Elbridge Thomas Gerry: An Exceptional Life in Gilded Gotham

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Winner of the American Association of Law Libraries’ 2017 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award. Elbridge Thomas Gerry [1837-1927], grandson of Founding Father Elbridge Gerry who signed the Declaration of Independence, was a prominent and influential Gilded Age New York trial lawyer, philanthropist and bibliophile whose 30,000 volume library became the foundation of the United States Supreme Court Library. Dowling’s extensively illustrated biography of Gerry highlights the influence of his family and its links to other prominent New York families, the Gallatins, Goelets and Livingstons.

This biography of Gerry is also the story of Gilded Age New York, when the glamorous society balls that provided entertainment to wealthy New York families such as the Astors and Vanderbilts belied their philanthropic contributions in the Progressive era. Gerry built the first steam yacht, the Electra, which became the flagship of the New York Yacht Club while he also sat on hospital boards and founded the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which still operates today. As Dowling shows, Gerry’s brilliance and passion was at the heart of it all.