Ward McAllister

Samuel Ward McAllister (1827–1895) was an American lawyer and socialite who made himself the arbiter of New York society in the decades after the Civil War. Born in Savannah, Georgia, he made a quick fortune practicing law in California during the gold rush, married an heiress, toured Europe, and settled in New York and Newport, where he organized the Patriarchs' balls and became the confidant of Mrs William Astor. In 1888 he told a reporter that there were only about four hundred people in New York society, a phrase that stuck. His memoir Society as I Have Found It, published in 1890, was widely ridiculed, and his influence declined thereafter.