Episode 33: Without Honors
While heiresses contend with debuts, heirs must focus on school, graduation, and university. Will the pressures of exams cause one heir to crack?
During his sixth year at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, Huntington Hartford enjoys a bit of popularity after successes in the solo sports squash and tennis – and literary. Only when he is caught cheating during his final exams, he once again faces the condemnation of his classmates who refuse to walk if he participates in graduation, despite his mother Henrietta’s generous offer.
Archival music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Extra links:
New York Adventure Club www.nyadventureclub.com
Instagram: Mansions of the Gilded Age and The Gilded Age Society by Gary Lawrance
GoFundMe for Mansions of the Gilded Age archive digitization https://gofund.me/6c0d7a53
Publish Date: June 10, 2021
Length: 21:34
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: One Two, Button Your Shoe by Jack Hylton, Album The Great Dance Bands Play Hits of the 30s
Section 2 Music: Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue by The Savoy Orpheans, Album Fascinating Rhythm – Great Hits of the 20s
Section 3 Music: Umtcha, Umtcha, Da Da Da by The Rhythmic Eight, Album Fascinating Rhythm – Great Hits of the 20s
End Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
AS THE MONEY BURNS
Podcast by Nicki Woodard
Episode 033 – Without Honors
00:00
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast by Nicki Woodard. Based on historical research, this is a deep exploration into what happened to a set of actual heirs and heiresses to some of America’s most famous fortunes when the Great Depression hits.
Each episode has three primary sections. Section 1 is a narrative story. Section 2 goes deeper into the historical facts. Section 3 focuses on contemporary, emotional, and personal connections.
00:27
Story Recap
While Barbara Hutton’s aunts get involved in planning her debut, Doris Duke’s bow at Buckingham Palace has made her an instant celebrity. Meanwhile others hide their less fortunate twists of fate.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:46
Without Honors
[Music fade out]
Episode Tag
00:49
While heiresses contend with debuts, heirs must focus on school, graduation, and university. Will the pressures of exams cause one heir to crack?
01:00
[Music – One Two, Button Your Shoe by Jack Hylton, Album The Great Dance Bands Play Hits of the 30s]
Section 1 – Story
[Music fade out]
01:17
At the strict barebones existence known as St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, baby faced richest boy Huntington Hartford has suffered five long years of derision and outcast status.
Now the no frills school is even more barren of the basic niceties. The Crash leaves its mark as some of the students have withdrawn no longer able to afford tuition.
01:38
Huntington is used to the isolation while at school. He never really did belong. Pick a reason – uber wealth, Jewish ancestry on his mother’s side, smaller stature, sensitive disposition,… The austere boys school is hell for him. His overly ambitious mother Henrietta hopes this educational experience will put him in all the right clubs and associations. Instead, Huntington withdraws more with a growing resentment of the snobbishness, limitations, and restrictions revolving around life in elite circles. Huntington would have never been good at the team sports like ice hockey, for which this school excels.
02:16
Hardly making any friends, Huntington misses his pals proud Titanic heir Jakey Astor and tennis star Frank Shields. The trio’s competition and misadventures last summer provided Huntington with an advantage for his senior year when he becomes the school’s squash champion and the second best tennis player.
Somehow this year now 6th in total, his misery subsides as he finds himself a little on the inside as success after success seems to roll into him. On top of his solo sports victories, Huntington scores another win this last winter when the school literary magazine publishes his essay on summer vacations. Discovering a passion for writing, the idealistic heir extolls the virtues of an independent youth who takes a vacation away from parental supervision on limited funds and explores the world on his own.
03:07
Inspired, Huntington does not want to be the idle rich nor the overly coddled. No instead, Huntington longs for adventure, freedom, and a life of daring. Like those books from Robinson Crusoe or the Parisian Café Society. Money he feels should be used as a means to do more, not just pampered luxury so many in his set seem to indulge. Even Jakey his defacto best friend is one who aspires to be the idle rich Huntington detests, but Jakey’s older half-brother Vincent Astor flouts the conventions of the upper classes and does as he damn well pleases. Huntington definitely has plans for when he comes into the bulk of his fortune to be more like that.
Only the immediate path is clear. Harvard is right around the corner, and with it more rigid rules and socializing with the same elite circles. Huntington is too aware that his fortune far exceeds his peers, and he suffers a sense of superiority from his more nobler ambitions and aspirations.
