Fortune's Children

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Fortune's Children Page 60

by Arthur T. Vanderbilt

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.

  “It was obvious the grim four-story structures had been designed by the architect of the Grand Central Depot; massive square blocks of brownstone overwhelming their lots, they looked like public edifices.” MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, BYRON COLLECTION

  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

 

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