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" At the height of the Gilded Age, New York society famously consisted of the 400 white Protestants who could fit into Mrs. Astor&amp;#039;s ballroom. Similar rules applied in cities across the country. There weren&amp;#039;t that many prominent American families, and they tended to know one another. By and large their money came from the forces that had propelled the Industrial Revolution: railways, shipping, oil, steel, manufacturing. They intermarried, attended the same churches, graduated from the same schools, worked at the same firms, and joined the same clubs. And anyone who was anyone in society could be found in the Social Register. A century later America has evolved, and so have our definitions of social prominence. Unlike in the Gilded Age, we live in a world of instant, often fleeting, celebrity. Social standing is measured out in 140-character tweets, and Andy Warhol&amp;#039;s 15 minutes of fame feels like a quaint relic of a more leisurely age. The most socially prominent Americans are an eclectic band of financiers, entrepreneurs, athletes, and entertainers. You&amp;#039;re less likely to find them at Newport garden parties or Skull &amp;amp;amp; Bones initiation dinners than at TED talks, the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. That said, the drivers of enduring social prominence have changed little since the Gilded Age, or indeed the Roman Empire. They include money, power, philanthropy, and taste. The families at the peak of society have changed significantly, for creative destruction is a feature of American high society as well as of American capitalism. A few of the families on our list \u2014 the first of its kind and the beginning of a new tradition here \u2014 have ancestors who sailed on the Mayflower, fought in the Revolution, and danced at Mrs. Astor&amp;#039;s balls. The Astors themselves are absent, however. So are such families as the Carnegies, the Roosevelts, the Cabots, and the Biddles, all distinguished old clans that no longer define high society. Very few families achieve enduring prominence over multiple generations. That&amp;#039;s why we&amp;#039;ve created a list of American dynasties. To be eligible for the T&amp;amp;amp;C 50, a family must be socially prominent today, and its prominence must date back at least two consecutive generations. We define prominence broadly; the families on our list have distinguished themselves in business, politics, philanthropy, and the arts. They range from capitalist powerhouses like the Pritzkers to political dynasties like the Bushes to cultural clans, including the Marsalis family of New Orleans and the Wyeths of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. T&amp;amp;amp;C&amp;#039;s editorial staff selected an initial pool of about 200 families with help from a panel of outside contributors. We scored them using six equally weighted criteria, expressed in these adjectives: Inspiring, Enduring, Generous, Powerful, Creative, and Rich. We gathered our wealth estimates from published sources and researched the history, genealogy, and current activities of each family. We then created a composite score for each and used that to select our final 50. You&amp;#039;ll meet our 50 families, grouped under five headings: Inspiring, Generous, Enduring, Creative, and Powerful. We did not create a separate Rich list, for money alone is neither a necessary nor a sufficient criterion for membership in the T&amp;amp;amp;C 50. The Waltons made the list more for their philanthropy than for their wealth. Cultural dynasties scored high in the Creative category. The Emanuel family scored high in Powerful because three brothers in the current generation wield immense clout in politics, medicine, and the entertainment world, respectively. The Vanderbilts are on the list both for their longevity and because living member Gloria Vanderbilt has made a name as a fashion designer and painter, while her son Anderson Cooper is an influential journalist. We used our Inspiring category to honor families that set positive examples for the rest of us. Despite other elevated scores, the Murdochs scored low for Inspiring because of last year&amp;#039;s phone hacking scandal. On the other hand, the Brzezinski clan scored high in Inspiring thanks to its many years of public service, and because MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, along with her co-host, Joe Scarborough, has taken a stand for serious journalism amid the circus that is cable TV. Because one successful individual doesn&amp;#039;t make a dynasty, there are no Zuckerbergs or Brins on our list. Nor is there a ballroom where the T&amp;amp;amp;C 50 all meet, although some of our families are connected by the venerable tradition of dynastic marriage (see: Lauren/Bush). Still, we are pleased to gather America&amp;#039;s 50 most prominent families within these pages. Let&amp;#039;s get this party started. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/a1037/choosing-the-top-50-families/>