Episode 5, “Charity Has Two Functions”

☞  Many rooms that depict the second floor at the Russells’ mansion, shown in the first scene and later, are from the second floor of The Elms.

☞  Gladys’s bedroom is the real-life Mrs. Berwind’s bedroom in The Elms.

☞  The Elms kitchen is featured many times again.

☞  Social arbiter Ward McAllister (1827-1895) makes his debut.

☞  While Mr. McAllister arrives to a luncheon “fashionably late,” this concept was an established tradition stemming from English culture and reserved for people of society who wished to make an entrance at social gatherings.

☞  Lunch with McAllister: Finger bowls are seen on the table; these would be filled with water and diners would dip the tips of their fingers in at the end of a meal as some dishes required the use of one’s hand.

☞  The Eisenhower house at Fort Adams State Park in Newport is featured when several characters visit American Red Cross founder Clara Barton’s event in Dansville, N.Y.

☞  Newport’s Clarke Street and the Artillery Company of Newport armory building are featured as the Dansville, N.Y., street where Ms. Barton’s rally is held.

☞  The interior of Newport’s Colony House appears as a Red Cross location where patients are being treated.

☞  There are mentions of Bertha Russell perhaps taking on the cause of women’s right to vote – a hint that she might follow in Alva Vanderbilt’s path? Alva, after she became Alva Belmont, was a prominent leader of the suffrage movement from the beginning of the 1900s until her death in 1933.

☞  Mention is made of the Panama Canal as a great and modern wonder. It truly was an incredible feat of engineering but also a dangerous project that left hundreds dead. Construction began in the 1880s but was not completed until 1914.

☞  Ward McAllister and Mrs. Astor were the king and queen of Newport society as well as New York’s.