08:12

[Music – These Foolish Things by Benny Carter, Album Perfect Blues]

Section 2 – History & Historiography

[Music fade out]

08:27

There is more than one way to lose a fortune.  Money is not always renewable, though it does like to recycle itself amongst the elites.  But what makes money disappear?  That’s as important if not more than how to make it – as every aristocratic and royal family throughout history would know.  But what happens when there are too many heirs?

It’s so easy to watch and envy the flexing of wealth.  But oh how people try to hide when it’s being lost is even more interesting. 

08:54

This whole podcast journey began when I uncovered a gossip column detailing a summer of events in 1929 Newport.  The article stressed the importance of Alice Vanderbilt’s return to the Breakers after several years away.

Remember I warned you about too many similar names especially within the same family – hold on it’s about to get really bumpy & confusing.

09:16

Today, we might consider the Vanderbilts as established old money.  Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was a railroad and shipping tycoon literally paving the way with infrastructure for future American industrial millionaires Rockefeller, Carnegie, Firestone, Ford, JP Morgan, and the other big names.  Duke and Woolworth fortunes would be the next generation.  But these were all new money during America’s Gilded Age, 1870s-1900. 

In America, old money consisted of families dating back to the Mayflower until another relative newcomer broke in – America’s first self-made millionaire and fur trader John Jacob Astor.  By the 1880s, his family ran society especially under Caroline Astor, the grandmother of our two primary heirs Louise Van Alen and Jakey Astor.

10:07

While the men focused on building wealth and dominating industry, the women battled for control over social rank both outside the family as well as in.  There were always two rankings to consider – the one in the social strata of the elite and the other was within the family.

During her prime era, Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt found herself squarely in the middle of all that social intrigue.  She outlived and outlasted her rivals only to experience the dawn of a new era with more new rivals rising.

10:35

Caroline Astor was the reigning queen of Gilded Age Society.  With her ultra exclusive 400 list, she made sure strict adherence to rank as she so designated mattered. It was also Caroline who made “THE Mrs so-so” as the signifying mark of importance even within a family.  She was however toppled by a Vanderbilt.  Alva Vanderbilt to be exact, sister-in-law to Alice.  Caroline and Alice were descendants of colonial families, and Alva from a fairly well off merchant family that summered in Newport.  All three married into far greater fortunes.

11:10

Alice met her husband Cornelius II while both were teaching Sunday school.  She was considered modest and fairly lackluster, but she would prove durable.  They married in 1867 and had 7 children together.  Alice would bide her time climbing the social ranks, but her new sister-in-law Alva married to William in 1875 was not so meek.

It was Alva’s bold and bulldogged determination that really put the Vanderbilts into reigning over society.  She challenged and outsmarted Caroline Astor through their daughters.  Alva’s daughter Consuelo was having a much anticipated party, only to exclude a distraught Carrie, thereby forcing her mother Caroline Astor to accept Vanderbilts into her 400. 

11:55

Alva would continually challenge Caroline, and Alice would often enter into the game of one upmanship.  If Alva gave away silver party favors, Alice would give gold.  Their Newport cottages – Marble House and Breakers were magnificent pieces.  Though the Breakers so outshone the Marble House, that England’s Duke of Marlborough attempted to break his engagement with Alva’s daughter Consuelo for Alice’s daughter Gertrude.  The temperamental and artistic Gertrude refused, and Alva forced Consuelo into a very unhappy and one of the biggest and most disastrous American dollar princess marriages with European royalty.  They would later divorce.

12:36

Alva challenged everyone, including the more rigid and etiquette driven Alice.  Ignoring protocol of internal rank, Alva co-opted the moniker THE Mrs. Vanderbilt, much to Alice’s disapproval.  However when Alva did the unimaginable and divorced her Vanderbilt husband in 1895 – she created a whole new trend and her biggest legacy, divorce and remarriage amongst the elite.  Previously a social death sentence, but Alva was so powerful she kept her Queen Bee status, married the Jewish Oliver Belmont, got a new Newport home, and went on to promote women’s suffrage.

