In 1852,
Charles Astor Bristed published a collection of sketches on New York society entitled "The Upper Ten Thousand" in
Fraser Magazine. In 1854,
George Lippard serialized his book
New York: Its Upper Ten and Lower Million. The phrase entered British fiction in
The Adventures of Philip (1861–62) by
William Thackeray, whose eponymous hero contributed weekly to a fashionable New York journal entitled
The Gazette of the Upper Ten Thousand. The general acceptance of the term seems to be attested by its use in the title of Edward Abbott's 1864 cookery book,
The English and Australian Cookery Book: Cookery for the Many as Well as the "Upper Ten Thousand". Extending the term beyond the inhabitants of a city to those of a country as a whole, two 1875 books entitled
The Upper Ten Thousand set out to define the upper echelons of British society. Both Adam Bissett Thom (son of
Adam Thom) and
Kelly's Directory listed members of
the aristocracy,
the gentry, officers in the Army and Navy, members of Parliament, colonial administrators, and clergy of the
established church. The usage of this term was a response to the broadening of the British
ruling class which had been caused by the
Industrial Revolution. Most of the people listed in ''Kelly's Handbook to the Upper Ten Thousand'' were among the 30,000 descendants of
Edward III, King of England, tabulated in the
Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval's
Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal. Most also appeared in
Walford's County Families and Burke's
Landed Gentry.
Adolf Hitler referred to
Franklin D. Roosevelt as being in the Upper Ten Thousand in his 1941 speech
declaring war against the United States, while juxtaposing himself as "[sharing his] fate with millions of others." ==See also==