inheritance doubled by, 138
inheritance of, 53-54, 55-56, 60, 68-69, 81, 415
investments of, 72-73, 81, 82
kindheartedness of, 70, 78, 140
last will and testament of, 135, 138-141, 182, 305, 323
personality of, 13-14, 16, 70, 78, 130-131
philanthropy of, 135, 139-140
public perception of, 70-71, 72, 79-80, 129
railroad career of, 40-41, 49, 55-58, 68, 69-80, 87, 122-123, 129, 410
retirement of, 122-123, 129-131, 179
siblings and, 18, 40, 58-69
threats to, 71, 129
twin mansions built by, 132-135, 270, 282
wealth as burden to, 72-73, 82-83, 140
wealth of, 53-54, 55-56, 60, 68-69, 72-73, 81-83, 115, 137, 138, 285
Willie and, 78, 85, 122-123, 135
Vanderbilt, William Henry, II, 139, 181, 188, 202-203
death of, 202, 207, 208, 305, 327, 342, 410
Vanderbilt, William Kissam “Willie,” 59, 216, 251, 270, 272
Alva and, 84-85, 87-89, 90, 100, 113, 121, 123-124, 126, 128-129, 141, 143, 144, 146-150, 152, 161, 164, 170, 173, 175, 182, 185, 248, 249, 250, 255, 282, 288-289, 292
appearance of, 84, 87, 113
Consuelo and, 125, 150, 152, 160, 170-171, 173, 174, 285, 286
Cornelius II and, 126, 139-140, 149, 177, 180, 181
costumed as duc de Guise, 113
death of, 280-283, 284
estate of, 281-283, 415
first marriage of, 88, 128
infidelity of, 149, 255
inheritance of, 140-141, 182, 280
personality of, 87-88, 125, 128, 129, 280, 281
railroad career of, 87, 122-123, 125-126, 279-280, 410
second marriage of, 254
wealth of, 88, 101, 124, 280, 281, 415
William H. and, 78, 85, 122-123, 135
Vanderbilt, William Kissam, II “Willie K..’ 168, 387, 389, 410-411
Alva and, 232, 250, 290, 291, 292
appearance and personality of, 290
childhood of, 116-117, 124-125, 143
inheritance of, 281, 283
Vanderbilt, 39
Vanderbilt, S.S., 5, 223
Vanderbilt Clinic, 281
Vanderbilt family:
combined wealth of, 279
effects of stock market crash on, 387-389
extravagant spending of, 415
primogeniture in, 140, 182, 297, 410-411, 415, 416
social position of, 12-13, 26, 88, 90, 98, 100-123, 140, 224-225, 399-400
Vanderbilt Farmer, 323
Vanderbilt Hall, 202, 327
Vanderbilt Newspapers, Inc., 322-324
Vanderbilt University, ix, 48, 139, 281
Vanderbilt Weekly, 323
Van Pelt, Jacob J., 24
Versailles, 145, 154, 162, 267, 288, 305
Victoria, queen of England, 99, 207, 310, 345, 401
Victoria and Albert, 302
Vinland, 270, 400, 407, 412, 414
Virginia, first families of, 225
W
Wagner Palace Car Company, 221, 271
Wakehurst, 244
Waldorf Hotel, 247, 268-269
Wales, Prince of (Edward VII), see Edward VII, king of England
Wales, Prince of (Edward VIII; duke of Windsor), 310, 337, 344, 345, 359
Wardell, Lambert, 38
Warner Brothers, 283
War of 1812, 7-8, 248
War of the Spanish Succession, 154
Washington, George, 39, 47
Webb, Creighton, 227
Webb, Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt, 115, 132, 271, 272
Webb, William Seward, 132, 271, 272
Webster, Daniel, 10
Welman, Mrs. Arthur N., 115
Westchester Polo and Riding Club, 202
Wharton, Edith, 84-85, 89, 152, 232
Wheatley Hills, 351, 354, 361, 367, 373, 378, 412, 414
White, Emily Thorn Vanderbilt Sloane, 115, 132, 270, 338
White Ladye, 203, 207, 209, 302
Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt, 151, 163, 181, 210, 213-214, 221, 222, 286, 303, 332, 338, 394, 414
Alice and, 188-189, 191-192, 197, 199, 204-205, 207, 217, 220
appearance of, 190, 191, 216, 353-354
art career of, 352, 354
childhood of, 188-189
coming-out party of, 193-194, 202
diary of, 189-192, 194-199, 207, 351, 353
engagement and marriage of, 200-202, 210-211, 216-217
Harry and, 195-196, 199-202, 210-211, 216-217, 219, 332, 351-354
