[1] With the advent of the Gilded Age, fashionable ladies began the practice of leaving calling cards at the homes of other notable women whom they visited.

[1][2] In 1887, Louis Keller, a newspaper society columnist and golf promoter, compiled the names of those on the visiting lists of the most prominent New York women into a published volume titled the Social Register.

[5] A 1973 column in The New York Times about that year's Social Register observed that – unlike males listed – the volume did not list the universities attended by females, unless they were students: "The fact that Mazie Cox is a 1967 graduate of Smith is not mentioned, although pains are taken to indicate that she is a member of the Colony Club, the Daughters of the Cincinnati and the Colonial Dames of America.

According to McNamee and Miller: "the acronym WASP... is exemplified by the Social Register, a list of prominent upper-class families first compiled in 1887...

[11] In European countries, similar directories for the perceived upper class, such as Burke's Peerage and Landed Gentry in the United Kingdom, or the Carnet Mondain and High Life in Belgium, have been published for centuries.

According to the Robb Report, inclusion in the Social Register "bespeaks old money, Ivy League, trust funds, privileges of birth, fox hunting, debutante balls, yachting, polo, distinguished forebears, family compounds in the Adirondacks, and a pedigree studded with 19th-century robber barons".

[3] A person's listing in the Register generally includes contact information, schools attended, and the social and country clubs to which he or she belongs.

[12] Many institutions and organizations are cited repeatedly using an extensive system of abbreviations (e.g., "P" for Princeton University, "BtP" for the Bath and Tennis Club of Palm Beach, Florida).

Kim Kardashian and Gloria Vanderbilt were never listed and Donald Trump, prior to his election as President of the United States, was not included.

[17] In the early 20th century, historian Dixon Wecter observed that those excluded tended to be persons unfavorably reported upon in the press and that, as long as one's private life "keeps out of the [newspaper's] columns" the risk of exclusion was low.