You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Having toured the Biltmore I was very interested in the story of this family. Perhaps because that is the more popular of the remaining properties not much was written about it or its owner in this book. While I did learn a lot and certainly see how greed, envy and notoriety were the primary dysfunctions of so many members of Guilded Age, the book was long and at times it was difficult to remember who ‘belonged’ to who.
This was a pretty interesting book about a family that found a way to spend millions, hurting each other along the way, and then of course building houses too. Overall I am glad I read the book, I just kinda wish there was a mini family tree of the people discussed in the front of the book, because it seemed everyone was named Cornelius and Neil and William, and it took some thought to keep it all on track.
While I listened to an audiobook version of this, I was very invested in the Vanderbilt’s stories and lived throughout the different generations.
Even when the novel covered Vanderbilt’s that I was not familiar with before, I was still interested and amused about their life troubles and successes. It gave me a new perspective on this almost mythologized American family and I quickly understood how their fortune slowly dwindled over the many years.
I decided to read/listen to this novel prior to the newest season of The Gilded Age coming out and it got me right back into that mindset of Gilded Age New York and gave me a broader perspective than the TV Show has been able to cover thus far.
Even when the novel covered Vanderbilt’s that I was not familiar with before, I was still interested and amused about their life troubles and successes. It gave me a new perspective on this almost mythologized American family and I quickly understood how their fortune slowly dwindled over the many years.
I decided to read/listen to this novel prior to the newest season of The Gilded Age coming out and it got me right back into that mindset of Gilded Age New York and gave me a broader perspective than the TV Show has been able to cover thus far.
These people were just horrible. I can't imagine reading this and not wanting to become a huge socialist, taxing every excess dime from our current robber barons.
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I've been interested in the Vanderbilts ever since I visited Biltmore a few years ago. Walking through that house was mind boggling. What's even MORE mind boggling is how such an enormous fortune was just squandered away, with very little to show for it. A little dry in some places, but overall a very fascinating read for anyone interested in the Gilded Age!
thoroughly enjoyable...and insight into the power of The Gilded Age...
This is a ponderous work that details the awesome excesses of the Vanderbilts and exceeds the excesses of such as the emperors of Classic Roman, Egyptian and other ancient life styles. It appears to me that the Commodore was actually the Grinch and Scrooge as I understand his heart was too small and incredibly hardly any working organs at his death!
I was astounded at the accomplishments of many of the ladies of Commodore Vanderbilt such as Alva of which I had no information prior to reading this work!
Also, the dysfunctional family of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt and her daughter Gloria Vanderbilt (the mother of Anderson Cooper) was especially astounding as I was unaware of any of it! (Come to think of it the entire family was incredibly and unbelievably dysfunctional! I am convinced that I am blessed!
I was astounded at the accomplishments of many of the ladies of Commodore Vanderbilt such as Alva of which I had no information prior to reading this work!
Also, the dysfunctional family of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt and her daughter Gloria Vanderbilt (the mother of Anderson Cooper) was especially astounding as I was unaware of any of it! (Come to think of it the entire family was incredibly and unbelievably dysfunctional! I am convinced that I am blessed!
If readers want to learn how many of the wealthy choose to live, and learn about what they consider important in life, and what values and ideals that many rich adult children of the wealthy growing up in wealth all of their lives have (hint: none that are readily observable), especially after they reach the age where they become entitled to control their trust funds or inherited wealth, read 'Fortune's Children - The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt' about the Vanderbilts, written by Arthur T. Vanderbilt II. It goes into glorious detail about the wondrous lifestyle of the rich and famous of 1890 until about 1929.
I may have spoiled a little, gentle reader, in my review below. I can't help myself. It is very likely you may not ever read this book ("so many books, not enough time") but I want you to learn what I learned! Apologies in advance.
This book is a biography of the life of one of the 'Gilded Age' family founders - Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) - an illiterate hardened and crude man after years from a childhood on fishing schooners and produce/goods steamboat carriers, later a railroad investor. Then the book further details the lives of the later generations of Vanderbilts. The millions of dollars 'The Commodore' (Cornelius) accumulated was almost entirely spent by his Gilded-Era society children and grandchildren. Their story is remarkable because it shows how in four generations a family can wipe out what was the family's almost unimaginable wealth in unwise ostentation. What is even more mind-blowing is WHAT they spent the money on; however, as I mentioned, I have read stories and seen TV shows which demonstrate things the rich buy are still mostly unwise and outrageously ostentatious.