inheritance of, 223, 353, 354, 385, 395
Little Gloria and, 350, 354-356, 358-359, 361-368, 372-373, 378, 381, 383, 384-385
motherhood of, 352, 354, 385
Neily and, 204-205, 207, 208-209, 214, 397
self-analysis of, 189-191, 194-195
suitors of, 163, 194-197, 199-202, 351
Whitney, Harry Payne, 343
Gertrude and, 195-196, 199-202, 210-211, 216-217, 219, 332, 351-354
personality of, 351-352
Whitney, William C, 199, 213, 216, 351
Whitney family, 216, 251
Whitney Museum, 354
Wickersham, George, 343-344, 345, 349, 350
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 299-300, 302, 315, 321
William I, king of England, 184, 225
Wilson, Carrie Astor, 104-105, 118, 119, 206, 211, 268
Wilson, Grace, see Vanderbilt, Grace
Wilson Wilson, Mrs. Richard T., 204, 206-207, 209-212, 217, 218, 219
Wilson, Orme, 206, 211, 216
Wilson, Richard T., 203-204, 205-207, 209-212, 217, 218, 219, 314, 323
Wilson, Woodrow, 292
Winchester, 397
Winter, Benjamin, 283
Women’s Municipal party, 286
women’s rights, 44, 254, 256-261, 286-287
Women’s Vote Parade, 260-261, 294
Woodhull, Claflin and Company, 43-44
Woodhull, Victoria ClaHin, 42-44, 46, 61
Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, 44, 61
Woodlawn Cemetery, 294
Woodlea, 270
World’s Columbian Exposition, 227
World War I, 312, 320, 321, 324, 397, 405
World War II, 406
Worth, 99, 114, 150, 203-204, 414
Wren, Christopher, 401
Y
yachts, Vanderbilt, 181, 215, 248, 280, 312, 387-389, 397
see also specific yachts
Yale University, 202-203, 220, 305, 327, 328, 332, 339
Young, Robert, 411
Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 180, 281
Yznaga, Consuelo, see Mandeville, Viscountess
Yznaga, Mrs. Fernando, 141
PICTURE SECTION
THE BIRTHPLACE OF CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.
“Cornelius had been born on May 27, 1794, in a small farmhouse at Stapleton, Staten Island, a stone’s throw from the waters of New York Bay” STATEN ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT, THE COMMODORE.
“The Commodore was the first to admit that the accumulation of money had been a mania with him when he was seventeen and that he had never gotten over it. ‘I have been insane on the subject of money-making all my life.’” BROWN BROTHERS
DANIEL DREW.
“The Commodore’s old steamboat rival, sun-beaten gospel-quoting Daniel Drew, as tightfisted and shrewd as the Commodore”
BROWN BROTHERS
GRAND CENTRAL DEPOT.
“The Commodore built at Fourth Avenue and Forty-second Street the Grand Central Depot, a massive brick-and-granite structure with a glass domed roof that covered five acres, a building that was, as he planned it, the largest terminal in the world.”
VICTORIA WOODHULL.
“Whether Victoria Woodhull was receiving stock tips from the beyond or whether the Commodore was whispering tips into Tennessee’s cute little ear, within a few months the sisters had
made over $500,000.”
TENNESSEE CLAFLIN.
“The Commodore began spending more and more time with the young girl, bringing her with him to his office, sitting her on his knee and bouncing her up and down as he talked railroad business with his associates and she pulled on his side whiskers”
FRANK CRAWFORD.
“The Commodore was infatuated with a relative, Frank Crawford, the thirty-year-old great-granddaughter of his mother’s brother.”
NEW YORK GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY AND BIOGRAPHICAL LIBRARY
WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT.
“One fine day he must have looked up and concluded he had been doing something right. ‘I am the richest man in the world.’”
CARICATURE OF WILLIAM Η. VANDERBILT.
