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  • New Report: Overdraft Practices On Checking Accounts Raise Serious Concerns for Consumers

    Interior of a bank

    Consumer Costs and Risks Vary By Institution

     The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a report that raises concerns about the ability of consumers to anticipate and avoid overdraft costs on their checking accounts. The report found wide variations across financial institutions when it comes to the costs and risks of opting in to overdraft coverage on debit card transactions and ATM withdrawals. The report also found that consumers who opt in for overdraft coverage end up with higher account fees and more involuntary account closures than consumers who decline to opt in.

    “Consumers need to be able to anticipate and avoid unnecessary fees on their checking accounts. But we are concerned that some overdraft practices may increase consumer costs beyond reasonable expectations,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “What is marketed as overdraft protection can, in some instances, create greater risk of consumer harm.”

     The overdraft report is available at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201306_cfpb_whitepaper_overdraft-practices.pdf

    When consumers try to withdraw more money from their checking accounts than is available, the financial institution can reject the transaction. For certain types of transactions, like checks, the institution generally charges a non-sufficient funds fee. The financial institution can also choose to cover the payment by advancing funds on the consumer’s behalf, and generally charges a fixed overdraft fee for doing so.

     In recent years, most depository institutions have adopted automated systems for making these decisions. These systems have contributed to the evolution of overdraft from an occasional courtesy to a significant source of industry revenues. The CFPB estimates that overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees represent 60 percent or more of the fee income on consumer checking accounts.

     The CFPB conducted this overdraft study, which reflects a significant portion of US consumer checking accounts, after initial market research raised concerns about overdraft practices. Many of these concerns are not new. Over the past decade, federal regulators have taken a number of different steps in an effort to address them. The CFPB report is intended to provide the factual basis to develop more uniform treatment of these issues across financial institutions. The report is based on data from a set of large banks supervised by the CFPB. The study was supplemented by other research and responses to a CFPB Request for Information issued to the public in February 2012.

     Opting-In Puts Consumers at Greater Risk

    In 2010, a new federal government regulation took effect requiring that depository institutions obtain a consumer’s consent (opt-in) before charging fees for allowing overdrafts on ATM withdrawals and most debit card transactions. Today’s CFPB report found that new customer opt-in rates varied substantially across institutions. At some banks in 2011, more than 40 percent of all new customers opted in while other banks saw opt-in rates of less than 10 percent. The report also found that a consumer’s decision to opt in may have significant ramifications:

  • Front-Line Heroes Subject to Budget Cuts: Wages for EMTs and Paramedics Vary Widely by State

    Woman Collapses in East Village, NYC

    Photograph: A woman collapsed on 7th Street in the East Village when she was with her family. Emergency Medical Technicians arrived and took her to the hospital as her mother and son stand nearby hugging. David Shankbone, photographer. Wikipedia

    By Marsha Mercer, Special to Stateline

    When bombs exploded in Boston and a monster tornado tore through Oklahoma, paramedics and emergency medical technicians ran toward danger. As first responders, they put their own lives at risk in order to save the lives of others.

    Yet EMTs and paramedics are governed by a haphazard patchwork of rules that vary widely by city and state. And their wages differ widely as well (see infographic), from a high of $52,930 a year in Washington, DC, to a low of $25,900 a year in Kansas. The national average wage was $34,370 in 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In smaller and rural communities, EMTs and paramedics are often volunteers.

    EMT Legislation This Year
    • At least 10 states enacted 28 laws this year affecting EMTs and paramedics.
    • Indiana, Kansas and Oklahoma lawmakers made it easier for military-trained emergency medical providers and veterans to qualify for licenses or to obtain temporary practice permits while satisfying other state requirements.
    • Virginia will require applicants for volunteer or paid EMS agencies to submit fingerprints for a national background check.
    Source: The National Conference of State Legislatures

    Accidents and violence-related injuries are the leading cause of death for Americans under age 44, but there is no federal agency responsible for coordinating or guiding emergency services that respond to these incidents. What federal funding is available drips from faucets in several different departments.

