Fortune's Children
Page 53
114. Ibid.
115. New York Times, July 17, 1896.
116. Friedman, p. 141.
117. New York Times, July 17, 1896.
118. New York Times, July 18, 1896.
119. New York Times, July 19, 1896.
120. New York Times, July 18, 1896.
121. New York Journal, August 4, 1896.
122. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 74.
123. Ibid., p. 64.
124. Ibid., p. 74.
125. Ibid., p. 75.
126. Ibid., p. 77.
127. Ibid., p. 73.
128. New York Herald, August 26, 1896.
129. Friedman, p. 151.
130. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 74.
131. Ibid., p. 79.
132. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, pp. 81-83.
133. Ibid., p. 85.
134. Ibid., p. 88.
135. Friedman, p. 157.
136. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 104.
137. Friedman, pp. 159-160.
138. Ibid.
139. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Colden Age, p. 108.
140. Ibid., p. 109.
141. Ibid., p. 113.
142. In April of 1899, Neily and Grace attended the wedding of Neily’s cousin Willie K. Vanderbilt and Virginia Fair, at a ceremony in Willie’s mansion at 660 Fifth Avenue. Alfred and Reginald helped their father into the house, where he saw Neily but would not speak with him.
‘There is no change whatever in the treatment of her by his family,” Richard Wilson wrote to one of his daughters in the summer of 1899 about the Vanderbilts’ attitude toward Grace, “they being as demon-like in their behavior toward her as ever. Her boy however is so charming and entertaining as to make up in a certain degree somewhat for the effects upon her of their outrageous conduct….” (Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, pp. 118-119.)
143. New York World, September 13, 1899.
144. New York Times, July 27, 1899.
145. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 123.
146. Ibid., p. 125.
147. New York Tribune, October 28, 1899.
148. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 139.
CHAPTER SIX
1. Brown, Champagne Cholly, pp. 228-229; Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 108.
2. “Secrets of Ball-Giving: A Chat with Ward McAllister,” New York Tribune, March 25, 1888.
3. McAllister, Society as I Have Found It, p. 229.
4. Ibid., pp. 230-231.
5. Maurice, Fifth Avenue, p. 227.
6. Thompson, “The Man Who Invented Society,” Forbes, October 28, 1985.
7. Churchill, The Upper Crust, pp. 162-163.
8. Logan, The Man Who Robbed the Robber Barons, p. 135.
9. Tudury, “Ward McAllister,” pp. 142-143.
10. Ibid.
11. O’Connor, The Golden Summers, pp. 62-64.
12. Morris, Incredible New York, p. 247.
13. Churchill, p. 9.
14. McAllister, p. 299.
15. Maurice, p. 243.
16. Lehr, “King Lehr” and the Gilded Age, p. 23.
17. Ibid., p. 51
18. Ibid., p. 53.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., pp. 52-53.
22. Ibid., p. 236.
23. Ibid., p. 53.
24. Amory, The Last Resorts, p. 191.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., pp. 192-193.
27. Churchill, The Splendor Seekers, p. 171.
28. Lehr, p. 140.
29. Ibid., p. 154.
30. Cowles, The Astors, p. 132.
31. Ibid.
32. Lehr, p. 82.
33. Barrett, Good Old Summer Days, p. 87.
34. Elizabeth Dahlgren’s father was John Wilhelm Drexel, a partner of J. Pierpont Morgan in the prominent banking house Drexel, Morgan and Company.
35. Lehr, p. 36.
36. Ibid., pp. 37-38.
37. Ibid., p. 38.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., pp. 38-39.
40. Ibid., p. 39.
41. Ibid., pp. 40-42.
42. Ibid., p. 42.
43. Ibid., pp. 42-43.
44. Ibid., pp. 44-46.
45. Ibid., p. 47.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid., pp. 47-48.
48. Ibid., pp. 54-55.
49. Ibid., p. 53.
50. Amory, p. 212.
51. Decies, Turn of the World, p. 109.
52. Barbour and Ueland, “Society Tightwads,” p. 6. One author of this article, Elizabeth Barbour, was Mrs. Fish’s social secretary for fourteen years.