Despite that this book is mostly about late nineteenth-century/early twentieth- century New York City society in America, how wealthy people lived then does not seem much different than what TV shows and magazine articles I have read about the current twenty-first century 'beautiful people' of the world appear to live today. Perhaps current rich people should read this book very closely.
Many first generation 'Gilded Age' wealthy founders I have read about, usually from horrible low-life families, appear to be generally cruel, almost psychopathic, and definitely obsessive-compulsive. Some in their later years, around fifty, soften and mellow. But they initially, after marrying what often is the first of many wives and/or mistresses, treat their children like distrusted hired servants who might steal the silver or they seem to conduct experiments in breaking down their innocent prepubescent children as if they were wild full-grown horses to be whipped into obedience and into the supposed rigid behaviors and manners of European aristocrats. (That is, if they actually cared at all about their kids. Some acted as if their children were a rumor created by their delighted newly-wealthy social-climbing wives - although sometimes the first wife was/becomes a religious fanatic - in which either case the founder may never leave his office except maybe to see his mistress.)
Moderation, in any case, was/is an unknown state to these people.
The second generation often were scared shadows of their demanding fathers and often parvenue mothers, afraid to displease or shame their upward striving parents, having rarely felt much approval or affection and afraid of being disinherited. Their job was to become the educated icebreakers into older-Victorian blue-blood society, to marry well, preferably European royals or third-generation American industrialists or Mayflower descendents. Some of this generation will not be selected by their exacting, if irrational, parents as worthy of taking over the family business, or they demonstrated spunk and rebelliousness, so they were kicked out of the nest to fend for themselves or were given a pittance of the father's wealth and attention.
The third generation, if having inherited wealth, seem to become entirely lost, sunk deep into a sucking quicksand of constant mindless pleasure (boating, gambling, traveling, sex, hard partying) and more outrageously wasteful and showy consumerism, rarely showing up at the office or consulting financial advisors, and failing to graduate from college or apply themselves to an education at all, naming themselves 'gentlemen' while their women buy more and more jewels, furniture, clothes, art, mansions, servants...
The second generation of male Vanderbilts seemed to enlarge the faults of being the second generation by marrying golddigger aggressive women who had the faults of what normally defines the third generation.
The author goes into amazing descriptions of the most baroque expenditures, backed by academic research. There are pictures of the estates and the interiors of these palaces built by many of the Vanderbilts. They had to employ hundreds of staff and servants to maintain a single establishment, and they each had dozens of establishments.
And it was all gone in sixty years, many of the houses torn down or auctioned off, often with pieces of interior art or a fireplace sold for only a few thousand dollars, if even that, despite that the original purchase price having been originally perhaps half a million dollars for this painting or that molding or for a particular eight-foot wide crystal chandelier or marble staircase. Most of what the Vandervilts bought ended up in garbage dumps by 1950, although some art pieces ended up in museums or their massive houses were picked up or converted into a public park or government office, or a hotel. They had bought yachts which required hundreds of employees on board to run and to maintain - and eventually some family members ended up living on a rundown yacht, having let go all of the staff so that they were stuck floating in a rented space, tied up at some dock. The amplification of social climbing and feeling as if the robber-baron money would never stop was ultimately a disaster for keeping the Vanderbilt fortune intact. Many of the Vanderbilts spent not only the interest of trusts and investments, but spent down the principal and sold the stocks and bonds they inherited. It is incredible how each of the Vanderbilts squandered their money. They spent and spent and spent.
Here is a bit more information about the era in which the Vanderbilts enjoyed themselves:
First, the somewhat good news - there were more available jobs and comparatively higher pay for the masses during the 'Gilded Age'. In the mix though was bad news about horrendous work conditions and what was basically an unlivable wage despite that it was higher pay. Quoted from Wikipedia about the Gilded Age: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
"The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West. As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to a real wage growth of 60%, between 1860 and 1890, and spread across the ever-increasing labor force. The average annual wage per industrial worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in 1880, to $564 in 1890, a gain of 48%. However, the Gilded Age was also an era of abject poverty and inequality, as millions of immigrants—many from impoverished regions—poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.
