code;

“Quiet” corporate success—defense contractors, regional banking families, clever people who own unpleasantly lucrative logistics companies; and

The New Southern Gentry, who discovered sometime in the Reagan era that Washington was the perfect place to winter both their fortunes and their children.

As for how they were raised, one must picture the sort of childhood in which manners are taught before multiplication tables, and where the great moral transgressions of youth consist not in rebellion per se, but in wearing boat shoes before Memorial Day or failing to write a prompt thank-you note to Aunt Eloise for the monogrammed stationery she bestowed.

They were reared on a diet of Episcopalian restraint, tennis lessons, laconic summer camps in Maine, and a vaguely stoic orientation toward life that insists one never—ever—acknowledge ambition while privately tending to it with horticultural precision.

And how they spend their time now?
Well, were you to plot their existence on a calendar, the coordinates would be familiar:

September through November: school admissions events, performed like ritual courtship dances;

Weekends: lacrosse or squash, depending on latitude;

Holidays: dutiful pilgrimages to the ancestral home, often a clapboard structure in the Carolinas containing more portraits of stern-looking ancestors than modern appliances;

Summers: a rotation between Nantucket, the Outer Banks, and a lake somewhere in New Hampshire whose name you would never know unless born into it.

They are not apolitical, mind you; they are post-political. To them, politics is something that happens on C-SPAN, not the dining room table. Their chosen parties are not elephants or donkeys but rather the Chevy Chase Club, the Sulgrave, and—for the truly cosmopolitan—the Metropolitan Club of Washington.

In sum, these are people who navigate life with the serene confidence of those who assume—often correctly—that the world will continue to be upholstered in their preferred fabric.

I admire your curiosity. Observe them closely. They are, after all, one of America’s last reliably performing cultural ecosystems.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is gross. But for those wondering what a cave dweller is it’s basically the very wealthy non political (meaning not in government as a president, VP or cabinet member - mostly business men) in Washington DC in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And the exact people that those professing to be “old money” today on DCUM would call “new money” and social climbers.

Thanks for the education.

The “educator” is a tool. Those cavedwellers had nothing relative to the wealthy in other cities. Financially, DC arrived about 30 years ago. Before that even lowly Baltimore had way more money. In fact, the wealthiest dc residents back when were those who had landing spots here but didn’t live here full time. The Cavedwellers could only look to other cities with envy.

Way to miss the point.

The whole point of being a Cave Dweller is being insular. They don't "look to other cities with envy," they don't care about other cities or other people's money because those cities and people are outside the cave.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've attended a bunch of private school admissions events this fall, and I'm getting my first glimpse into a VERY distinct preppy / wasp-y crowd. They're not really Cave Dwellers (although surely some of their parents and grand-parents were) -- very few seem to work for the administration or in the government. In fact, they seem apolitical unless you count wearing a Barbour jacket as a religion. The most common threads I've been able to discern is that most are white and either from DC or the South, they all know each other well, and even though I know there are other exclusive country clubs out there, they are basically all members of the Chevy Chase Club. Who are these people: where is the money from, how were they raised, and how do they spend their time?

My dear interlocutor,

Your inquiry reads like the field notes of a well-intentioned ethnographer who has wandered, quite by accident, into a habitat populated by that curious American subspecies: the Modern Metropolitan WASP, a creature neither as endangered nor as monolithic as the folklore would have one believe.

You observe, quite astutely, that these individuals do not conform to the old “Cave Dweller” archetype—those laconic Brahmins who once glided between Kalorama, the Cosmos Club, and the Wilson administration without ever disturbing a single pleat of their seersucker. No, today’s iteration is far more diffused, and—dare I say—more democratic in its pedigree, though they will never admit as much.

The money, as you ask, tends to emerge from the same three tributaries that have nourished this class since the Coolidge administration:

Legacy wealth, discreetly laundered through trusts so ancient they predate the Internal Revenue Code;

“Quiet” corporate success—defense contractors, regional banking families, clever people who own unpleasantly lucrative logistics companies; and

The New Southern Gentry, who discovered sometime in the Reagan era that Washington was the perfect place to winter both their fortunes and their children.

As for how they were raised, one must picture the sort of childhood in which manners are taught before multiplication tables, and where the great moral transgressions of youth consist not in rebellion per se, but in wearing boat shoes before Memorial Day or failing to write a prompt thank-you note to Aunt Eloise for the monogrammed stationery she bestowed.

They were reared on a diet of Episcopalian restraint, tennis lessons, laconic summer camps in Maine, and a vaguely stoic orientation toward life that insists one never—ever—acknowledge ambition while privately tending to it with horticultural precision.

