ABSTRACT
I came out in 1960. I wore an ivory-coloured, off-the-shoulder satin gown, with lace and seed pearl decorations, a 1950s’ wedding dress but without the sleeves. Along with 99 other debutantes in Boston, Massachusetts that year, I curtsied to the floor of the Grand Ballroom of the Copley Plaza Hotel on the arm of my father and my escort, paying court to the dozen or so assorted grande dames of Boston who were to accept me into polite society. Boston Brahmins, the nickname classically given to the elite of Boston, are white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, and culturally and financially the dominant class, less so now than 30 years ago but still identified with the leadership of Boston’s major cultural and business institutions.