Railroads were the major growth industry, with the factory system, mining, and finance increasing in importance. Immigration from Europe, and the eastern states, led to the rapid growth of the West, based on farming, ranching, and mining. Labor unions became increasingly important in the rapidly growing industrial cities. Two major nationwide depressions—the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893—interrupted growth and caused social and political upheavals. The South, after the Civil War, remained economically devastated; its economy became increasingly tied to commodities, cotton, and tobacco production, which suffered from low prices. With the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877, African-American people in the South were stripped of political power and voting rights, and were left economically disadvantaged.
For more in-depth information about these era developments, I recommend reading:
[b:Morgan: American Financier|1325761|Morgan American Financier|Jean Strouse|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387708472l/1325761._SY75_.jpg|1315186] in which a description of how the robber barons involved with financing the amazing growth of American business created banks and financial institutions,
And
[b:Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.|16121|Titan The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.|Ron Chernow|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925052l/16121._SY75_.jpg|1312015] in which it is described how some penniless but ambitious rural teenagers, of whom many are briefly described in this book although it is primarily focused around Rockefeller's journey from abject poverty to richest robber baron in America, ruthlessly invented and expanded American industry.
Excerpts from 'Fortune's Children' also about HOW the wealthy of the Gilded Age generally used their money, not only the Vanderbilts:
"At the same time, rapid economic expansion was creating new manufacturing, banking, railroad, oil, and mining millionaires, each trying to make his make his mark and break into society by increasingly lavish expenditures.
A newspaper reporter who had written that the millionaires of Newport "devoted themselves to pleasure regardless of expense" was corrected by one of the Four Hundred [a members list of top New York City elite rich people] who explained that what they really did was "to devote themselves to expense regardless of pleasure." "It is doubtful," another member of the Four Hundred complained, "whether there are more useless and empty ways of spending money in the world than can be found at Newport." Bessie Lehr remembered Mrs. Pembroke Jones telling her "that she always set aside $300,000 at the beginning of every Newport season for entertaining. Some hostesses must have spent even more. A single ball could cost $100,000 even $200,000. No one considered money except for what it could buy."
Mamie Fish was right; society had gone mad.
At a millionaire's dinner party in the ballroom at Sherry's all the guests ate on horseback, the horses' hooves covered with rubber pads to protect the floors. One hostess hid a perfect Black Pearl in each of the oysters served to her guests, and a host handed out cigarettes rolled in $100 bills. Another party featured a pile of sand in the middle of the table, and toy shovels at the guests' seats; upon command, the guests dug into the sand, searching for buried gems. A millionaire thought nothing of buying a $15,000 diamond dog collar, a pair of opera glasses encrusted with diamonds and
sapphires for $75,000, a bed inlaid with ivory and ebony and gold for $200,000, a necklace for his true love for $500,000.
In 1895, a visitor from France, viewing the two-mile stretch of Fifth Avenue that faced Central Park—Millionaires' Row as it was called (thirty years before, this part of the city had been nothing but flimsy wooden shacks and scrub growth)—was dumbfounded. "It is too evident that money cannot have much value here. There is too much of it. The interminable succession of luxurious mansions which line Fifth Avenue proclaim its mad abundance. No shops, unless of articles of luxury—a few dressmakers, a few picture dealers . . . only independent dwellings each one of which, including the ground on which it stands, implies a revenue which one dares not calculate. The absence of unity in this architecture is a sufficient reminder that this is the country of the individual will, as the absence of gardens and trees around these sumptuous residences proves the newness of all this wealth and of the city. This avenue has visibly been willed and created by sheer force of millions, in a fever of land speculation, which has not left an inch of ground unoccupied." To the Frenchman the mediocre taste of the rich was suffocating. "On the floors of halls which are too high there are too many precious Persian and Oriental rugs There are too many tapestries, too many paintings on the walls of the drawing rooms. The guest-chambers have too many bibelots, too much rare furniture, and on the lunch or dinner table there are too many flowers, too many plants, too much crystal, too much silver."