And how they spend their time now?
Well, were you to plot their existence on a calendar, the coordinates would be familiar:

September through November: school admissions events, performed like ritual courtship dances;

Weekends: lacrosse or squash, depending on latitude;

Holidays: dutiful pilgrimages to the ancestral home, often a clapboard structure in the Carolinas containing more portraits of stern-looking ancestors than modern appliances;

Summers: a rotation between Nantucket, the Outer Banks, and a lake somewhere in New Hampshire whose name you would never know unless born into it.

They are not apolitical, mind you; they are post-political. To them, politics is something that happens on C-SPAN, not the dining room table. Their chosen parties are not elephants or donkeys but rather the Chevy Chase Club, the Sulgrave, and—for the truly cosmopolitan—the Metropolitan Club of Washington.

In sum, these are people who navigate life with the serene confidence of those who assume—often correctly—that the world will continue to be upholstered in their preferred fabric.

I admire your curiosity. Observe them closely. They are, after all, one of America’s last reliably performing cultural ecosystems.

Anonymous wrote:We've attended a bunch of private school admissions events this fall, and I'm getting my first glimpse into a VERY distinct preppy / wasp-y crowd. They're not really Cave Dwellers (although surely some of their parents and grand-parents were) -- very few seem to work for the administration or in the government. In fact, they seem apolitical unless you count wearing a Barbour jacket as a religion. The most common threads I've been able to discern is that most are white and either from DC or the South, they all know each other well, and even though I know there are other exclusive country clubs out there, they are basically all members of the Chevy Chase Club. Who are these people: where is the money from, how were they raised, and how do they spend their time?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the term was actually intended to describe this exact group: people who were old DC (or at least one spouse is) but largely apolitical. I'm not saying that is what these people are, but the term might not be far off. Here is their profile:

- Wesley Heights/Spring Valley/CCV/Georgetown
- Christ Church (Georgetown)
- Blue Igloo/Little Folks/Little Graces
- Beauvoir
- STA/NCS (but more Holton lately)
- Ivy for smarties/athletes, mid-tier northeast lib arts for the rest, UVA/UNC/Vandy/Duke for Southerners, Sewanee/Trinity for non-academically inclined
- Commercial real estate
- Met Club, Sulgrave, CCC
- MV, Nantucket, Gibson Island, Jackson Hole, Maine

Did I miss anything?

A friend belongs to one of these clubs and was invited to a “meet up” with some other ladies. She arrived and it turned out to be a meeting of women trying to get others to write negative letters about a woman applying for membership. When she asked them why they didn’t like her - none of them could give a concrete answer or example. They didn’t like her because.

This is what you are dealing with. The mean girls in middle school….

Sure this happened. Are you a member of any of them? Were you there? Otherwise. Stfu.

Anonymous wrote:Did you write this because it is off in so many ways that the follow up research makes sense:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50892224-the-cave-dwellers

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW last time I checked, the Preppy Handbook has been out of print, but everyone had a copy of that in the early 1980s and if you used it as a primer, you were young. And the whole book was basically the analog version of "how to dress" without being able to order online and how to appear. I think.

It's a funny gag book but I think some people take it seriously and treat it as a how-to guide rather than a joke.

I have a friend who actually uses slang from the book (worth noting we were born the year it came out so this is not like, something we would've read in hs and turned into an inside joke, she actually went through the glossary and uses phrases from it) and it's bizarre.

I grew up on the Upper East Side, in the heart of faded money WASPs- Carnegie Hill. The Preppy Handbook was basically a reflection of our lives. We went to those schools, spent the summers in those towns, played the sports and had the gear. They got a lot right. If you read beyond the clothes part, there is a lot about Preppy attitude that is and was spot-on: the je ne said quoi attitude, always having the air of being bored by everything and the constant cocktails. A lot of this still lives on in circles though there is definitely more tolerance now of flashiness, new money and diversity. After all, we are no longer Republicans, that ended with the Bushes- who had impeccable Prep credentials😁

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW last time I checked, the Preppy Handbook has been out of print, but everyone had a copy of that in the early 1980s and if you used it as a primer, you were young. And the whole book was basically the analog version of "how to dress" without being able to order online and how to appear. I think.

It's a funny gag book but I think some people take it seriously and treat it as a how-to guide rather than a joke.

I have a friend who actually uses slang from the book (worth noting we were born the year it came out so this is not like, something we would've read in hs and turned into an inside joke, she actually went through the glossary and uses phrases from it) and it's bizarre.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is gross. But for those wondering what a cave dweller is it’s basically the very wealthy non political (meaning not in government as a president, VP or cabinet member - mostly business men) in Washington DC in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And the exact people that those professing to be “old money” today on DCUM would call “new money” and social climbers.

Thanks for the education.

The “educator” is a tool. Those cavedwellers had nothing relative to the wealthy in other cities. Financially, DC arrived about 30 years ago. Before that even lowly Baltimore had way more money. In fact, the wealthiest dc residents back when were those who had landing spots here but didn’t live here full time. The Cavedwellers could only look to other cities with envy.