I have a fascination with the Gilded Age and the whole Upstairs/Downstairs dynamic. I forgot how I heard about this book, but it's the memoirs of a woman who was the lady's maid to Lady Astor for 35 years. I'm on chapter 3, and what I learned so far that surprised me is that even though lady's maids dressed their particular lady, attended to their clothes, were like companions -- they never saw the lady naked. They'd get the bath ready, leave the room and stand outside the door, and then the lady would signal for the lady's maid to return. She said in 35 years, she never saw Lady Astor naked except for near the end of her life when she could no longer care for herself.
Also, I just read that in a typical day (this was late 1920s), Lady Astor would change her clothes five times a day. So that's the book I'm reading now, and what's next on the list is the Stephen King book on time travel and trying to prevent the JFK assasination.
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