It was the height of the Gilded Age.
Before the Civil War, there were fewer than a dozen millionaires in the United States. In 1892, the New York Tribune published a list of 4,047 millionaires, over 100 of them having fortunes that exceeded $10 million. It was estimated that 9 percent of the nation's families controlled 71 percent of the national wealth. As the self-indulgent old rich and new rich flaunted their wealth paying on average $300,000 a year to maintain their city mansions and Newport cottages, $50.000 to keep their yachts afloat, and $12,000 each time they wanted to give a little party, hundreds of thousands of immigrants were jammed into tenements not far from the fabulous Millionaires' Row. Thousands of child laborers worked in sweatshops for $161 a year.Common laborers made $2 to $3 a day, with the average worker earning $495 a year. Two-thirds of the nation's families had incomes of less than $900; only one family in twenty had an income of more than $3,000."
Sounds kinda like 2019, only in 1900 dollars.
The book has an extensive Notes section, and an Index and a Bibliography. While an academically-based and deeply researched book, it is written in a very accessible style, almost like a People Magazine article.
I may have spoiled a little, gentle reader, in my review below. I can't help myself. It is very likely you may not ever read this book ("so many books, not enough time") but I want you to learn what I learned! Apologies in advance.
This book is a biography of the life of one of the 'Gilded Age' family founders - Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) - an illiterate hardened and crude man after years from a childhood on fishing schooners and produce/goods steamboat carriers, later a railroad investor. Then the book further details the lives of the later generations of Vanderbilts. The millions of dollars 'The Commodore' (Cornelius) accumulated was almost entirely spent by his Gilded-Era society children and grandchildren. Their story is remarkable because it shows how in four generations a family can wipe out what was the family's almost unimaginable wealth in unwise ostentation. What is even more mind-blowing is WHAT they spent the money on; however, as I mentioned, I have read stories and seen TV shows which demonstrate things the rich buy are still mostly unwise and outrageously ostentatious.
Despite that this book is mostly about late nineteenth-century/early twentieth- century New York City society in America, how wealthy people lived then does not seem much different than what TV shows and magazine articles I have read about the current twenty-first century 'beautiful people' of the world appear to live today. Perhaps current rich people should read this book very closely.
Many first generation 'Gilded Age' wealthy founders I have read about, usually from horrible low-life families, appear to be generally cruel, almost psychopathic, and definitely obsessive-compulsive. Some in their later years, around fifty, soften and mellow. But they initially, after marrying what often is the first of many wives and/or mistresses, treat their children like distrusted hired servants who might steal the silver or they seem to conduct experiments in breaking down their innocent prepubescent children as if they were wild full-grown horses to be whipped into obedience and into the supposed rigid behaviors and manners of European aristocrats. (That is, if they actually cared at all about their kids. Some acted as if their children were a rumor created by their delighted newly-wealthy social-climbing wives - although sometimes the first wife was/becomes a religious fanatic - in which either case the founder may never leave his office except maybe to see his mistress.)
Moderation, in any case, was/is an unknown state to these people.
The second generation often were scared shadows of their demanding fathers and often parvenue mothers, afraid to displease or shame their upward striving parents, having rarely felt much approval or affection and afraid of being disinherited. Their job was to become the educated icebreakers into older-Victorian blue-blood society, to marry well, preferably European royals or third-generation American industrialists or Mayflower descendents. Some of this generation will not be selected by their exacting, if irrational, parents as worthy of taking over the family business, or they demonstrated spunk and rebelliousness, so they were kicked out of the nest to fend for themselves or were given a pittance of the father's wealth and attention.
The third generation, if having inherited wealth, seem to become entirely lost, sunk deep into a sucking quicksand of constant mindless pleasure (boating, gambling, traveling, sex, hard partying) and more outrageously wasteful and showy consumerism, rarely showing up at the office or consulting financial advisors, and failing to graduate from college or apply themselves to an education at all, naming themselves 'gentlemen' while their women buy more and more jewels, furniture, clothes, art, mansions, servants...
The second generation of male Vanderbilts seemed to enlarge the faults of being the second generation by marrying golddigger aggressive women who had the faults of what normally defines the third generation.
