Where It All Goes Down
New York City, 1870s
Most of the novel takes place in the high society of New York City in the 1870s. The characters are members of the oldest and most elite families of New York City, known at the time as the New York four hundred (rumored to be the number of guests that could fit in Mrs. Astor's ballroom). Its helpful to think of these guys as the fancy-pants first-class passengers in Titanic.
The men work in finance or law, but they don't work terribly hard because they're "gentlemen." The women live a life of leisure: paying social calls, going to the theater, and doing whatever else predated mani-pedis. New York society is centered around Washington Square, which is in lower Manhattan. A bunch of people have country homes in upstate New York, and they spend their summers in Newport, Rhode Island doing archery, polo, and sailing. Oh, and we hear competitive tea parties were also a thing.
But this fancy lifestyle is losing steam and popularity due to the crazy years following the Civil War. Crazy how? Crazy like a messed-up economy that makes the Great Recession look hi-larious. The United States economy was ripe for sleazy investors like Julius Beaufort, whose financial shadiness was based on the Panic of 1873. The Panic of 1873 also triggered tons of immigration from Russia, Ireland, and Italy. These guys transformed the city's landscape as new immigrant neighborhoods were created. Hello, Little Italy.
For members of Archer's class, all of these factors were sad-making. As a society trying to protect itself from The C- Word (change), the majority of the characters that populate The Age of Innocence are hung up on keeping up rigid social distinctions and scared of big bad foreign influence. That’s why Madame Olenska is viewed as such a witch.
(Source: Waid 297-9)