Analyzes connections between the Southern aristocracy and the elite of Philadelphia in the antebellum period. The two groups shared class interests that Southerners found more compatible than association with their parochial, rural countrymen. Privileged Southerners preferred an atmosphere both urban and urbane, which they found in Northern cities, especially Philadelphia, where they toured the city's prisons, parks, and museums, and sampled its fleshpots. In doing so, they shared a class attitude of exclusivity that disparaged local and country life in favor of a cohesive national elite. The bonds of class even held against the upheavals preceding the Civil War and to some degree endured despite that conflict.