The author goes into amazing descriptions of the most baroque expenditures, backed by academic research. There are pictures of the estates and the interiors of these palaces built by many of the Vanderbilts. They had to employ hundreds of staff and servants to maintain a single establishment, and they each had dozens of establishments.
And it was all gone in sixty years, many of the houses torn down or auctioned off, often with pieces of interior art or a fireplace sold for only a few thousand dollars, if even that, despite that the original purchase price having been originally perhaps half a million dollars for this painting or that molding or for a particular eight-foot wide crystal chandelier or marble staircase. Most of what the Vandervilts bought ended up in garbage dumps by 1950, although some art pieces ended up in museums or their massive houses were picked up or converted into a public park or government office, or a hotel. They had bought yachts which required hundreds of employees on board to run and to maintain - and eventually some family members ended up living on a rundown yacht, having let go all of the staff so that they were stuck floating in a rented space, tied up at some dock. The amplification of social climbing and feeling as if the robber-baron money would never stop was ultimately a disaster for keeping the Vanderbilt fortune intact. Many of the Vanderbilts spent not only the interest of trusts and investments, but spent down the principal and sold the stocks and bonds they inherited. It is incredible how each of the Vanderbilts squandered their money. They spent and spent and spent.
Here is a bit more information about the era in which the Vanderbilts enjoyed themselves:
First, the somewhat good news - there were more available jobs and comparatively higher pay for the masses during the 'Gilded Age'. In the mix though was bad news about horrendous work conditions and what was basically an unlivable wage despite that it was higher pay. Quoted from Wikipedia about the Gilded Age: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
"The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West. As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to a real wage growth of 60%, between 1860 and 1890, and spread across the ever-increasing labor force. The average annual wage per industrial worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in 1880, to $564 in 1890, a gain of 48%. However, the Gilded Age was also an era of abject poverty and inequality, as millions of immigrants—many from impoverished regions—poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.
Railroads were the major growth industry, with the factory system, mining, and finance increasing in importance. Immigration from Europe, and the eastern states, led to the rapid growth of the West, based on farming, ranching, and mining. Labor unions became increasingly important in the rapidly growing industrial cities. Two major nationwide depressions—the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893—interrupted growth and caused social and political upheavals. The South, after the Civil War, remained economically devastated; its economy became increasingly tied to commodities, cotton, and tobacco production, which suffered from low prices. With the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877, African-American people in the South were stripped of political power and voting rights, and were left economically disadvantaged.
For more in-depth information about these era developments, I recommend reading:
[b:Morgan: American Financier|1325761|Morgan American Financier|Jean Strouse|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387708472l/1325761._SY75_.jpg|1315186] in which a description of how the robber barons involved with financing the amazing growth of American business created banks and financial institutions,
And
[b:Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.|16121|Titan The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.|Ron Chernow|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925052l/16121._SY75_.jpg|1312015] in which it is described how some penniless but ambitious rural teenagers, of whom many are briefly described in this book although it is primarily focused around Rockefeller's journey from abject poverty to richest robber baron in America, ruthlessly invented and expanded American industry.
Excerpts from 'Fortune's Children' also about HOW the wealthy of the Gilded Age generally used their money, not only the Vanderbilts:
"At the same time, rapid economic expansion was creating new manufacturing, banking, railroad, oil, and mining millionaires, each trying to make his make his mark and break into society by increasingly lavish expenditures.
A newspaper reporter who had written that the millionaires of Newport "devoted themselves to pleasure regardless of expense" was corrected by one of the Four Hundred [a members list of top New York City elite rich people] who explained that what they really did was "to devote themselves to expense regardless of pleasure." "It is doubtful," another member of the Four Hundred complained, "whether there are more useless and empty ways of spending money in the world than can be found at Newport." Bessie Lehr remembered Mrs. Pembroke Jones telling her "that she always set aside $300,000 at the beginning of every Newport season for entertaining. Some hostesses must have spent even more. A single ball could cost $100,000 even $200,000. No one considered money except for what it could buy."
Mamie Fish was right; society had gone mad.
