I was watching I Love Lucy and Lucy tells her about her friend Cynthia Harcourt and Ethel says “You knew THE Cynthia Harcourt, I read all about her in the society column.” Then Ethel later goes on to tell Lucy that it says in the paper where she’s staying in New York City
I have never seen an actual society column. Do they still exist? And what is the point of that type of column? Was it like celebrity gossip is today?
You’d think rich people wouldn’t want their wearabouts and the like known
They have died out these days (replaced with celebrity gossip) but were quite big in the first half of the 20th century. I remember seeing an article in 1934 in the New York Times covering an opera opening which listed all the people who had boxes at the opera. They were perfectly happy to have their names mentioned at gala events, and the papers were happy to cover them. Those not in the 400 liked reading about what the rich were doing just like people like to read about what celebrities are doing – though the information back then was far less personal.
There was far less fear of letting people have information than there is nowadays. I doubt any of the people in the society pages even thought about bodyguards. The cult of celebrity was not like it is today, so you could get your name in the papers and not get hassled about it. No one tried to dig into your private affairs.
If you look at Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, you can see how Deeds lived as a rich person, with the press mentioning his exploits and how he lived in a big house with only a private secretary to screen visitors.
The Baltimore Examiner runs a society column, but only once or twice a week. Cotillions and debutante balls are increasingly uninteresting to people who didn’t attend them.
Thanks I’ll go check it out from the library (they have DVDs)
Small town newspapers flip it on its head. E.g., I have an aunt that’s been the correspondent for an area of the county for decades. Once a week, she writes up who’s had visitors, been on trips, births, deaths, weddings, etc. Farm folk generally, so hardly the Astors. Of course, after I visit, I’ll get mailed a copy of the column that mentions my visit.
When even the small town papers start folding, there’s a lot of stuff like this that we’ll miss.
You could check out town & Country and other glossy mags- there is usually coverage of most high-profile events, parties, etc. It used to be that you only had to hear the names of Paris & Nicky Hilton there… 
The Chicago Sun-Times has a Society column (the online version of which is strangely blank). It’s not exactly compelling reading. Mostly stories about how there was a fund-rasier at the Shedd Aquarium where Important Person was seen and Other Important Person attended. If you’re lucky, there may be a photo of an old woman in an evening dress.
The Denver Post has one. I was shocked to learn of the number of society events in a town seemingly immune from classism. Old habits…
Newsday has a small celebrity “buzz” column very day that’s basically a cliff notes of what would appear in a tabloid. Some location based magazines on the last page have random pictures from hot parties where important people show up.
The most important event in the gradual disappearance of a separate section of newspapers specifically labeled as society news was the creation of the Style section of The Washington Post in 1969 by its editor Ben Bradlee. Up till then, it was common for newspapers to have a page or two that might be called society news or might be known as the women’s section (as if it was assumed that women would not be interested in “real” news but just in frivolous society stuff). The Style section of The Washington Post (and similar sections which later were created in other papers called things like Life, Style, Lifestyle, etc.) swept together society news, announcements of weddings and such, along with reviews of movies, TV shows, and books, and longer articles about cultural trends and interesting people. Society news still exists in a mutated form in most papers, but it’s usually submerged in the Lifestyle (or whatever it’s called in that paper) section.
Yes! When I was about 10, my sister and I visited my grandparents on their dairy farm in rural southeastern Ohio. It made the society column. 
The local Nashville paper still does big color spreads for the big society fundraisers and symphony openers. Not just a bunch of old ladies, either. Young women seem to be stepping up for the arts and culture scene. Every day the paper also has a “seen around town” column, which might tell which artists are recording in town, who’s accompanying whom to the CMA or Dove awards, that sort of thing.
StG