“Cartoonists had a field day portraying the heavyset executive as a rapacious brigand, intent only on satisfying his insatiable appetite for more—more railroads, more business, more money”
MRS. ASTOR’S BROWNSTONE.
“The ballroom of Mrs. Astor’s brownstone at 350 Fifth Avenue at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street could hold four hundred people. Therefore that became the magic number that constituted the cream of New York society.” BROWN BROTHERS
WARD MCALLISTER.
“When the wealthy encountered Ward McAllister, who spoke with such authority in his affected British accent, they were relieved to let this fop assume the role of arbiter of good taste and to obey his precepts blindly”
MRS. ASTOR.
“Mrs. Astor was definitely the problem. Mrs. Astor would have nothing to do with social upstarts like the Vanderbilts, and Mrs. Astor was the undisputed queen of New York society” THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART; PORTRAIT BY CAROLUS DURAN
WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT.
“Willie quickly learned that the only way to humor and appease his volatile, imperious wife was to let her spend his money”
RICHARD MORRIS HUNT.
“The first thing you’ve got to remember is that it’s your clients’ money you’re spending. If they want you to build a house upside down standing on its chimney, it’s up to you to do it.” THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS FOUNDATION, PRINTS AND DRAWINGS COLLECTION
ALVA VANDERBILT DRESSED FOR HER FANCY DRESS BALL, MARCH 2 6, 1883.
“Alva looked very young and she looked very rich.” NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, THE HAROLD SETON COLLECTION
THE WILLIAM Κ. VANDERBILT MANSION, 660 FIFTH AVENUE.
“Everyone was entranced by this château that seemed to have been lifted from the rolling countryside of the Loire Valley and planted on a corner of Fifth Avenue.” CULVER PICTURES
THE GRAND STAIRCASE, 660 FIFTH AVENUE.
“Down the Caen stone staircase swirled a crowd of princes, monks, cavaliers, Highlanders, queens, kings, dairy maids, bullfighters, knights, brigands, and nobles” CULVER PICTURES
THE MUSIC ROOM, 660 FIFTH AVENUE.
“The guests proceeded into the white and gold Louis XV music salon paneled with gilded wainscoting wrested from an old French chateau” CULVER PICTURES
ALICE VANDERBILT AT THE FANCY DRESS BAI!…
“Alice, the former Sabbath morning instructress of the children of St. Bartholomew’s Parish, came as that new invention the Electric Light Torch, dressed in white satin lavishly trimmed with diamonds and with her head, Ward McAllister noted, ‘one blaze of diamonds’” NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, THE HAROLD SETON COLLECTION
WARD MCALLISTER AT THE FANCY DRESS BALL.
“As Ward McAllister, costumed as the Huguenot count de La Môle, lover of Marguerite de Valois, embraced Alva, Alva thought that his arrival was a good omen” NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, THE HAROLD SETON COLLECTION
THE WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT TWIN MANSIONS, 640 FIFTH AVENUE.
THE LIBRARY, 640 FIFTH AVENUE.
“The baroque interior of the home of the head of the House of Vanderbilt was a tasteless hodgepodge, ostentatiously crammed with riches.” BROWN BROTHERS
THE VANDERBILT MAUSOLEUM, NEW DORP, STATEN ISLAND.
“A Romanesque chapel patterned after the Chapel of St. Giles at Aries in the south of France won Mr. Vanderbilt’s approval. It would be embedded in the hillside on three sides, with commanding views from its front steps all around Staten Island and of every steamship coming into New York Harbor”
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE PHOTOGRAPH
THE DEATH OF WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT.
“Suddenly, without a sound, William Vanderbilt toppled to the floor, struck dead by an apoplectic stroke.”
CONSUELO AT SIXTEEN.
“Alva groomed Consuelo to be a duchess, a princess, perhaps even a queen, from her earliest childhood days” BROWN BROTHERS
CONSUELO AS THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.
“She soon wearied of a life of formal protocol, of changing her clothes four times a clay for different occasions, of interminable dinners during which ‘as a rule neither of us spoke a word,’ of walking on ‘an endlessly spread red carpet’” PHOTOGRAPH BY LAFAYETTE
THE ALVA.
“The Alva topped them all at 285 feet: the largest private yacht ever built” PEABODY MUSEUM
MARBLE HOUSE.
