Philadelphia's aristocracy

Nathaniel Burt was a keen observer of the hereditary aristocracy and its role in society. In his book

The Perennial Philadelphians

, Burt noted that the city's "upper class . . . proposes to keep right on going whether anyone believes in or approves of its existence or not."

Writing in 1963, Burt (an outsider, born in Wyoming) looked at the "Old Philadelphians," including many of the region's original settlers.

The names likely sound familiar to today's readers, too: Cadwalader, Logan, Morris, Chew, Drinker, Shippen, and Rush.

To Burt, these families represented "one of the few, if not the only, still-established hereditary oligarchies in America, perhaps in the Western world . . . that has tended to become more and more, until very recently, an absentee landlordship."

Many of these families arrived with William Penn; others traveled here on their own, hailing from the United Kingdom and Germany. Respective wealth varied, but many were what are now politely termed "high-net-worth individuals."

Much of their capital went toward Philadelphia's early cultural, political, and economic interests.

Burt observed the effects of this proto-philanthropy: One can barely set foot in a gallery not "spiced with a portrait of a Pepper" or saunter into a museum without spotting "a moose shot by a Biddle and stuffed by a Cadwalader."

With a narrative voice blending Thorstein Veblen and Oscar Wilde, Burt singes without burning.

For example, he suggested swapping a moose with a taxidermied Biddle or Cadwalader as an accurate exhibit of the city's history.

Still, Burt acknowledges that "by either their presence or their absence," the Old Philadelphians "are a very important factor in the life of the city."

To explain the steady proliferation of prestigious and powerful nonprofits despite the ups and downs of business and public life, Burt surmised that "Philadelphians do not live by bread alone; they live by boards."