04:07
Still for the moment, he really can’t complain as his minor popular status is definitely more enjoyable than being a complete outcast. But this is Huntington Hartford, and he is bound to screw it up eventually.
As the school year ends, and everyone is set on their next scholastic ventures. There is only one last thing to complete before leaving the isolated rural existence of St. Paul’s.
Final exams.
Merely a technicality for someone like Huntington.
04:37
In the main building, the boys line up to pick up their exams then head off to their various designated places in the study rooms. Proctors roam the halls and various rooms checking on the students.
Huntington stares down exam questions and the blank paper where his answers should be filled. Of course, he knows the material, but in a momentary lapse his mind goes blank. The dredgery of all this so close to being done, and there are 4 more years to go at Harvard. Huntington’s sweaty hands wet the paper making it harder to write on.
05:09
Next to him, another student is hunched over scribbling away furiously.
How can he be so far ahead? He’s is not a literary genius, and yet this guy is sailing through the test.
Huntington’s mind still can’t focus. Everything and anything distracts him. A proctor’s footsteps can be heard coming and going. Rhythmic, habitual, timely. The sands in the clock slipping down to the end.
Other students can be heard scribbling away, flipping their papers, shuffling their feet, tapping pencils as they think. Minor sounds grow deafening as all others concentrate.
05:49
There he goes again, that fool has finished another essay question. How can this be? Does he know something? Is he hiding a crib sheet? This seems suspicious.
Huntington looks back at his barely scribbled on paper. A tinge of vertigo forming. Nausea kicking in. There will not be a retest.
He peers over the other student’s shoulder and sees a line or too.
What? That’s not right. He’s answering the question all wrong. But what is the right answer? A half answer is better than none.
Huntington jots a few familiar terms to help spark his own thoughts. This helps. It really does. Only a few more questions, and it will soon be over.
06:32
“Mr. Hartford.” Huntington turns around to see a very stern proctor glaring at him.
Busted.
The proctor grabs the paper and Huntington by the collar. The big fuss gets all the other students’ attention as Huntington is marched off to the rector’s office.
There Huntington sits on the hard wooden chair complete in his humiliation as they call his mother Henrietta. He leaves to go back to his dorm room where all eyes stare him down or completely ignore him.
Back to being unwanted and isolated. Graduation only a few more days away.
07:11
Henrietta rushes over to the school to smooth things over. She wants her boy to graduate and walk in the prestigious ceremony. Something definitely unlikely when academic violations such as this occur.
She brushes off the incident as a minor indiscretion due to nerves. She’s persistent. Huntington did so well this last year. They would be very generous.
Remember this is shortly after the Crash, the school is struggling as many former alumni aren’t donating like previous years, so the need for any and all goodwill is an overwhelming factor.
Henrietta generously offers to build a brand new gymnasium, if they will overlook this unfortunate mishap. The school is willing to concede. Huntington never had a similar situation in his whole 6 years. A concession could be made.
08:03
As the commencement nears, former alumni gather for the 74th Anniversary activities. Several hundred join events like 16 crews regatta down at Lake Penacook.
At a special luncheon, then former US Ambassador Houghton gives a speech, “Everything is brought into the merciless light of publicity. Even today, when that public opinion focuses it exerts a power which cannot be denied. It is more powerful than armaments. It is stronger than the strongest nation. It is the greatest potential force in the world.”
08:38
Afterwards, Rector Drury announces the various upcoming gifts to encourage more from the less financially challenged alumni, including an anonymous donation to be used for beautification at the discretion of the school.
Incited over the obvious bribe, the more academically righteous and virtuous students are in an uproar and demand justice. The student council gathers and deliberates. Heatedly, the other students refuse to walk if Huntington is allowed to participate. Rector Drury tries to reason with them, but the student council will not budge on their principles.
09:14
The week after is filled with prominent families from all across the United States and several foreign countries as 64 students line up for graduation as members of the form of 1930. The commencement ceremony and later dance are held in the gymnasium.
One student is absent from participating at all events.
Huntington slips away with his mother Henrietta for a European excursion and won’t return until late summer after the international yacht races in Newport. It’s not exactly the wanderlust adventure he wrote so award winningly in his prized essay. However for the time being, they evade public scrutiny and scandal.
09:52
St. Paul would not receive a new gymnasium for quite some time. Meanwhile Henrietta builds a state of the art indoor gymnasium at the Newport Seaverge estate so that Huntington will continue to excel at his sports of choice – tennis and squash.
