Social Register
The Social Register was, at one time, a book detailing just who was a member of "polite society" in a given city. There has never been, at any time, a single all-encompassing Social Register known the world around. Instead, local indexes of powerful and wealthy individuals were compiled and published annually.
History
The precursor to the social register was the genealogical almanac, many of which were maintained more or less informally across Europe. In 1763, appeared the first edition of the Almanach de Gotha, which detailed the ancestry of all of the reigning European dynasties. This was followed in 1826 by Burke's Peerage, which identified the members of the peerage of the United Kingdom. The Gotha was useful in arranging suitable marriages. Burke's Peerage was extended in Burke's Landed Gentry.
In America, one of the better known examples is the New York Social Register, first published in 1887 by Louis Keller, a German-American who acquired the Rahway Valley Railroad Company in 1904 in order to transport passengenrs to his Baltusrol Golf Club, which he founded in 1895.
It initially consisted largely of the descendants of English or Dutch settlers, the merchant class who had built New York City. The Social Register is alleged to have pointedly excluded Jews and most Roman Catholics, but that is not the case -- one can go to the first New York edition to see that they were included from the beginning, as are African Americans.
While formerly published in separate editions for a number of American cities, including Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, New York, Kansas City, St. Louis, and San Francisco, The Social Register is now released annually as a single national directory, published in winter and summer editions. Persons aspiring to be listed must be sponsored by at least five individuals currently appearing in its pages. Those sponsored are reviewed by an Advisory Committee which has the final decision; about one quarter of suggester names are added each year. The Committee also arrives at additions on its own and send the potential listees "blanks" -- forms for the filling in of information. The President and Vice President are always included.
In addition to winter and summer addresses (termed "Dilatory Domiciles"), the Social Register lists the educational backgrounds, maiden names, and club affiliations of listed persons. Juniors can be listed with their parents beginning at the age of 13. It is sometimes called, humourously, a "stud book".
Members of so-called café society were not necessarily listed in the Social Registers, but that has changed. Bobby Short, the "king" of cafe society, (and also a prominent African American) was listed for many years until his death.
The New York-based Social Register is currently published by Forbes Magazine. A few independent social registers continue publication, such as the Denver Social Register and Record, which was established in 1914 and the Los Angeles Blue Book (also known as the Society Register of Southern California), which has published since 1917. While the latter naturally included a substantial number of Roman Catholics from onset, given that Spanish land-grant families created the city's elite society, it also continues to almost totally avoid persons in the entertainment field. Both of these editions are published annually.