Nelson W. Aldrich on Preppies

I totally ripped this off from Ivy Style.  I just wanted to post it here, because I find it such a fascinating article, and I haven't been able to find it in this much entirety anywhere else.  Thanks Christian!


“Preppies: The Last Upper Class?”
By Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr.
Atlantic Monthly, January 1979 (excerpts)

“Preppie” is a catchall epithet to take the pace of words too worn or elaborate for everyday use, words such as privileged, ruling class, aristocrat, society woman, gentleman, and the rich. Ideological struggle is too shaming to talk about these days. Lifestyle rivalry is the new engine of history. In this sort of society, Preppies pass for an upper class.

There are two sorts of Preppies, the self-made and the hereditary. Hereditary Preppies will have a Preppie parent or two — a parent, that is, who went to a prep school. But the purest of the type will go to the same prep school as his parent.