“Alva decided that for her summer cottage, set in a community that prided itself on its summertime simplicity, a temple of white marble would be most appropriate.”
THE GOLD BALLROOM, MARBLE HOUSE.
“‘I like to think,’ Alva reflected, ‘that some of the treasures of Europe accumulated in her eras of splendid achievement have been brought to this Greek dwelling as gifts to her temple’” COURTESY OF THE PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF NEWPORT COUNTY
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.
“Marlborough immediately informed his new wife that to marry her he had ‘to give up the girl he loved,’ but that ‘a sense of duty to his family and to his traditions indicated the sacrifice of personal desires.’ “BROWN BROTHERS
BLENHEIM PALACE.
“Consuelo quickly perceived what was wrong at Blenheim: The young duke was destitute, unable to maintain so monumental a home” COURTESY OF HARPER & ROW
ALICE VANDERBILT.
“Quiet, reserved to the point of seeming shy or cold, Alice Vanderbilt acted like the Sunday-school teacher she was.”
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT II.
“A lifelong acquaintance of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s remarked that he never once recalled seeing him smile.”
THE CORNELIUS VANDERBILT II MANSION, 742-746 FIFTH AVENUE.
“Visitors found the mansion chilly and uncomfortable, built for social functions, not for living.” MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, BYRON COLLECTION
THE LIVING ROOM OF THE CORNELIUS VANDERBILT II MANSION.
“A houseguest noted that the mansion Vas furnished before the day of interior decorators and was done in the worst of the French and Victorian periods.’” CULVER PICTURES
THE BREAKERS.
“Hunt came back with new sketches for a mansion modeled after the sixteenth-century palace of a Genoese merchant prince. The Vanderbilts settled for this plan—a seaside palace that would occupy one full acre of the twelve-acre site”
THE DINING ROOM, THE BREAKERS.
“Opulent Italianate interiors surrounded the great hall, including the spectacular two-story formal dining room.” COURTESY OF THE PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF NEWPORT COUNTY
THE GREAT HALL, THE BREAKERS.
“The house was constructed around a great hall, an open space forty-five feet high onto which second- and third-floor galleries opened, as in an Italian courtyard.” COURTESY OF THE PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF NEWPORT COUNTY
GERTRUDE VANDERBILT.
“What but money did Gertrude have to offer anyone? she wondered time and again” DAVID & SANFORD
ESTHER HUNT.
“Gertrude never doubted that Esther, the daughter of the Vanderbilts’ architect, Richard Morris Hunt, liked her for herself” E. F. COOPER
BESSIE AND HARRY LEHR.
“‘Kind motherly Mrs. Astor,’ Bessie noted, ‘would smile her approval: “so nice to see young people so much in love. I am glad to see dear Harry with such a charming wife” ’” COURTESY OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
MRS. STUYVESANT FISH.
“From this corseted grande dame of aristocratic bearing came a constant stream of chatter, punctuated by her hoarse, macawlike laugh and bursts of caustic comments that, in their directness and unexpectedness, were the delight of a bored society.”
CROSSWAYS, THE NEWPORT HOME OF MRS. STUYVESANT FISH.
“‘Howdy-do, howdy-do,’ she would brusquely greet her guests, quickly herding them on to her husband as they came through the front door of Crossways.” BROWN BROTHERS
BILTMORE.
“The mountains are just the right size and scale for the chateau!” COURTESY OF THE BILTMORE COMPANY
THE BANQUET HALL OF BILTMORE.
“When Henry James carne to visit, he found Biltmore ‘utterly unaddressed as to any possible arrangement of life, or state of society. We measure by leagues and we sit in Cathedrals.’ “COURTESY OF THE BILTMORE COMPANY
GEORGE VANDERBILT.
“The family realized that there was no question but that younger brother George was pure Vanderbilt. He had outdone them all, as well as every other millionaire of the Gilded Age” PORTRAIT BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT
BELGOURT CASTLE.
“Oliver’s wedding gift to Alva was the deed to Belcourt Castle.” COURTESY OF HASTINGS HOUSE, PUBLISHERS; PHOTOGRAPH BY MERRILL FOLSOM
MRS. O.H.P. BELMONT.
“Alva took up the cause of suffrage and became a militant feminist, pledging ‘my life, my interests, my all” to the women’s movement” BROWN BROTHERS