America finally has its own Downton Abbey, and rightfully so.
On Monday, Jan. 24, HBO premiered the latest period drama by Julian Fellowes and, instead of taking a closer look at the British aristocracy, The Gilded Age shined a light on late-1800s New York City, where old money society fought to keep control from rising robber barons and their equally ambitious wives.
"[The Old Money families] were more modest," Fellowes said of the rivalry to Entertainment Weekly. "They were living in houses in Washington Square that were not enormous. They lived respectable lives, and that was New York society at the time. But for the new arrivals, that wasn't enough for them. They wanted to do something bigger and better. They started to build these palaces on Fifth Avenue and gradually pushed further north. So you had these great rivalries between the new families and the old."
And though the leading characters in Fellowes' new work—played by Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Carrie Coon and many others—are fiction, they're inspired by real-life socialites that went toe-to-toe to rule Fifth Avenue and beyond.
No, this isn't Gossip Girl. We're talking about "The Four Hundred," the official list that named the crème de la crème and dictated the city's high society.
So, who made the list, who ruled the roost and who overthrew the old ways to become the most famous socialite of them all? We have all of those juicy historical details in the gallery below.
The Gilded Age airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on HBO.