    In tough economic times, emergency services often are on the chopping block.

    A survey of Emergency Medical Services leaders in the 200 largest cities found 44 percent had cut services last year, according to the Journal of Emergency Medical Services. It found 28 percent of big-city EMS agencies had a hiring freeze or were not filling vacancies, some for the third consecutive year. Fifteen percent reported layoffs. Twenty-one percent had no cost-of-living or pay-for-performance increases, some for the fourth year, the journal said.

    “Several states have made catastrophic cuts to state EMS offices over the last few years, causing reductions in staff,” said Dia Gainor, executive director of the National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMSO). She singled out Alabama, New York and Iowa.

    A recent investigation by the Des Moines Register found Iowa’s EMS system “broken.” Staff in Iowa’s EMS bureau has been cut 40 percent and its budget reduced by more than one-third since 2009, resulting in delayed inspections of EMS providers and less oversight, the paper reported.

    Detroit’s EMS system has been “decimated” by layoffs, and other cities have had furloughs, layoffs and “rolling brownouts” in which a response office shuts down for a day, said Don Lundy, president of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, a federal advocacy group.

    Unlike public health, fire and police departments, emergency services are the new kids on the block. In the 1960s, a town’s mortician might respond to a car crash in a hearse. The federal government took a leadership role in the 1970s, developing the nationwide 911 phone system and establishing EMTs as a profession. But funding dropped dramatically in the early 1980s.

    “Since then, the push to develop more organized systems of EMS delivery has diminished, and EMS systems have been left to develop haphazardly across the United States,” the Institute of Medicine reported in 2006. The report, “Emergency Medical Services: At the Crossroads,” described the nation’s EMS system as one of “severe fragmentation, an absence of systemwide coordination and planning, and a lack of accountability.”

    Bureaucratic Confusion

    Even the number of EMTs and paramedics is uncertain.

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics said there were 232,860 paid EMTs and paramedics in 2012, based on its survey of employers.

    In a 2011 report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said there were 826,111 certified EMTs and paramedics, based on a survey of state EMS officials. This number includes part-time, unpaid volunteers and those who receive stipends, as well as full-time paid staff. They work in a wide range of settings, including hospitals, clinics, law enforcement agencies, fire stations, oil rigs, Indian reservations, ambulances and air transport.  NHTSA also said the BLS doesn’t distinguish between EMTs and paramedics and doesn’t identify EMS cross-trained as firefighters.

  • Sargent’s Watercolors: A Study in Sunlight

    John Singer Sargent’s Watercolors at the Brooklyn Museum; through July 28, 2013

    “[T]o live with Sargent’s water-colours is to live with sunlight captured and held.”
    — Evan Charteris, the artist’s friend and biographer

    By Val CastronovoBedouins

     John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) is best known for his magisterial portraits in oil — think Madame X (1883-84) or The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) — but as this brilliant show in Brooklyn demonstrates, his talent was not confined to oil on canvas.  The nearly 100 works on paper, culled from the collections of both the Brooklyn Museum and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, are a study in sunlight, seen through the filter of luminous, transparent color washes.

    Born in Florence to American parents, Sargent first trained there before enrolling in the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He lived mostly in Europe, eventually settling in London. He had been painting with watercolors since he was 12, but stepped up production of water-colored landscapes and figure painting after 1900, the focus of Brooklyn’s exhibit.

    His watercolors only traveled twice to the United States for major displays — in 1909 and 1912, both at New York’s Knoedler gallery.  The Brooklyn Museum purchased the contents of the first show, while the Museum of Fine Arts swooped up the contents of the second show.  The collections have been united in Brooklyn this spring for the first time since their acquisition by the two institutions more than 100 years ago.

