#37 – ‘Why We Go to Cabarets’: The first newsstand hit of The New Yorker

A take on the iconic article

This is My Year With The New Yorker Part 5.

When The New Yorker was first published a hundred years ago, it was not exactly an instant success. In the centenary issue of the magazine, David Remnick, the editor, writes, “Not only were the first issues of modest distinction and sales; Harold Ross, its founding editor, nearly lost the whole flimsy enterprise in an all-night poker game.” Backed up by an investment from Raoul Fleischmann, an heir to a yeast fortune, the first issues delivered little of the “gaiety, wit and satire” it promised. But later in 1925, the magazine’s fortunes changed. The November 28, 1925, issue featured a lively social investigation by Ellin Mackay titled, “Why We Go To Cabarets—A Post-Debutante Explains.” The article was an immediate hit. People talked. Sales soared.

“Why We Go To Cabarets—A Post-Debutante Explains” in The New Yorker issue of November 28, 1925.

Born to Clarence Mackay, a prominent financier who was the chairman of the Postal Telegraph and Cable Corporation, Ellin Mackay was a young socialite and one of the most celebrated debutantes of her era. In “Why We Go To Cabarets,” she explains with verve and vindication the merits of nightclubs and society balls. Mackay acknowledges that her set frequents cabarets, but not “because we enjoy rubbing elbows with all sorts and kinds of people.” (She makes a point of saying, “We do not particularly like dancing shoulder to shoulder with gaudy and fat drummers. We do not like unattractive people.”)

But for Mackay, the cabarets are much preferable to society balls where you have to meet with “the young man who is well-read in the Social Register, who talks glibly of the Racquet Club, while he prays that you won’t suspect that he lives far up on the West Side,” or “the gentleman who says he comes from the South, who lives just south of New York—in Brooklyn,” or “the partner who is inspired by alcohol to do a wholly original Charleston, a dance that necessarily becomes a solo, as you can’t possibly join in, and can only hope for sufficient dexterity to prevent permanent injury to your feet.”

Mackay was a society heiress expressing decidedly anti-society views. While the article has its origins in her personal experience, it still dances on the surface of the issue. But—it’s got pomp. It’s got attitude. More importantly, it’s got self-awareness and confidence. It also generated the kind of buzz that helped The New Yorker fixate in the public consciousness. Jane Grant, who co-founded The New Yorker with Harold Ross, leveraged her newspaper connections to get front-page coverage of the article in the Times, the World and the Herald Tribune. But the coverage would not be the last word on the subject. Two weeks later, The New Yorker published another article by Mackay, “The Declining Function: A Post-Debutante Rejoices,” in which she portends her intention to live her life as she likes.

And she did.

Less than a month after the second article’s publication, Mackay eloped with Irving Berlin, one of the most successful and prolific of the Tin Pan Alley songwriters, who created some of the best-loved American songs. At the time: She was 22. He was 37. She was a Roman Catholic. He was an Orthodox Jew. She was a society heiress. He was a Russian immigrant. Add it all up, and the marriage caused a scandal in the 1920’s New York and a rupture in the family. Mackay’s father was so infuriated by the union that he refused to acknowledge it. In “Genius in Disguise,” Thomas Kunkel writes that, “to most [Irving Berlin] was the millionaire toast of Broadway, but to Clarence Mackay would always be Izzy Baline of the Lower East Side.” (Harold Ross and Jane Grant helped the newlyweds slip out of town until the tabloids shifted their attention to something else.) And as it turned out, the marriage of Mackay and Berlin has been one of enduring love—it lasted for 62 years and bore four children.

Irving Berlin and Ellin Mackay in 1926, returning from their honeymoon. © NY Daily News Archive / Getty

That feels like the end of the story, and yet, to write about Ellin Mackay and not to mention her work as a writer on her own merit—aside from her juicy articles for The New Yorker and aside from her marriage to Irving Berlin—would be remiss. Among other popular magazines of the time, Ellin Mackay contributed short stories to The Saturday Evening Post and The Ladies' Home Journal. Her first novel, “Land I Have Chosen,” was published in 1944 and was sold to the movies for a record-setting amount of $150,000. Her other books include “Lace Curtain,” “Silver Platter,” and “The Best of Families.” (Of these, I only got to read a part of “Silver Platter.” I would’ve read more if it had not been an “in-library use only” kind of book.)

“Silver Platter” is a story about Ellin Mackay’s grandmother, Louise Mackay. The book concludes with a letter addressed to Louise, “Do you remember when Harold Ross, the editor of The New Yorker, told me to ask you to write your memoirs? I said I would help you.” Mackay’s association with The New Yorker goes back, and yet neither of them can be defined by the other. To credit The New Yorker’s turning of fortunes singularly to Mackay’s articles would not reflect the full picture. In 1925, Ross sent the journalist Marquis James to Tennessee to cover the Scopes trial. As Remnick noted in his article for the centenary issue, the dispatch was “a distinct departure from the jokey writing that previously filled the magazine.” In the fall of that year, The New Yorker also launched a new service column dedicated to the subject of shopping with discernment. It quickly became popular. The New Yorker was making headways steadily.

When Mackay’s article was published in late November—the peak of the debutante season—it was the kind of auspicious timing that gave the magazine the boost that it needed. And for a while there, the fates of The New Yorker and Ellin Mackay intertwined, and a magic was sparked.

PS: Here is the link to the article in question: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1925/11/28/why-we-go-to-cabarets-a-post-debutante-explains