53. Amory, p. 215.
54. Churchill, The Upper Crust, p. 199.
55. Morris, p. 252.
56. Churchill, The Upper Crust, p. 199.
57. Martin, Things I Remember, p. 238.
58. Churchill, The Splendor Seekers, p. 173.
59. Amory, p. 217.
60. Belmont Memoirs, p. 163.
61. Churchill, The Upper Crust, p. 202.
62. Thorndike, The Very Rich, p. 23.
63. Amory, p. 217.
64. Decies, p. 107.
65. Amory, p. 215.
66. Barbour, “How to Keep House on a Million Dollars a Year,” p. 8.
67. Ibid., pp. 216, 193.
68. Lehr, p. 231.
69. ibid., pp. 150-151.
70. Ibid., p. 151.
71. Ibid.
72. Crockett, Peacocks on Parade, p. 78.
73. Patterson, ‘The Woman Who Talked,” p. 9.
74. Barbour, “How to Keep House on a Million Dollars a Year,” p. 8.
75. Huntington Library, C.E.S. Wood Collection, Sara B. Field to C.E.S. Wood, August 14, 1917, Box 280 (quoting Perry Belmont, brother of O.H.P. Belmont).
76. Lehr, p. 233.
77. Ibid., p. 126.
78. O’Connor, p. 21.
79. Ibid., p. 134.
80. Ibid., p. 136.
81. Ibid.
82. Churchill, The Upper Crust, p. 203.
83. Maurice, p. 230.
84. Chicago Record Herald, September 15, 1908.
85. Kavaler, The Astors, p. 137.
86. Chicago Record Herald, September 15, 1908.
87. Cowles, The Astors, p. 142.
88. Eliot, Heiresses and Coronets, p. 48.
89. Mrs. Astor’s son had her mansion at 350 Fifth Avenue torn down, and there built the even more spectacular seventeen-story Astoria Hotel, which soon was joined with the Waldorf.
90. Gates, The Astor Family, p. 101.
91. Morris, p. 258.
92. Elliott, This Was My Newport, p. 203.
93. Lehr, p. 179.
94. Ibid., p. 26.
95. Belmont Memoirs, p. 32.
96. Belmont Autobiography, handwritten notes.
97. Maxwell, R.S. V.P., p. 106.
98. Quoted in Huntington Library, C.E.S. Wood Collection, Sara B. Field to C.E.S. Wood, Box 280.
99. Lehr, p. 146.
100. Belmont Memoirs, pp. 158-159.
101. Ibid., p. 160.
102. Goldsmith, Little Gloria…Happy at Last, p. 62.
103. Folsom, Great American Mansions and Their Stories, p. 259.
104. Lehr, p. 147.
105. Ibid.
106. Belmont Autobiography, p. 1.
107. Ibid., pp. 173-174.
108. Ibid., p. 175.
109. Ibid., p. 176.
110. Belmont Memoirs, p. 166.
111. Decies, pp. 148-149.
112. Lehr, p. 121.
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid., pp. 121-122.
115. Belmont, “Why I Am a Suffragist,” p. 1172.
116. Ibid., p. 1173.
117. Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold, p. 216.
118. Lehr, pp. 154-155.
119. Ibid., pp. 220-221.
120. Belmont Memoirs, pp. 152-154. In another draft autobiography, Alva again focused on her thesis: �
��A man in my class married a young and pretty woman from whom he asked nothing more than good looks, careful grooming and a readiness to serve his desires. By no chance did he turn to this petted creature for mental stimulus or high type of companionship…. To speak frankly, in most cases they wanted a woman for one purpose only and that was the gratification of their sex passion….Then when love founded as it was on the sands of mere passion had died, I noticed with surprise and indignation that this woman was set aside, relegated to a stupid domestic sphere. Meanwhile, during these lonely, uninteresting years, what was happening to the husband? Stepping over the confining threshold of his home whose respectability he left in the hands of his discarded wife, like a young colt in a meadow he kicked up his heels and was off for a romp in the wide world field. The legalized prostitution which marriage covers is to me appalling.” (Belmont Autobiography, pp. 57, 59, 65.)
121. Notahle American Women, Vol. 1, p. 127.
122. Belmont Autobiography, p. 65.
123. Lehr, pp. 221-223.
124. Belmont Autobiography, handwritten notes.
125. Quoted in Huntington Library, C.E.S. Wood Collection, Sara B. Field to C.E.S. Wood, Box 280.
126. Current Literature, December 1909, p. 599.
127. Schlesinger Library, Doris Stevens Papers, Folder 291, draft article.
128. Belmont, “Why I Am a Suffragist,” pp. 1174, 1172.
129. Schlesinger Library, Doris Stevens Papers, Folder 291, draft article.
130. Belmont in Ladies’ Home Journal, September 1922, p. 7.
131. Schlesinger Library, Jane Norman Smith Papers, Folder 103, quoted in “A Tribute” by Iris Calderhead Walter, Washington News, January 8, 1933.
