I was raised as an upper-class WASP in New England, and there was this old tradition there that everyone would simply be guided into the right way after Ivy League college and onward and upward. And it rejected me, I rejected it, and I ended up as a kind of refugee, really.
Lacking ladylike poison, Lizzie (Borden) did what every over-civilized, understated Wasp is entirely capable of doing once we finally admit we're mad as hell and aren't going to take it any more: She went from Anglo to Saxon in a trice
It's the genteel anti-Semitism of the time. Jews were politely shut out of the country clubs and the higher echelons of WASP culture.
The nearest we have to a Henry James or an Edith Wharton of the East Coast's Wasp upper classes.