In the early 1980s, college-educated twenty- and thirtysomethings began taking up residence in blighted urban neighborhoods. Local press in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco reported on these nascent gentrifiers as if they were an invasive species.
"They seek neither comfort nor security, but stimulation," wrote Dan Rottenberg in Chicago magazine.
These so-called yuppies — a portmanteau of young urban professionals — were seen as regressive, distinct from their forebears, for whom escaping from cities to the suburbs was a hallmark of success.
Yuppie success, however, was material, a toehold gained in a changing economy no longer organized around manufacturing things but around financial services: manufacturing money into more money.
Veteran magazine journalist Tom McGrath autopsies the demographic in his engaging, well-researched and breezy historical book Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation ($32, Grand Central).
The Yuppie Trajectory
As teenagers, this college-educated vanguard of the baby boomer generation participated in the late-1960s protest movement. They then turned toward self-fulfillment in their 20s as the movement lurched into chaos and the country lurched into Nixonian retrogression.
So by the time 1980 came around, they were ready to focus their narcissism on financial gain.
McGrath focuses chapters on the big names of the era — Jerry Rubin, Jack Welch, Jane Fonda, Michael Milken, Donald Trump — who exemplify the yuppie ethos. But he goes well beyond the familiar narratives that typically define their stories.
We may know of Rubin's move from '60s agitator (he was one of the Chicago Seven arrested for anti-war activities in 1968) to 1980s investment banker. Less familiar is his members-only executive networking salon, which moved from a private apartment to take over the defunct Studio 54 in Manhattan.
Likewise, we are well aware of how Fonda and her ubiquitous aerobics tapes — known as a staple of early VCR purchases — helped usher in a shallow gym culture.
More surprising is that her enterprise used a method stolen from an instructor who'd rescued her following an on-set injury and that her entire workout business was used to fund then-husband Tom Hayden's progressive activism and early political career.
In-Depth Profiles
McGrath doesn't simply drop bold-face names. Some of the most detailed and compelling sections of the book feature the stories of little-known proto-yuppies, based on archival and contemporary interviews.
These include Steve Poses, who opened a Philadelphia Center City restaurant, Frog, in 1980. It subsequently launched what would be categorized a "foodie" empire today, helping push the wine bar, Asian/French fusion cuisine and the ferns-as-decor trend to the height of sophistication.
