ABSTRACT
Such evidence, while ample, is inevitably less than comprehensive. For we are dealing here with private matters. Who recorded and how could later scholars hope to know the number of social calls made by
the thousands of members of the several hundred wealthiest or most prominent families in each of the great northeastern cities? Or the per sons present and the relative standing of each individual in the judgment of every other individual on these occasions? I fear that the private lives of a social group do not lend themselves to quantitative analysis. For all its incompleteness, however, much valuable contemporary evidence is available, which goes well beyond the random incident that has often served as the basis of earlier discussions of antebellum class and life style. Some individuals kept records; above all Philip Hone.
