Intended Audience
Trade
LCCN
2020-040332
Reviews
Residents of the Barbizon Hotel were once described as 'young women alone.' Thanks to Paulina Bren, they are alone no longer. The Barbizon is a fascinating social history of a forgotten place and time and an intimate portrait of women, trying to find their way in a pre-feminist world. I'll never look at a hotel and think the same way again., Captivating...a brilliant many-layered social history of women's ambition and a rapidly changing New York., A rare glimpse behind the doors of New York's famous women-only residential hotel...Drawing on extensive research, extant letters, and numerous interviews, Bren beautifully weaves together the political climate of the times and the illuminating personal stories of the Barbizon residents...Elegant prose brings a rich cultural history alive., Varying delectably in cadence, from high-heel tapping and typewriter clacking to sinuous and reflective passages analyzing the complex forms of adversity Barbizon women faced over the decades, Bren's engrossing and illuminating inquiry portrays the original Barbizon as a vital microcosm of the long quest for women's equality., [An] insightful, well-written account...[Bren] details the lives of some of the Barbizon's most well-known residents, including Molly Brown, Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion, and provides historical context about midcentury single women, careers, and sex...A must read for anyone interested in the history of 20th-century women's lives, fashion, publishing, and New York., "Before Sex and the Single Girl , before "Sex and the City," there was the Barbizon. It was a romantic building with a romantic purpose: It fixed a woman up with her dreams. Paulina Bren has written a stylish, charming history of a unique institution, brimming with aspiration and idiosyncrasy, and one that allowed a woman to survive without either marrying someone or cooking him dinner - even when she was barred from so much as taking a seat at the bar.", A lively history... The Barbizon is a story as much about 20th-century women seizing agency, in fits and starts, as it is about a hotel, and Bren tells it skillfully., This is the history I've been wanting to read all my life. I just didn't know where to look. How delightful to find it in the legacy of this magical hotel, captured in brilliant detail by the masterful Paulina Bren. Even if you can't move into the Barbizon, reading this book will make you feel like you've lived there for years. You'll never want to move out., An entertaining and enlightening account of New York's Barbizon Hotel and the role it played in fostering women's ambitions in 20th-century America...Carefully researched yet breezily written, this appealing history gives the Barbizon its rightful turn in the spotlight., Illuminating . . . this vivid, well-researched account is testament to its vibrant history and the women who made it such a powerhouse., From famous models to Joan Didion, from hopeful stenographers to Sylvia Plath. The Barbizon housed women who eagerly sought independence, adventure, and careers in New York City. Besides the story of the famous women-only hotel, The Barbizon chronicles key aspects of American women's history in the first half of the twentieth century. A compelling read!, "Residents of the Barbizon Hotel were once described as 'young women alone.' Thanks to Paulina Bren, they are alone no longer. The Barbizon is a fascinating social history of a forgotten place and time and an intimate portrait of women, trying to find their way in a pre-feminist world. I'll never look at a hotel and think the same way again." -- KEITH O'BRIEN , New York Times bestselling author of Fly Girls "This is the history I've been wanting to read all my life. I just didn't know where to look. How delightful to find it in the legacy of this magical hotel, captured in brilliant detail by the masterful Paulina Bren. Even if you can't move into the Barbizon, reading this book will make you feel like you've lived there for years. You'll never want to move out. -- MEGHAN DAUM , author of The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars "From famous models to Joan Didion, from hopeful stenographers to Sylvia Plath. The Barbizon housed women who eagerly sought independence, adventure, and careers in New York City. Besides the story of the famous women-only hotel, The Barbizon chronicles key aspects of American women's history in the first half of the twentieth century. A compelling read!" -- LYNN DUMENIL , author The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I "Before Sex and the Single Girl , before "Sex and the City," there was the Barbizon. It was a romantic building with a romantic purpose: It fixed a woman up with her dreams. Paulina Bren has written a stylish, charming history of a unique institution, brimming with aspiration and idiosyncrasy, and one that allowed a woman to survive without either marrying someone or cooking him dinner - even when she was barred from so much as taking a seat at the bar." -- STACY SCHIFF , author of The Witches and Pulitzer Prize Winner