Maybe by fall, all will be better when Huntington heads off to Harvard – where he will once again face some of his St. Paul’s classmates.
10:17
[Music – Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue by The Savoy Orpheans, Album Fascinating Rhythm – Great Hits of the 20s]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music fade out]
10:33
Each podcast episode is conceived and researched through a variety of sources. After configuring a general timeline of events, I filter out personal stories from biographies and autobiographies, then elaborate more details from news articles of the era. The scandal of Huntington’s cheating is only referenced in the biography Squandered Fortune by Lisa Rebecca Gubernick, while the surrounding graduation events were fleshed out by period news articles. As I am coming much later to the story, after many witnesses have passed away, I am grateful to the diligent biographers and historians who have delved into the subjects, and I delight in further enhancing the story with tiny tidbits, insights, and perspectives especially ones that feel relevant to our contemporary lives.
11:14
While female education was less a priority then, for males it was a defining accomplishment. Huntington’s close friends John Jacob Astor VI, aka Jakey, a year younger will not graduate from Newport’s St. Georges until 1932 then join him at Harvard. Tennis star Frank Shields graduates from Roxbury in 1930 but does not achieve his goal of going to Yale. Instead he heads off to the University of Pittsburgh, for a very brief stint, then on to more tennis accolades.
George Huntington Hartford II ended his 6 years of education at St. Paul’s School without pomp and circumstance and without any newsworthy articles as would follow him later in his life.
11:52
No this time, various newspapers announced their locals who were graduates that year at St. Paul’s. The representations were from various cities and states, and only one graduate was actually from New Hampshire. Many were proud of their association with the elite prep school, with most other press announcements involving alumni marriage and engagement announcements. Overall 64 participated in graduation out of possibly 74 in the class (sources vary), 20 were marked as cum laude with various honors, high honors, and scholarships.
12:24
At the 74th Anniversary luncheon of “old boys” referring to the alumni, Rector Doctor Samuel Drury bragged at the $550k donations to the school over the year, though an obvious decrease in donations from past years. One large donation of $250k came from deceased donor Alexander Cochran, another for science by Alfred Loomis among other donations and their potential allotments such as an organ or coaching for the crew. While it might all sound generous, a new gymnasium would not be included.
12:57
Henrietta Hartford must have hated missing all the activities, especially as she was always on the lookout for eligible wealthy men for herself. She loved publicity too, but she knew better than to be one of scandal. The only press associated with her and Huntington or a gymnasium would be the indoor one she builds at their Seaverge estate that very year.
Don’t worry, I’m sure St. Paul’s got one several times, even as recent as 2004 St. Paul’s opened a $24 million, 95,000 square feet Athletic & Fitness Center.
13:28
Unrelated to graduation activities, another St. Paul’s student and lower classman 16 year old Alexis Thompson from Chicago was reported on his $3.5 million inheritance from whose father was a steel magnate. While that sum would be a lot to most of us even today even before the current adjusted value of $55 million, it was nothing compared to Huntington, who was estimated closer to $100 million back then and would inherit even more from a childless uncle later. Unlike Huntington, Alexis shows an early proclivity on financial matters, and even at age 16 was educating himself. The Boston Globe indicated that young sub debutantes might want to “shine up” to him while he is home in Chicago over the summer.
14:12
But the blatant pursuit of wealth did not appeal to Huntington. After all, he would definitely have more than enough. No, he had other aspirations. In his essay titled “On Conventional Vacations” featured in the 1930 winter edition of the school literary magazine – I’m gonna butcher the name – Horae Scholasticae, Huntington wrote a four page paper about how 3 types of youths spend their summer vacations. 1) Those who see and study life but do not live, 2) The superficial idlers who live but do not study, and 3) those independent who explore for over a month away from parental supervision and funding. He was enamored of one youth who had biked through the English countryside one summer and Europe the next with less than a $100 and a ticket home, then ended up becoming a noted novelist. Huntington credited the environment as much as writing talent that helped that young man become a success. Only Huntington’s own next trip – with his mother in Europe – would be the opposite of such adventure and personal growth.
15:12
At some school’s back then, a Prize Day would honor student accomplishments. None of Huntington Hartford’s sports nor literary victories would get noted. His diploma or certificate of completion will be mailed later. But he will go on to do plenty of newsworthy things.
