Big Bosses A Working Girl's Memoir of Jazz Age America |
|
| Author:
| Altemus, Althea McDowell |
| Editor:
| Bachin, Robin F. |
| ISBN: | 978-0-226-42362-3 |
| Publication Date: | Nov 2016 |
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press
|
| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $15.00 |
Book Description:
|
"No man is a hero to his valet,” said Montaigne, they say--an aphorism that applies especially to American industrialists and the people who work for them. Behind (or under) these "big bosses” are assistants who become privy to their employers’ social lives and personal tics. Althea Altemus worked for a number of these men in the 1910s and ’20s, starting with James Deering of International Harvester, and Big Bosses is her illustrated memoir. A tart and...
More Description"No man is a hero to his valet,” said Montaigne, they say--an aphorism that applies especially to American industrialists and the people who work for them. Behind (or under) these "big bosses” are assistants who become privy to their employers’ social lives and personal tics. Althea Altemus worked for a number of these men in the 1910s and ’20s, starting with James Deering of International Harvester, and Big Bosses is her illustrated memoir. A tart and self-aware writer, Altemus has a good sense of humor and can limn an indelible character in a few sentences. She brings the rarefied milieu of Vizcaya, Deering’s Miami mansion, to vivid life, with all of its Xanaduan extravagances. Altemus also tells us much about high society in Chicago in the 1920s, including the domestic intrigues of a big boss, his wife, and his exceptionally secretive mistress. Altemus was also a single mother, quite a scandal for the time and a fact she needed to hide. She writes of her many struggles in raising her child, Tidbits, and living on her own--giving us a full portrait of a woman who was present at the gilded peak of Jazz Age society but was not a part of it.