    In all, Sargent produced some 2,000 works in the medium, once telling a close friend that he painted watercolors to “keep up my morale.”  Painting in oil had “grown stale.”  His subjects range from the bleached, marble quarries of Carrara, Italy, to the Bedouin camps of the Middle East, two of his more unusual series. His travels outside the portrait studio in pursuit of his art and a more liberated style took him to Jerusalem, Beirut, and Syria (the Ottoman Levant) for five months in 1905-06 for the vivid, indigo Bedouin scenes, all now part of the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection. (See Bedouins, 1905-06, above.)Simplon Pass

    European sojourns included Venice, Florence, Lucca, Majorca (in addition to the Spanish mainland), Corfu, and the Alps, the latter where he habitually summered with friends and relatives, who conveniently served as models for his lush paintings of women in flowing garments sprawled on the grass, parasols in hand.  The subject:  idleness.  (See Simplon Pass: Reading,  about 1911, right.)

    His debt to the Impressionists, his friend Monet in particular, is readily apparent in these sun-drenched, en plein air works that seek to capture particular moments in time.  As the curators write in the preface to the full-color catalogue, he was drawn to certain themes — “sun on stone, reclining figures tumbled together, patterns of light and shadow.”  White on white — light as it strikes a house, a sheet, a garment, a marble block or a balustrade — should be added to the list of themes that he returns to again and again in these works completed between 1900 and 1911.  In La Biancheria (1910), a clothesline with wet linens, Sargent pays homage to light bouncing off white sheets, with shadows sketched in blue, purple and tan.

  • Five Ways Congress is Trying to Curb Rape in the Military

    by Christie Thompson ProPublica, June 5, 2013

    Elmendorf F-15 pilotsElmendorf F-15 pilots

    Photograph: Four F-15 Eagle pilots from the 3rd Wing walk to their respective jets at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, 2006. US Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Keith Brown

    When the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the US military’s sexual assault crisis, lawmakers grilled Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine officials on the alarmingly high number of rapes and other sexual abuses in their ranks.

    Political momentum to address the problem has been building since the Pentagon released statistics last month showing that sexual assault increased by 35 percent between 2010 and 2012. The outcry grew louder when a string of scandals came to light, including alleged sexual assaults by Army and Air Force officials who were in charge of preventing sexual abuse.

    Senators have rushed to draft legislation to hold attackers accountable and provide support for victims. But at the Senate hearing, officials steadfastly opposed most major changes in the way sexual assault cases are prosecuted. “It will undermine the readiness of the force … [and] will hamper the timely delivery of justice,” said Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno.

    Here’s a rundown of key congressional proposals and what the military is saying about them.

    1. Stop giving military commanders the final say on rape convictions

    Under the military’s criminal procedures, commanders have clemency powers, which means they can dismiss military court convictions “for any reason or no reason.” The policy came under fire this spring when Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin overturned a jury’s ruling that Lt. Col. James Wilkerson, a fighter pilot, was guilty of aggravated sexual assault. Another official, Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, was blocked from a promotion in May for throwing out a captain’s sexual assault conviction without any public explanation.

    In April, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel voiced support for stripping commanders of this power. Under Hagel’s proposal, commanders could still reduce someone’s sentence but would have to submit a reason in writing. Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., have called for similar changes. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., introduced a House bill that goes further, removing a commander’s authority to overturn or reduce a judge’s sentence.

    Military officials are open to reforming the policy, though they say the Wilkerson case inflated outrage over a rarely-used power. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Armed Services Committee and former Air Force lawyer, has been the only lawmaker to speak out against the proposed change in policy.

    2. Have lawyers determine which assault cases are credible — not the defendant’s boss

    Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has called for the most major shift in how the military tries sexual assault cases. Now, commanders decide which cases are investigated and prosecuted, and which are thrown out. Gillibrand’s bill proposes giving independent military prosecutors that power for sex crimes and other serious charges. Commanders have an incentive to ignore rape allegations, advocates of the change say, because it reflects poorly on their leadership.

  • Elaine Soloway’s Caregiving Series: Softie

    Tommy and I are on a subway platform in Chicago’s Loop waiting for the Blue Line to take us home. I’m leaning on a metal column and peering down the track to spot the headlights of the next westward bound train. Two guitars

    My husband has positioned himself on the opposite side and selected his own pillar for support. His eyes are riveted on a pair of musicians a few feet from me. The male plays a guitar and the woman sings — a Spanish song, quite lovely and a nice respite from the clang of trains and chatter of waiting passengers.

