Samuel Ward McAllister (December 28, 1827 – January 31, 1895) was a popular arbiter of social taste in the Gilded Age of late 19th-century America. He was widely accepted as the authority as to which families could be classified as the cream of New York society (the Four Hundred). But his listings were also questioned by those excluded from them, and his own personal motives of self-aggrandisement were noted. Early life Born Samuel Ward McAllister to a socially prominent Savannah, Georgia, judicial family. His parents were Matthew Hall McAllister (1800–1865) and Louisa Charlotte (née Cutler) McAllister (1801–1869). Through his maternal aunt, Julia Rush Cutler, and her husband, Samuel Ward, he was a first cousin of Julia Ward Howe and Samuel Cutler Ward, the lobbyist whose first wife Emily Astor had been the daughter of William Backhouse Astor Sr. and a granddaughter of John Jacob Astor. His maternal grandparents were Benjamin Clark Cutler, Norfolk County Sheriff, and Sarah (née Mitchell) Cutler. In 1850, McAllister traveled to California with his father during the Gold Rush and became one of the partners in the law firm McAllister & Sons. New York Society McAllister wrote that after his marriage in 1853, he bought a farm on Narragansett Bay, planted trees and left for a three-year journey throughout Europe's great cities and spas—Bath, Pau, Bad Nauheim, and the like—where he observed the mannerisms of other wealthy Americans and titled nobility, returning to New York with his wife and two small children 15 October 1858. Using his wife's wealth and his own social connections, McAllister sought to become a tastemaker amongst New York's "Knickerbocracy", a collection of old merchant and landowning families who traced their lineage back to the days of colonial New Amsterdam. Above all in McAllister's life was his desire for social recognition by what he termed the "Ton," i. e. the cream of society. Although purported to be an index of New York's best families, McAllister's list was suspiciously top-heavy with nouveau riche industrialists and McAllister's southern allies, seeking a new start in the nation's financial capital after the American Civil War. In his glory, McAllister referred to his patroness, Mrs. Caroline Astor (The Mrs. Astor), as his "Mystic Rose". McAllister was an early summer colonist of Newport, Rhode Island, and was largely responsible for turning the simple seaside resort into a Mecca for the pleasure-seeking, status-conscious rich of the Gilded Age. His