by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe
Hennepin County Library hardcover 290 pages
Published: 2021
Genre: non-fiction, history
I don't remember when I first heard about this book, but I was on the holds list at the library for a long time! It took me longer to read it than it should have . . . it was alternately fascinating and boring. I loved the photographs. It was interesting to me to read up on the Astors and Rockefellers, too, for frames of reference. I'm going to make a few notes here and then return it for the next reader!
Preface: "Poor Vanderbilt! How I pity you; and this is honest. You are an old man, and ought to have some rest, and yet you have to struggle, and deny yourself, and rob yourself of restful sleep and peace of mind, because you need money so badly. I always feel for a man who is so poverty ridden as you. Don't misunderstand me, Vanderbilt. I know you own seventy millions; but then you know and I know, that it isn't what a man has, that constitutes wealth. No - it is to be satisfied with what one has; that is wealth." - Mark Twain, March 1869
Wow. That quotation from Mark Twain really struck me. I wonder what Cornelius Vanderbilt thought when he saw that. "Poverty ridden" is certainly not how he saw himself!
I looked back at the partial family tree as I was reading. It made me curious about how many people were omitted. I wish birth and death dates had been included.
Page xiv - "The Vanderbilt dynasty disappeared long ago, and my parents had made sure I understood early on that there was no 'Vanderbilt money' or trust fund I'd be inheriting when I became an adult. They wanted me to be my own person, and I am grateful to them for that. I don't think I would have been as driven as I have been if I had grown up believing there was a pot of gold somewhere waiting for me."
I like Anderson Cooper. I can't imagine his childhood, losing his dad and then his brother. For all the advantages he's had in life, he's had his share of challenges as well. I have a mixture of sadness and scorn for kids who grow up insanely wealthy without having any responsibilities or compassion.
Page 107 - "It was rumored that the Vanderbilt ball cost a quarter of a million dollars, about $6.4 million in today's money. . . . For comparison, one of the maids who left Alva's ball to await her mistress in a carriage parked on Fifty-Third Street . . . would have been paid around $350, in a year."
This was in 1883. Alva Vanderbilt (married to "the Commodore's" grandson Willie) was a social climber trying to outdo Caroline Astor. Vanity and arrogance!
Page 200 - "And they nearly lost a man, Ben Bruntwith, who got swept off the deck by the boom on another jibe. . . . before the rest of the crew dragged him, wet and coughing, back on board. And a good thing, too. The racing rules of sailing were very clear that a yacht must end the race with the same number of crew on board as at the start."
This made me laugh a bit (America's Cup race with Harold Vanderbilt at the helm, 1934) but also realize that people who want to win at any cost don't care too much about who they hurt en route.
Page 209 - "Everyone in this story wants something. So, we might as well begin back with Reggie, a man who could at one time buy almost anything and who discovered in the winter of 1922 that what he really and truly wanted was his daughter's seventeen-year-old friend Gloria Morgan."
Reading this made me want to vomit. Cooper is writing about his grandpa and grandma (and great aunt) here . . . Two pages later, he writes that Gloria (grandma) was seventeen and Reggie was 42. Gross!
There were many other passages that elicited a reaction from me, but overall I did not enjoy this book as much as I anticipated. Each chapter of the book focused on a different chapter of the Vanderbilt "dynasty." Conspicuous consumption. Wealth squandered. Too bad the family didn't do more good with their opportunities. (I'm thinking about Carnegie Libraries.)
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