Upon the divorce, Alice took over the coveted THE Mrs. Vanderbilt title, meaning the one and only despite being amongst many.  But no sooner was she done with Alva, than a new rival popped up – Grace Wilson who married Alice’s second son Cornelius III also known as Neily in 1896.

13:32

Immediately, Alice and Cornelius II were against the match.  Grace had been engaged to their firstborn, now deceased son.  Disreputably Grace’s father made his money through Civil War profiteering, and all her siblings married so well they were known as the Marrying Wilsons or Matchmaking Wilsons.  Her brother married Carrie Astor, and one sister married a Goulet and the other sister the British Ambassador and brother to the Earl of Pembroke.  It has been noted Grace was fully intent on marrying a Vanderbilt no matter what.

14:03

Grace and Neily’s engagement was greatly contested by his parents.  Alice considered it to be the cause of Cornelius II’s stroke and early death.  After marrying in haste, Neily was disinherited, but the couple’s story was splashed across the headlines for its romanticism.  The majority of the fortune went to the third son Alfred. 

14:23

Alice and her husband Cornelius II had 7 children.  Alice would survive her husband by 35 years, and outlive 4 of their children.  Daughter Alice died in childhood in 1894, William died from typhoid while studying at Yale in 1892, Alfred died on the RMS Lusitania (the British ocean liner sunk by a German uboat during World War I) in 1915, and Reginald from cirrhosis of the liver in 1925 (he was Gloria Vanderbilt’s father).  By 1929, Alice’s three surviving children were son Neily and her two daughters famous artist Gertrude Whitney and Countess Gladys Szechenyi. 

15:04

The problem with the Vanderbilt fortune is that after Cornelius II – the Commodore’s grandson, no one accumulated the fortune like the first 3 generations. Instead there were far too many heirs spending far too lavishly.  The Commodore had attempted to follow the Astor path of leaving a very large sum to one son, a smaller portion to the remaining males, and a pittance to the females.  His son Billy doubled the fortune to $200 million then split the bulk of it between his two oldest sons, both of whom married Alice and Alva.  Another son Frederick managed to invest his small inheritance wisely but was widowed with no children thus left his fortune to his niece by marriage Daisy Van Alen.

15:45

Alice’s mere $7 million was lavish for 1899, but living for 35 more years definitely dwindled the remains.  By 1929, Alice’s long absence from Newport was actually an effort to cut costs.  She was hiding the fact that she could no longer continuously entertain.  She would often keep large sections of her New York West 57th Avenue mansion and the Breakers closed reducing both energy and staff needs. She would alternate between the two residences, never staying in both in the same year.

16:18

After the death of his remaining brothers, Neily reconciled with his mother Alice by 1926, almost 27 years later, and regained the sizeable fortune though somewhat diminished from $70 million now closer to $20 or 30 million.  He was a man of simple tastes more interested in inventing things and yachting.  His wife Grace however was quite a spendthrift.

Alice then had to continually contend with Grace’s overly presumptuous and enthusiastic bids to become THE Mrs. Vanderbilt (Grace even had the letterhead stashed in waiting). Grace did throw tremendous parties and reveled more in the social life than Alice ever did, but yielded the title to the dowager until her death in 1934.

16:59

When Alice did pass away, she left the Breakers to her youngest daughter Gladys, whose descendants occupied parts of the residence until 2018.  The New York West 57th Ave mansion eventually became the location of Bergdorf Goodman.

Vanderbilt properties included – in Newport the Breakers, Marble House, Beaulieu, at least two New York mansions on 5th Ave and West 57th Ave, North Carolina’s Biltmore Estate, and New York’s Grand Central.  Among the family endowments, support was given to The YMCA, New York Metropolitan Opera House, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Vanderbilt University, and Whitney Payne Museum.

The whole Vanderbilt family is a tale of fortune built, lost, inherited, and disinherited to be revisited in its various incarnations as our story permits.