{"id":4961,"date":"2022-03-10T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/CAIiELKklnB9R7QFp-7wIYRbvcQqFwgEKg8IACoHCAowjuuKAzCWrzwwhoEY"},"modified":"2022-03-10T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T08:00:00","slug":"nelson-w-aldrich-jr-86-dissector-of-old-money-dies-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/?p=4961","title":{"rendered":"Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., 86, Dissector of Old Money, Dies – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., an author and magazine editor who unsparingly scrutinized his fellow heirs to America\u2019s aristocracy, primarily in \u201cOld Money: The Mythology of Wealth in America,\u201d which one reviewer called \u201ca self-help book for those who have too much,\u201d died on Tuesday at his home in North Stonington, in southeastern Connecticut. He was 86.<\/p>\n

The cause was complications of Parkinson\u2019s disease, his daughter Liberty Aldrich said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Aldrich also edited \u201cGeorge, Being George\u201d (2008), an oral history that lionized George Plimpton<\/a>, a fellow patrician and literary journalist, and he wrote \u201cTommy Hitchcock: An American Hero\u201d (1985), a biography of the famed polo player.<\/p>\n

Mr. Aldrich \u201cwas driven by a need to understand, uncover, and explain to others the class he was born into; being a writer gave him the opportunity to do that,\u201d Ms. Aldrich said in an email.<\/p>\n

He did that most prominently and self-reflectively in \u201cOld Money\u201d (1988) and in a January 1979 cover story for The Atlantic magazine headlined \u201cPreppies: The Last Upper Class?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n