    An open guitar case is at their feet. Some paper bills are already strewn inside from earlier donors, and perhaps the duo has seeded the case to encourage more.

    I leave my train-watching to focus on my husband. I stare as his hand reaches into his pocket. I knew this would be coming. His eyes are misting as he pulls out his wallet and extracts a bill, which I’m hoping is one dollar. He  drops it into the guitar case and the duo nods a gracias in his direction.

    “Musicians are okay,” I had told him earlier. “But the panhandlers on the corner could be scam artists.” I believe this is true, for I’ve seen one on crutches suddenly able-bodied and sauntering from his spot near our house.

    My husband obeys this rule. As long as he can drop a bill into a musician’s case, he’s a happy philanthropist.

    Since I didn’t know Tommy in his younger days, I can’t attest to his generosity back then. But, because he’s always been frugal, I’m assuming he wasn’t so quick on the draw with street musicians and beggars.

    I could be wrong, but I think the new largess is part of his current condition. The frontal lobe of the brain affects emotions and ever since his began to deteriorate, he’s become a softie. Along with his charity, he’s a weeper at sad and happy television shows, and bar mitzvahs and weddings.

  • Bernanke at Princeton: Don’t Be Afraid To Let the Drama Play Out

    The Ten SuggestionsBen Bernanke

    It’s nice to be back at Princeton. I find it difficult to believe that it’s been almost 11 years since I departed these halls for Washington. I wrote recently to inquire about the status of my leave from the university, and the letter I got back began, “Regrettably, Princeton receives many more qualified applicants for faculty positions than we can accommodate.”

    I’ll extend my best wishes to the seniors later, but first I want to congratulate the parents and families here. As a parent myself, I know that putting your kid through college these days is no walk in the park. Some years ago I had a colleague who sent three kids through Princeton even though neither he nor his wife attended this university. He and his spouse were very proud of that accomplishment, as they should have been. But my colleague also used to say that, from a financial perspective, the experience was like buying a new Cadillac every year and then driving it off a cliff. I should say that he always added that he would do it all over again in a minute. So, well done, moms, dads, and families.

    This is indeed an impressive and appropriate setting for a commencement. I am sure that, from this lectern, any number of distinguished spiritual leaders have ruminated on the lessons of the Ten Commandments. I don’t have that kind of confidence, and, anyway, coveting your neighbor’s ox or donkey is not the problem it used to be, so I thought I would use my few minutes today to make Ten Suggestions, or maybe just Ten Observations, about the world and your lives after Princeton. Please note, these points have nothing whatsoever to do with interest rates. My qualification for making such suggestions, or observations, besides having kindly been invited to speak today by President Tilghman, is the same as the reason that your obnoxious brother or sister got to go to bed later — I am older than you. All of what follows has been road-tested in real-life situations, but past performance is no guarantee of future results.

    1. The poet Robert Burns once said something about the best-laid plans of mice and men ganging aft agley, whatever “agley” means. A more contemporary philosopher, Forrest Gump, said something similar about life and boxes of chocolates and not knowing what you are going to get. They were both right. Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks he or she knows where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination. Look what happened to me: A dozen years ago I was minding my own business teaching Economics 101 in Alexander Hall and trying to think of good excuses for avoiding faculty meetings. Then I got a phone call . . . In case you are skeptical of Forrest Gump’s insight, here’s a concrete suggestion for each of the graduating seniors. Take a few minutes the first chance you get and talk to an alum participating in his or her 25th, or 30th, or 40th reunion you know, somebody who was near the front of the P-rade. Ask them, back when they were graduating 25, 30, or 40 years ago, where they expected to be today. If you can get them to open up, they will tell you that today they are happy and satisfied in various measures, or not, and their personal stories will be filled with highs and lows and in-betweens. But, I am willing to bet, those life stories will in almost all cases be quite different, in large and small ways, from what they expected when they started out. This is a good thing, not a bad thing; who wants to know the end of a story that’s only in its early chapters? Don’t be afraid to let the drama play out.

