Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“Society,” he had said, “is an occupation in itself. Only a man who has a good deal of leisure and a taste for it can keep up with its demands.’2 He found himself “assailed on all sides” by people wanting to enter society, and became, as he said, “a diplomat [who] committed myself to nothing, promised much and performed as little as possible.”

(Alva and a friend had once been at Woodlawn Cemetery, looking at a tomb of pink marble that an heiress had built for her husband. “Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!” Alva opined. A workman who was nearby heard her. “Well,” he said, “if you think this is funny, go and look at that tomb over there where the crazy woman who built it has put cats on

The important thing is knowing how to live. Learn a lesson from my mistakes. I had too much power before I knew how to use it and it defeated me in the end. It drove all sweetness out of my life except the affection of my children. My trouble was that I was born too late for the last generation and too early for this one. If you want to be happy, l

Their loyalty strained to the limit, workers of the New York Central threatened to strike and destroy the Grand Central Depot. From his hotel room at Saratoga, William Vanderbilt considered bringing in the militia as the other railroad executives had, but instead tried quite a different approach. He issued an announcement to all the workers on the

With the Commodore’s money, the two lively young ladies published the first edition of their newspaper, Woodhull Ö Claflin’s Weekly, on May 14, 1870. And what a paper it was! PROGRESS! FREE THOUGHT! UNTRAMMELED LIVES! BREAKING THE WAY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS? heralded the masthead. The paper, whose articles were written by a number of gentlemen admi

As would be expected, while everyone attended to his or her own business, the Commodore attended to everyone else’s business. One evening after dinner, he walked up to his thirty-three-year-old son Billy, who was enjoying a cigar on the deck. “Billy, I wish you would quit that smoking habit of yours. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars if you do.” “

Burning forty-two tons of coal each day, averaging thirteen knots, the North Star plowed across the Atlantic. Within several days, a routine had established itself. “There was discipline on board that ship, sir,” the Reverend Choules noted. “Each man attended to his own business. The Commodore did the swearing, and I did the praying. So we never di

Why had he left his fortune to one son, to Billy? To keep the wealth concentrated from generation to generation. “What you have got isn’t worth anything, unless you have got the power, and if you give away the surplus, you give away the control.”

“If a man makes money, no matter how much, he finds a certain happiness in its possession, for in the desire to increase his business, he has a constant use for it. But the man who inherits it has none of this. The first satisfaction, and the greatest, that of building the foundation of a fortune, is denied him. He must labor, if he does labor, sim