15:26
Though his final scandal at St. Paul’s would pale in comparison to later issues. While a cheating scandal seems bad enough, it is relatively probably more desirable than other scandals that later plagued the school. The 1960s saw some turbulence changing several of the meal and grading policies in the school along with more sizeable changes in admitting minorities and becoming more secular (it was founded as an Episcopal religious school). In 2005, one rector resigned after accusations of financial misappropriation. Sexual scandals would rock later generations at St. Paul’s. Misbehavior by faculty and staff surfaced in May 2017 for events that occurred between 1948 to 1988, and “Senior Salute” allegations involving seniors pushing younger classmates for sexual favors leading to a rape in 2015. Another student memoir details another rape and group sexual assault from 1990 and the school’s cover up. The school would also be investigated in 2017 for covering up various abuses of students and endangering student welfare.
16:28
So I guess it seems some what ironic that back in 1930 —
A week before graduation, St. Paul’s celebrated its 74th Anniversary where several hundred graduates returned to hear former US Ambassador to Germany and Great Britain Alanson Houghton, himself an 1882 graduate or “old boy”, speak on how public opinion was the strongest force in the world.
A somewhat prescient comment about something that will soon haunt our heirs and heiresses and certain institutions. Public opinion. Indeed it can be a loud and condemning voice they will get to know all too well.
17:04
[Music – Umtcha, Umtcha, Da Da Da by The Rhythmic Eight, Album Fascinating Rhythm – Great Hits of the 20s]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music fade out]
17:20
They obviously didn’t know my mother.
17:42
My favorite story was a teen who first begged my mom to forgive his cheating as his grandmother would be upset and when she didn’t then went on to imply he would be suicidal if he failed. My mom told him she would miss him.
A couple years later during one college summer, I was a waitress at a popular restaurant, and one night the staff competition was get to know your fellow waiter. We were each assigned a partner. I had already gotten to know most people. When the night ended, we had to tell our manager something about our person. The manager was so impressed when my partner told him all about my mother. Of course, we won the contest.
The manager couldn’t get over the details and bragging how great his challenge was, and I was like of course my partner told of you about my mom – she was his high school math teacher. The manager laughed even after realizing I had known since the first week of work, because we still proved the point that he wanted us to get to know each other.
What I didn’t say to anyone at the restaurant, I knew my partner had been that same “suicidal” kid my mom had busted cheating. Oh, he did pass her class in the end. She was tough but fair.
18:44
At my own high school, we had a semi cheating scandal during one of the AP examinations. Accusations flew, but nothing resulted from it. There was always cheating going on, but mostly because students were either lazy or competitive. Such a bizarre experience.
18:59
But that is nothing compared to the uncovered college admissions scandal that plagued several wealthy and elite families – known as Operation Varsity Blues. The bribery and cheating scandal that went on to gain admission into elite schools. Actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and Lori’s daughter Instagram starlet Olivia Jade Giannulli being the most public faces exposed. As stated previously, somethings change while other things always stay the same.
Maybe building gymnasiums aren’t the worse bribes or offenses. At least, other students benefit from those eh-hem gifts.
19:35
If you love looking at the mansions mentioned in this series, you should check out on Instagram the Gilded Age Society and Mansions of the Gilded Age, the latter also has its own YouTube Channel. A great historical collection of photos and images curated by architect Gary Lawrance. Always full of interesting tidbits and details, it is amazing what Gary presents. Currently, Gary is in the process of digitizing his collection, and he needs help. Please look at the link in the notes section for a connection to his GoFundMe page for donations. Gary is also a very popular presenter at New York Adventure Club giving virtual tours and webinars.
20:11
Speaking of New York Adventure Club, please come check out my two upcoming webinars on the first two Waldorf Astoria Hotels. Part 1 on Wednesday June 16th and Part 2 on Thursday June 17th, at 5:30pm EST / 2:30pm PST. Connections to people and plots in the As The Money Burns podcast will be presented as well as more fun details. Only $10 each, live with one week availability afterwards. Check out at New York Adventure Club www.nyadventureclub.com or the Events page at asthemoneyburns.com.
Hook
20:44
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
While the younger heirs prepare for their rites into adulthood, the older heirs enjoy the life of exploration and adventure. The most important form of travel always involves the high seas.
Until then…
Credits
21:04
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast written, produced, and voiced by Nicki Woodard, based on historical research. Archival music has been provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, check out their website at www.pastperfect.com.
Please come visit us at As The Money Burns via Goodpods,Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Transcripts, timeline, episode guide, and character bios are available at asthemoneyburns.com.
21:34
THE END.