At a millionaire's dinner party in the ballroom at Sherry's all the guests ate on horseback, the horses' hooves covered with rubber pads to protect the floors. One hostess hid a perfect Black Pearl in each of the oysters served to her guests, and a host handed out cigarettes rolled in $100 bills. Another party featured a pile of sand in the middle of the table, and toy shovels at the guests' seats; upon command, the guests dug into the sand, searching for buried gems. A millionaire thought nothing of buying a $15,000 diamond dog collar, a pair of opera glasses encrusted with diamonds and
sapphires for $75,000, a bed inlaid with ivory and ebony and gold for $200,000, a necklace for his true love for $500,000.
In 1895, a visitor from France, viewing the two-mile stretch of Fifth Avenue that faced Central Park—Millionaires' Row as it was called (thirty years before, this part of the city had been nothing but flimsy wooden shacks and scrub growth)—was dumbfounded. "It is too evident that money cannot have much value here. There is too much of it. The interminable succession of luxurious mansions which line Fifth Avenue proclaim its mad abundance. No shops, unless of articles of luxury—a few dressmakers, a few picture dealers . . . only independent dwellings each one of which, including the ground on which it stands, implies a revenue which one dares not calculate. The absence of unity in this architecture is a sufficient reminder that this is the country of the individual will, as the absence of gardens and trees around these sumptuous residences proves the newness of all this wealth and of the city. This avenue has visibly been willed and created by sheer force of millions, in a fever of land speculation, which has not left an inch of ground unoccupied." To the Frenchman the mediocre taste of the rich was suffocating. "On the floors of halls which are too high there are too many precious Persian and Oriental rugs There are too many tapestries, too many paintings on the walls of the drawing rooms. The guest-chambers have too many bibelots, too much rare furniture, and on the lunch or dinner table there are too many flowers, too many plants, too much crystal, too much silver."
It was the height of the Gilded Age.
Before the Civil War, there were fewer than a dozen millionaires in the United States. In 1892, the New York Tribune published a list of 4,047 millionaires, over 100 of them having fortunes that exceeded $10 million. It was estimated that 9 percent of the nation's families controlled 71 percent of the national wealth. As the self-indulgent old rich and new rich flaunted their wealth paying on average $300,000 a year to maintain their city mansions and Newport cottages, $50.000 to keep their yachts afloat, and $12,000 each time they wanted to give a little party, hundreds of thousands of immigrants were jammed into tenements not far from the fabulous Millionaires' Row. Thousands of child laborers worked in sweatshops for $161 a year.Common laborers made $2 to $3 a day, with the average worker earning $495 a year. Two-thirds of the nation's families had incomes of less than $900; only one family in twenty had an income of more than $3,000."
Sounds kinda like 2019, only in 1900 dollars.
The book has an extensive Notes section, and an Index and a Bibliography. While an academically-based and deeply researched book, it is written in a very accessible style, almost like a People Magazine article.
Fascinating look at what money really does to people. Great read and I enjoyed it, the idea of The Gilded Age is rather romantic and awful at the same time. Such extravagance, yet such waste. I'd have liked to see the row of Vanderbilt mansions in their heyday, tragic that none exist now.
One issue I had with the book is how the chapters were divided. Each chapter would begin with the story of the person it was titled for. Yet it would then move on to someone else within the chapter, moving distinctly out of the timeframe included with the family member. A family tree would have also been helpful to keep track of all the boys named William and Cornelius.
The amount of money that the Commodore's descendants blew through in such a short time truly is staggering. It was such a massive fortune at that time, but in today's terms I can't even begin to imagine what that kind of wealth would be like. It would certainly outdo Buffet, Gates, etc. It's simply mind-blowing to even think about.
One issue I had with the book is how the chapters were divided. Each chapter would begin with the story of the person it was titled for. Yet it would then move on to someone else within the chapter, moving distinctly out of the timeframe included with the family member. A family tree would have also been helpful to keep track of all the boys named William and Cornelius.
The amount of money that the Commodore's descendants blew through in such a short time truly is staggering. It was such a massive fortune at that time, but in today's terms I can't even begin to imagine what that kind of wealth would be like. It would certainly outdo Buffet, Gates, etc. It's simply mind-blowing to even think about.