    2. Does the fact that our lives are so influenced by chance and seemingly small decisions and actions mean that there is no point to planning, to striving? Not at all. Whatever life may have in store for you, each of you has a grand, lifelong project, and that is the development of yourself as a human being. Your family and friends and your time at Princeton have given you a good start. What will you do with it? Will you keep learning and thinking hard and critically about the most important questions? Will you become an emotionally stronger person, more generous, more loving, more ethical? Will you involve yourself actively and constructively in the world? Many things will happen in your lives, pleasant and not so pleasant, but, paraphrasing a Woodrow Wilson School adage from the time I was here, “Wherever you go, there you are.” If you are not happy with yourself, even the loftiest achievements won’t bring you much satisfaction.

  • Medicare and Social Security: Changes Needed to Avoid Consequences Are More Urgent

     Each year the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds report on the current and projected financial status of the two programs. This message summarizes the 2013 Annual Reports.Kathleen Sibelius

    Neither Medicare nor Social Security can sustain projected long-run programs in full under currently scheduled financing, and legislative changes are necessary to avoid disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers. If lawmakers take action sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also help elected officials minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and people already dependent on program benefits.

    Social Security and Medicare together accounted for 38 percent of federal expenditures in fiscal year 2012. Both programs will experience cost growth substantially in excess of GDP growth through the mid-2030s due to rapid population aging caused by the large baby-boom generation entering retirement and lower-birth-rate generations entering employment and, in the case of Medicare, to growth in expenditures per beneficiary exceeding growth in per capita GDP. In later years, projected costs expressed as a share of GDP trend up slowly for Medicare and are relatively flat for Social Security, reflecting very gradual population aging caused by increasing longevity and slower growth in per-beneficiary health care costs.

    Social Security

    Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program satisfies neither the Trustees’ long-range test of close actuarial balance nor their short-range test of financial adequacy and faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds. DI Trust Fund reserves expressed as a percent of annual cost (the trust fund ratio) declined to 85 percent at the beginning of 2013, and the Trustees project trust fund depletion in 2016, the same year projected in the last Trustees Report. DI cost has exceeded non-interest income since 2005, and the trust fund ratio has declined since peaking in 2003. While legislation is needed to address all of Social Security’s financial imbalances, the need has become most urgent with respect to the program’s DI component. Lawmakers need to act soon to avoid reduced payments to DI beneficiaries three years from now.

    Social Security’s total expenditures have exceeded non-interest income of its combined trust funds since 2010, and the Trustees estimate that Social Security cost will exceed non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period. The deficit of non-interest income relative to cost was about $49 billion in 2010, $45 billion in 2011, and $55 billion in 2012. The Trustees project that this cash-flow deficit will average about $75 billion between 2013 and 2018 before rising steeply as income growth slows to the sustainable trend rate after the economic recovery is complete and the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. Redemption of trust fund asset reserves by the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset Social Security’s annual aggregate cash-flow deficits. Since the cash-flow deficit will be less than interest earnings through 2020, reserves of the combined trust funds measured in current dollars will continue to grow, but not by enough to prevent the ratio of reserves to one year’s projected cost (the combined trust fund ratio) from declining. (This ratio peaked in 2008, declined through 2012, and is expected to decline steadily in future years.) After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund asset reserves to the extent that program cost exceeds tax revenue and interest earnings until depletion of total trust fund reserves in 2033, the same year projected in last year’s Trustees Report. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2087.

  • Shopping for Father’s Day: Blåkläder Workwear, Sun Protecting Hats, Folding Walking Stick Seats, A Numeric Conversion Apron and Recipe Divider Magnet

    We’re ask the question yearly ‘what do you need’ for Father’s Day? But the question is what do you want for yourself; my husband named a few items, some whose maker you may not have heard of. In addition, we added new sunscreen rules from the FDA that we thought important. 