Dewey Edition
23
CLASSIFICATION_METADATA
{"IsNonfiction":["Yes"],"IsOther":["No"],"IsAdult":["No"],"MuzeFormatDesc":["Hardcover"],"IsChildren":["No"],"Genre":["SOCIAL SCIENCE","BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY","HISTORY"],"Topic":["Women","Customs & Traditions","United States / State & Local / Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA)","Women's Studies","United States / 20th Century","Historical","Sociology / Urban"],"IsTextBook":["No"],"IsFiction":["No"]}
Dewey Decimal
305.4097470904
Synopsis
From award-winning author Paulina Bren comes the "captivating portrait" ( The Wall Street Journal ) of New York's most famous residential hotel--The Barbizon--and the remarkable women who lived there. Welcome to New York's legendary hotel for women. Liberated from home and hearth by World War I, politically enfranchised and ready to work, women arrived to take their place in the dazzling new skyscrapers of Manhattan. But they did not want to stay in uncomfortable boarding houses. They wanted what men already had--exclusive residential hotels with maid service, workout rooms, and private dining. Built in 1927, at the height of the Roaring Twenties, the Barbizon Hotel was designed as a luxurious safe haven for the "Modern Woman" hoping for a career in the arts. Over time, it became the place to stay for any ambitious young woman hoping for fame and fortune. Sylvia Plath fictionalized her time there in The Bell Jar , and, over the years, it's almost 700 tiny rooms with matching floral curtains and bedspreads housed, among many others, Titanic survivor Molly Brown; actresses Grace Kelly, Liza Minnelli, Ali MacGraw, Jaclyn Smith; and writers Joan Didion, Gael Greene, Diane Johnson, Meg Wolitzer. Mademoiselle magazine boarded its summer interns there, as did Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School its students and the Ford Modeling Agency its young models. Before the hotel's residents were household names, they were young women arriving at the Barbizon with a suitcase and a dream. Not everyone who passed through the Barbizon's doors was destined for success--for some, it was a story of dashed hopes--but until 1981, when men were finally let in, the Barbizon offered its residents a room of their own and a life without family obligations. It gave women a chance to remake themselves however they pleased; it was the hotel that set them free. No place had existed like it before or has since. "Poignant and intriguing" ( The New Republic ), The Barbizon weaves together a tale that has, until now, never been told. It is both a vivid portrait of the lives of these young women looking for something more and a "brilliant many-layered social history of women's ambition and a rapidly changing New York through the 20th century" ( The Guardian )., A "captivating portrait" ( The Wall Street Journal ), both "poignant and intriguing" ( The New Republic ): from award-winning author Paulina Bren comes the remarkable history of New York's most famous residential hotel and the women who stayed there, including Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion. Welcome to New York's legendary hotel for women, the Barbizon. Liberated after WWI from home and hearth, women flocked to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. But even as women's residential hotels became the fashion, the Barbizon stood out; it was designed for young women with artistic aspirations, and included soaring art studios and soundproofed practice rooms. More importantly still, with no men allowed beyond the lobby, the Barbizon signaled respectability, a place where a young woman of a certain class could feel at home. But as the stock market crashed and the Great Depression set in, the clientele changed, though women's ambitions did not; the Barbizon Hotel became the go-to destination for any young American woman with a dream to be something more. While Sylvia Plath most famously fictionalized her time there in The Bell Jar , the Barbizon was also where Titanic survivor Molly Brown sang her last aria; where Grace Kelly danced topless in the hallways; where Joan Didion got her first taste of Manhattan; and where both Ali MacGraw and Jaclyn Smith found their calling as actresses. Students of the prestigious Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School had three floors to themselves, Eileen Ford used the hotel as a guest house for her youngest models, and Mademoiselle magazine boarded its summer interns there, including a young designer named Betsey Johnson. The first ever history of this extraordinary hotel, and of the women who arrived in New York City alone from "elsewhere" with a suitcase and a dream, The Barbizon offers readers a multilayered history of New York City in the 20th century, and of the generations of American women torn between their desire for independence and their looming social expiration date. By providing women a room of their own, the Barbizon was the hotel that set them free.
LC Classification Number
HQ1438.N7B74 2021
ebay_catalog_id
4