132. New York Herald Tribune, January 27, 1933.
133. Schlesinger Library, Jane Norman Smith Papers, Folder 103, quoted in “A Tribute” by Iris Calderhead Walter, Washington News, January 8, 1933.
134. Maxwell, R.S.V.P., p. 108.
135. Churchill, The Upper Crust, p. 182.
136. Current Literature, December 1909, pp. 599-600.
137. One of Alva’s cohorts in the suffrage movement was none other than Lady Cook, who, before she married Sir Francis Cook, had been Tennessee Claflin, spiritualist to Commodore Vanderbilt. Her reappearance in public life after thirty years, “a small sprightly figure almost hidden by a huge Gainsboro hat, tied down with a blue veil,” was an event that “set the bells of memory ringing in many a dusty belfry.” Her game plan for the movement was also in character, just like Alva’s. “Any man hates to be preached to. What shall we do about it then? Appeal to his sense of humor. Appeal to his· fear of ridicule. Satirize the men. Laugh at them. Hold them up to public derision. Use wit, defiance, daring, love, persuasion—all a woman’s armament. Trick them, bewilder them, but never lose your temper.” (Current Literature, December 1909, p. 601.)
138. Current Literature, December 1909, p. 599.
139. Belmont Memoirs, p. 4.
140. Lehr, pp. 147, 224-225.
141. Ibid., p. 224.
142. Ibid.
143. There is no record of Alva Belmont’s speech at this meeting, but these words, quoted from Belmont, “Woman’s Right to Govern Herself,” p. 666, are typical of the tone and content of all her writings and talks on her favorite subject.
144. Lehr, p. 226.
145. Ibid., pp. 222-223.
146. Simon, Fifth Avenue, p. 9.
147. New York Times editorial, May 5, 1912.
148. Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold, p. 215.
149. Lehr, p. 223.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. Lehr, “King Lehr” and the Gilded Age, p. 284.
2. Schuyler, “A Newport Palace,” p. 362.
3. Gates, The Astor Family, p. 180.
4. Lehr, p. 138.
5. A brother of Bradley Martin, Frederick Townsend Martin, himself a member of the Four Hundred, told of an event at “a very brilliant social function in the London social world” that astounded him. “I met at that reception a woman whose name I had heard as a household word in Society for many years. She was esteemed a brilliant woman; she was reckoned a leader in the most splendid Society of the world. She was wealthy beyond all human need. She occupied a powerful place in a political world where everything human had its part. She was a companion of princes and the equal of peers. We were talking alone, immediately after our introduction, when she said:
“Oh, Mr. Martin, you are an American. You are a Wall Street man. You could help me to get some of your American gold!’
“I was astounded and I showed it in my answer:
“‘Why, my dear lady, surely you have gold enough. If I am not mistaken, you rank amongst the wealthiest women of the nation. Why should you want gold? Moreover, you have social standing and are famous throughout England. Of what possible use could more gold be to you?’
“I can still see the haggard face, the quivering lips, the blazing eyes of this great Society woman as she answered me.
“‘Oh, Mr. Martin, you do not know me—I am almost ashamed to confess the truth. I dream night and day of gold. I want to have a room at the top of my house filled with it—filled with gold sovereigns. I would like to go into that room night after night, when every one else is asleep, and bury myself in yellow sovereigns up to my neck, and play with them, toss them about to hear the jingling music of the thing I love the best!’ “(Martin, The Passing of the Idle Rich, pp. 199-201.)
6. Simon, Fifth Avenue, pp. 161-162. Another French visitor at the turn of the century found that the Newport scene either “revolts you or ravishes you as you are nearer to socialism or to snobbery.’
7. Lewis, The Big Change, p. 31.
8. Myers, The Ending of Hereditary American Fortunes, p. 164.
9. Quoted in Hofstadter, The Age of Reform, p. 141.
10. “Mr. Vanderbilt’s Expenditure,” p. 128.
