NYC Royalty, the Astors and Vanderbilts of the Gilded Age
WHAT WAS THE GILDED AGE
The Gilded Age was an era of U.S. history (roughly between 1870 and 1901) of rapid industrialization that saw important inventions such as the telephone, gramophone, typewriter, Kodak camera, x-rays, the automobile, and even the lightbulb. With these inventions and industrialization came great wealth and fortune to prominent businessmen such as the Vanderbilts and Carnegies. Their glittering parties, opulent lifestyle, and exciting family drama has been the basis for countless novels, movies and television shows.
However, the word GILDED means something “Thinly covered with gold lead or paint.” As the name might suggest, those who lived the glittering golden lifestyle were an extreme minority. Underneath this gilded upper echelon was poverty, crime, greed, corruption, and labor exploitation. Let’s take a deeper look into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s Gilded Elite, and some of the corruption that existed underneath.
THE ASTORS, NYC “OLD MONEY”
NYC during the Gilded Age was home to the country’s wealthiest family. The Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Astors, and Morgans, for example, all called NYC home.
Among wealthy families, there were two main factions: old money and new money.
Old money families inherited their wealth through generations. The most prominent of the Gilded Age old money families was the Astor family. The Astor family fortune was built on both real estate and fur trade, specifically beaver pelts.
John Jacob Astor was born in Germany and immigrated to the US in 1783. He eventually moved to New York City where he established a fur trading company. His family catapulted to one of the wealthiest in the US, and would go on to fund many important iconic public works, like the New York Public Library. The NAME Astor also lives on in places such as Astoria, Queens, and the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
The prominent Astors of the Gilded Age were William Backhouse Astor, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, and their son John Jacob Astor IV. Caroline Astor was the Mrs. Astor, the sparkling paragon of Manhattan’s elite during her lifetime. She was often referred to as “the” Mrs. Astor. “The” Mrs. Astor led a group known as “The 400.” These were 400 of the most fashionable socialites, but more importantly, at least to them, they upheld tradition.
The 400 were largely of Western European descent and felt fully at home in “ballroom culture.” The Gilded Age was a time when more and more people were gaining wealth through various means, such as railroads, and the 400 wanted to let them know that while wealthy, they were not welcome in social circles.
A family that desperately wanted into The 400 was the Vanderbilt Family.
THE VANDERBILTS, NYC “NEW MONEY”
New money families were families that had made their fortunes in the rapid industrial boom following the Civil War. The prime example of this was the Vanderbilt family.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, often referred to as “The Commodore,” was born in Staten Island in 1794. He started amassing his fortune in the 1830s in steamships, but it wasn’t until the 1850s that his wealth truly solidified. He began selling his ships to focus on railroads. This proved extremely prescient as his wealth grew to the equivalent of $2.4 Billion in today’s money. Though maybe that’s less impressive today as it doesn’t even break the top 50 richest people in America. Back then, it was a whopping 5% of the total money in circulation in the U.S.
Despite this wealth, Mrs. Astor’s “400” refused to accept them for years. However, Cornelius’ wife, Alva Vanderbilt, was an expert social strategist. She threw her own lavish parties, built a petit chateau, and took every possible opportunity to display wealth through opulence. When the Vanderbilt’s weren’t given a box at the Academy of Music, they funded the groundwork for what would become the competing Metropolitan Opera.
Eventually, acceptance into “The 400” came when Mrs. Caroline Astor herself sent the Vanderbilts a calling card. The Gilded Age became a place where the old world met the new in glistening glamorous fashion.