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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Not a single likeable person from multiple generations of a family.
"Within thirty years after the death of Commodore Vanderbilt in 1877, no member of his family was among the richest in the United States, have been supplanted by such new titans as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Frick and Ford...When 120 of the Commodore's decedents gathered at Vanderbilt University in 1973 for the first family reunion, there was not a millionaire among them."
This book is good, but not great. Quickly jumps back in forth between family updates in between the chapters largely devoted to one family member at a time. Neil, my favorite Vanderbilt, was the first at getting a job outside the family-- a newspaper reporter. For this brazen action his grandmother, who left money to all other grandchildren and servants, left him with her photo. Treasure.
This book does a great job describing the folly of Gloria Vanderbilt's (Anderson Cooper's mother) court case. Plenty of blame to go around.
This book is good, but not great. Quickly jumps back in forth between family updates in between the chapters largely devoted to one family member at a time. Neil, my favorite Vanderbilt, was the first at getting a job outside the family-- a newspaper reporter. For this brazen action his grandmother, who left money to all other grandchildren and servants, left him with her photo. Treasure.
This book does a great job describing the folly of Gloria Vanderbilt's (Anderson Cooper's mother) court case. Plenty of blame to go around.
I sort of thought this was going to be dense and a little bit trying. But I have a slight fascination with the microcosm that is the Gilded Age and I don't think there's really any better example than the Vanderbilt family. From the Commodore who borrowed some money from his mother to buy a used boat that ferried people back and forth from Staten Island to Manhattan to his grandchildren; the builders of extraordinarily extravagant houses along Fifth Avenue to the last vestiges of the massive fortune through the depression but not much further. This biography was not of one person, but a whole family. And it was never boring.
Great book on the Vanderbilt family and the Gilded Age.
Is the history interesting? Absolutely. The Vanderbilts are fascinating and the stuff that happens to them is also very compelling.
But. I kept trying to work out which Vanderbilt this author descended from because there's some kind of bias in here that I can't quite understand.
Also? This book is full of some super judgy language, particularly around the women. Now I know it was written a while ago and a lot of fellas didn't know any better but dang it, I just can't with that sort of thing anymore. I'm a particular fan of Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin so I don't take kindly to the sorts of language he used for them.
Then also this book has made me think a lot about when we use the word "militant" around people who are fighting for social justice. Because this guy loved to call the suffragette Alva Vanderbilt a "militant feminist." The chapter about her work for women's suffrage was called "The Court Jester." He just does not take her work for women's rights seriously. And how should people fight for their right to vote? Quietly? Should they just bring along cookies and lemonade and softly request that they would just like to have an itsy bitsy right to participate in democracy? Alva Vanderbilt did some amazing work for women's rights. I would like to read a book just about her, please. One that won't call her militant for her passion and drive. Was she complicated? No question. But come on, man.
But. I kept trying to work out which Vanderbilt this author descended from because there's some kind of bias in here that I can't quite understand.
Also? This book is full of some super judgy language, particularly around the women. Now I know it was written a while ago and a lot of fellas didn't know any better but dang it, I just can't with that sort of thing anymore. I'm a particular fan of Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin so I don't take kindly to the sorts of language he used for them.
Then also this book has made me think a lot about when we use the word "militant" around people who are fighting for social justice. Because this guy loved to call the suffragette Alva Vanderbilt a "militant feminist." The chapter about her work for women's suffrage was called "The Court Jester." He just does not take her work for women's rights seriously. And how should people fight for their right to vote? Quietly? Should they just bring along cookies and lemonade and softly request that they would just like to have an itsy bitsy right to participate in democracy? Alva Vanderbilt did some amazing work for women's rights. I would like to read a book just about her, please. One that won't call her militant for her passion and drive. Was she complicated? No question. But come on, man.
Not a great piece of literature and strangely historically bereft this was nonetheless an interesting overview of the Vanderbilts. This is a tightly focused view into the Vanderbilts and the exclusive social circle which they finally penetrated and dominated as it became increasingly crushed by the weight of its own ostentation and outmoded, silly snobbery. The role of "History" in the demise of this world--the rise of factory class and the middle class, mass immigration, WWI, the Depression and WWII and so on--is barely even background to this recounting. And that makes this book feel rather frivolous. Not unlike many of its stars.
The fact that this was written by a Vanderbilt adds poignance to a multi-generational family history of people who were for the most part selfish, rigid and remarkably unpossessed of social conscience. Greedy, grasping, pompous and ostentatious for certain. Unless one knew they were for real one would have suspected Edith Wharton of weaving their story entirely from fictional threads. Their unkindnesses among themselves chill the blood. The story of green-backed social climbing and head bumping on the ceiling of old-money's sclerotic, uniquely American caste system is what continues to fascinate us with the Gilded Age. And underscores why ours in America was not La Belle Époque.
This also could be a cautionary tale for those who did not learn the lesson of today's never-ending recession. We cannot count on those whose overriding mission is to cling to unnecessary wealth to care for society's challenged when their greatest solipsistic needs are to build monuments to themselves.
The fact that this was written by a Vanderbilt adds poignance to a multi-generational family history of people who were for the most part selfish, rigid and remarkably unpossessed of social conscience. Greedy, grasping, pompous and ostentatious for certain. Unless one knew they were for real one would have suspected Edith Wharton of weaving their story entirely from fictional threads. Their unkindnesses among themselves chill the blood. The story of green-backed social climbing and head bumping on the ceiling of old-money's sclerotic, uniquely American caste system is what continues to fascinate us with the Gilded Age. And underscores why ours in America was not La Belle Époque.
This also could be a cautionary tale for those who did not learn the lesson of today's never-ending recession. We cannot count on those whose overriding mission is to cling to unnecessary wealth to care for society's challenged when their greatest solipsistic needs are to build monuments to themselves.
informative
medium-paced
Very well written book that's made a family history interesting to read. Eat the rich.
informative
slow-paced
This book was ok. I found the beginning quite interesting, where it was telling the story of the first of the first Vanderbilt of its dynasty. Then the book got a little less interesting as it progressed to generation after generation of Vanderbilts.
That said, it was mesmerizing to see how much money some people had back in the 1800s. I liked how the book made comparisons that helped understand the magnitude of that money, for example, by comparing it to what a good businessperson would make in a year, or what a house servant would make in a day.
Overall, I got a feeling of Bridgertown, with the aristocracy trying to figure out ways to spend money, including having lavish parties and absolutely ridiculous houses. For example, a house with so many servants that there was a person exclusively to open and close the front doors, and the front doors didn't have handles on the outside because they were supposed to always be opened on the inside by said servant. This example is from the early 1900s!
Cool bits of story. Veeeery long book. Extremely detailed. Points for the "I never knew that" factor, but not an enticing read.
That said, it was mesmerizing to see how much money some people had back in the 1800s. I liked how the book made comparisons that helped understand the magnitude of that money, for example, by comparing it to what a good businessperson would make in a year, or what a house servant would make in a day.
Overall, I got a feeling of Bridgertown, with the aristocracy trying to figure out ways to spend money, including having lavish parties and absolutely ridiculous houses. For example, a house with so many servants that there was a person exclusively to open and close the front doors, and the front doors didn't have handles on the outside because they were supposed to always be opened on the inside by said servant. This example is from the early 1900s!
Cool bits of story. Veeeery long book. Extremely detailed. Points for the "I never knew that" factor, but not an enticing read.
informative
medium-paced