11. Lee, “Expensive Living, the Blight on America,” p. 54.
12. New York World, January 7, 1894.
13. The Vanderbilts’ mansion in Newport, The Breakers, was surrounded by a twelve-foot fence. The bedrooms of the mansion were equipped with sliding steel grilles, as antikidnapping devices.
14. Martin, pp. 238-239.
15. Andrews, The Vanderbilt Legend, p. 279; New York Times, January 23, 1897.
16. Beebe, The Big Spenders, p. 118;A^w York Times, January 23, 1897.
17. Holbrook, The Age of the Moguls, p. 332.
18. Wecter, The Saga of American Society, p. 369.
19. New York Times, January 6, 1907.
20. Lynes, The Taste-Makers, p. 132.
21. Baker, Richard Morris Hunt, p. 413.
22. Roper, FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, p. 389.
23. Stevenson, Park Maker: A Life of Frederick Law Olmsted, p. 389.
24. Hunt, The Richard Morris Hunt Papers, p. 244.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., pp. 288-289.
27. Ibid., pp. 210-211.
28. New York Tribune, July 26, 1892.
29. Baker, p. 431.
30. Roper, p. 477.
31. New York Herald, September 13, 1899.
32. Willie Vanderbilt was very much the grandson of the Commodore. One day he met with the board of directors of the New York Central.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I would like to be appointed a committee of one, with power to buy the Lake Shore and Michigan roads.”
The board passed a motion, unanimously giving him the authority to make the purchase. Once the votes had been cast, Vanderbilt pulled from his pocket the broker slips that showed he had already bought the line, which he then turned over to the New York Central at cost, less the interest used in buying the stock. {New York Herald, July 23, 1920.)
33. New York Times, July 23, 1920.
34. New York Herald, July 23, 1920.
35. Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold, p. 237.
36. Ibid.
37. Idlehour’s furnishings, from champagne glasses
to tapestries, rugs, and mantel clocks, were auctioned at the American Art Galleries in April of 1926, with a Gothic carved oak throne selling for $1,050, a nine-foot-high tapestry for $1,200, and six pairs of carved walnut chairs covered with Royal Aubusson tapestry for $6,600, the full two-day sale netting $132,962.50.
38. Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats, p. 140.
39. William Vanderbilt bequeathed ten of his best paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See Tomkins, Merchants and Masterpieces, p. 190.
40. ‘That too has disappeared.’ Alva wrote in her memoirs, “sold and torn down to make way for an apartment house. But while it stood it was one of the most beautiful houses in New York, and it will not be forgotten, for the plans, copies of which were sent by request to France, and Germany and England, have become part of the architectural history of the United States.” (Belmont Memoirs, p. 105.)
41. Belmont Autobiography, p. 21.
42. Balsan, p. 238. In the summer of 1917 at the age of sixty-four, Alva had an affair with a much younger man. “I think she is desperately in love with this young man Doris told us of.’ Sara Bard Field, whom Alva had hired to help write her memoirs, wrote to a friend. “He arrives next Friday and I shall make my own conclusions. She talks to me freely of him, searches the whole world for contemporary women who have married much younger men, drags out the illustrations of Lady Churchill and George Cornwallis West and when I say ‘Yes, but that didn’t last,’ she responds ‘No, of course not. It was on a fleshy basis only but when she did divorce him he turned right around and married another woman older than Lady Churchill, Mrs. Pat Campbell.’ You can see she is doing what we all do—rationalizing her impulse—or trying to. Poor lonely soul for she is poor in many ways and in every way lonely. My heart aches for her—selfish to the core and weighted down from babyhood with the heaviness of too much possession.”
Sara Field found herself spending less time with Mrs. Belmont, “for her lover has come—Ralph Bloomer—I have only just seen him, a typical ‘society man’ he looked to me but Mrs. B. says no, he has some brains. Let us hope so….”
“Did I tell you I met her young beau and I like him better than I first did,” Field wrote later that summer. “I think he has some possibility. He is a clean looking, clean living chap, neither drinks or smokes (athletic influence while in Harvard) and with a wholesome love of outdoor life and sports and especially of flowers. He is sick of the insipid society woman and perhaps he does find a lure in Mrs. B’s vigorous mentality and uncompromising selfness.” (Huntington Library, C.E.S. Wood Papers, Sara B. Field to C.E.S. Wood, August 2, 13, 16, 1917, Box 280.)