    Blåkläder Workwear offers a line of very durable work clothes, many with extra pockets for special purposes such as jeans with flap pockets at the knees to add knee pads.  My husband bought their Roughneck Kangaroo black vest which, as the name suggests, has multiple utility pockets  — or pouches — front and back providing lots of storage for tools and materials, as well as cell phone, keys and more.  By the way, Blåkläder is the only workwear manufacturer that offers a lifetime warranty on its seams. They also make gloves and shoes.

    While he most often wears it for DIY tasks, it works as well in the garden.   It is well constructed with triple stitched seams, and reinforced back utility pockets that are Cordura  lined for extra strength.  Wide loops are provided so it can be worn with a belt, but the benefit of a vest is that it carries most of the weight on the shoulders rather than on the hips which relieves his back.

    Occasionally we’ll both use a rest seat, something to bring along as they’re so light, to sporting events, outdoor lectures or classes and on those excursions that don’t supply seats at all. It’s the Homecraft Folding Walking Stick Seat (see illustration) or the ProActive Golfers Walking Chair.

    Although a couple of our in-laws are fantastic chefs, we found two items that each might like: 

    Fed up of frantically thumbing through cook books while your goulash explodes? Or coating your keyboard in baked beans and bolognese while help on Google loads? Fear not! Instead we’ve moved the help to the place you’re supposed to wipe your dirty hands! The Cooking Guide Apron is full of useful information.  Guide includes:  numeric conversions, cooking times for vegetables, roasting times for birds, freezing instructions, defrosting times, a cooking glossary and more.

    • Made of 100% natural unbleached cotton
    • Measures 34.25 x 34.5-inches

    The other kitchen item should stave off those inquiries (if the apron didn’t) of ‘how many cups, tablespoons to a milliliter?’. Obviously, you can point the novice (or experienced for that matter), to the Web, but a shortcut could be a Recipe Divider I picked up at a kitchen shop: Amco Houseworks, an award-winning brand, has been making cooking and cleaning easier since the 1970s. They specialize in combining precision and performance to create stylishly designed premium kitchen tools. Easily divide or multiply recipe measurement in halfs or thirds with the Amco recipe divider magnet. The outer tab helps to easily navigate through measurements while the magnet on the back keeps the divider handy on any magnetic surface. Both standard and metric conversions are listed. Made from stainless steel.

    Leading up to our FDA new sunscreen rules made us think of a new hat that my husband needed to shield him from the sun that sends him to a dermatologist every four months, yes, four. The Wallaroo Hat Company of Boulder, Colorado was founded by Stephanie Carter and Lenya Shore in April 1999 after they discovered the Aussie secret to sun protection with style: colorful UPF 50+ crushable fabric hats. They began wearing them around Boulder, a city known for its outdoor lifestyle and more than 300 sunny days each year.

    The complete collection includes 42 distinct styles in solid, brightly colored fabrics, as well as tropical prints and neutrals. Canvas, loose weave, microfiber, cotton twill, poly-braid, and polystraw make the Wallaroo Hat Collection washable, crushable and versatile for everyday work or play. Each Wallaroo hat has been designed with an internal or external drawstring to make it one-size fits most. The site also includes a page on hat-wearing tips for men and women.Outback style for men

    And perhaps the best gift to everyone, including men on Father’s Day, would be a sunscreen that follows the FDA’s new rules:

  • Review: Kristin Nord Takes a Walkabout at Yale’s Edwardian Opulence Exhibit

    by Kristin NordOstrich Fan

    Ah,  the Edwardians – with their sumptuous clothes and candelight dinners, their bone china, their silks, their gleaming silver.  Merchant and Ivory and the BBC have made fortunes selling fanciful pastiches of this era to the viewing pubic, all the while touching lightly on a less seemly back story.

