People Who Went To Penn: E. Digby Baltzell
February 23, 2013 at 11:13 am
What do you call those non-Jewish residents of the Main Line again? You know, with the yachts and the non-Kosher diets? Thanks to this guy on the right, E. Digby Baltzell (Class of 1940), we call 'em WASPs.
Besides having an esoteric name and a bangin' sense of style (can tweed make a comeback, please?), this St. A's alum popularized the acronym with his 1964 book, The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America, written during his years as a sociology professor at Penn.
It seems Baltzell's specialty was studying the social caste system in America. You know, how "old money" was still running everything in town. (Those gosh-darned Tom Buchanans get everything!) No word yet on if he ever realized he actually WAS one of the people he hated studied so much.