Upper ten thousand

Upper Ten Thousand, or simply, The Upper Ten, is a phrase coined in 1852 by American poet Nathaniel Parker Willis to describe the upper circles of New York, and hence of other major cities.

In 1852, Charles Astor Bristed published a collection of sketches on New York Society entitled "The Upper Ten Thousand." It appeared in the Fraser Magazine. The phrase also appeared in 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'.