    Photograph: Unknown maker, probably English, Mrs. James de Rothschild’s Ostrich Feather Fan, 1912–13, ostrich feathers, blond tortoiseshell, platinum, and diamonds, Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (Rothschild Family Trust). Courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT

    Edwardian Opulence at the Yale Center for British Art digs a little deeper to hint at this underside, in a stimulating exhibition more than 10 years in the making. The paintings, photographs, and artifacts included in this exhibit roughly correspond with the reign of King Edward VII (1901-1910) and immediately prior to the First World War in August 1914, beginning with a remarkable gown embellished with traditional Indian embroidery and beadwork and moving through a series of galleries that explore the ways in which  Edwardians were on the cusp of change.

    In this world an aristocracy clung to habits and shrinking holdings while the leading tastemaker, the wife of the Viceroy of India, was in fact, a wealthy American.  Suddenly women to the manner borne were posing for photographs beside their first automobiles instead of sitting for oil portraits with their whippets.

    Opulence for this group seemed rather often synonymous with excess. Men rang for port on a Faberge bell pushes; women wore tiaras and broaches made of blood diamonds from South Africa.  Up close, these people could have served as character studies for the very wealthy a century later, safely hidden behind closed gates. It was during this time that Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” in The Theory of the Leisure Class – and no wonder.

    Yet there were forces conspiring to challenge this increasingly decadent world – as women organized for suffrage, and an emerging middle class fought for workers’ rights.  American money was flowing into the British Isles, underwriting the construction of cathedral-like department stores that would soon supply goods to the upwardly mobile. In this exhibition it’s oddly touching to see portraits of a nouveau riche floozy in a bit of a faceoff against a female aristocrat. It’s as if each could have just dressed for dinner with the Bloomsbury group – only the woman literally spilling out of her black evening gown will just get so far.

    This exhibition offers a wonderful inside tour of the ups and downs of this age – and the many innovations that were fueling a change in how people lived and the stations to which they aspired.  There are audio and film galleries where you can hear rare tapes of prominent people and see footage of London where automobiles and horse-drawn carriages are struggling to accommodate each other. There are photographers using cameras as tools for art making, and artists capturing the excitement of London’s theater district. In the powerful portrait of the unknown soldier, one senses war has officially ended this era; one world has drawn to a close as another chafes in the wings. 

    Yet the fairy-tale version of this era continues to capture our imaginations.

    ©2013 Kristin Nord for SeniorWomen.com

  • Edwardian Opulence at Yale: ‘As If a Viennese Hussar Had Suddenly Burst Into an English Vicarage’

    Diana of the Uplands

    The Yale Center for British Art has hosted Edwardian Opulence: British Art at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, the first major international exhibition in more than a generation to survey visual and decorative arts in Britain during the reign of King Edward VII (1901–1910). The exhibition immerses visitors in the sumptuousness of British art and society immediately before World War I, while encouraging them to consider the multifaceted character of the era that fostered such material lavishness.

    Painting: Charles Wellington Furse, Diana of the Uplands, 1903–04, oil on canvas, Tate Britain. All photography from: ‘Edwardian Opulence: British Art at the Dawn of the 20th Century’

    On view are approximately one hundred seventy objects, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, furniture, jewelry, costume, and decorative arts by both British and international artists and designers, such as William Orpen, John Singer Sargent, William Nicholson, and Carl Fabergé. The exhibit closes on June 2, 2013.

    Edwardian Opulence has been organized by the Yale Center for British Art and  features key loans from private collections and public institutions around the world, including The Royal Collection, the collections of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Rothschild, Tate Britain, the South African National Gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria,Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and Collection Cartier in Geneva.Boldini's Portrait of a Lady

    Painting by Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931), Portrait of a Lady (Mrs. Lionel Phillips), 1903, oil on canvas, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane.

    Sandwiched between the Victorian era and the Great War, Edwardian England — lately made popular by the wildly successful British series, Downton Abbey, — has been difficult to define, characterized by marked dualities. One view holds that the period was a lingering coda of the Victorian era that resisted the advent of the Modern. The opposite view maintains that it was a period of tremendous social and technological change that affected every aspect of British life.