640 pages, Harper
Perennial, ISBN-13: 978-0060938253
Just
what is it about the Gilded Age that interests me so much, anyway? The obscene
amounts of money being made hand-over-fist by all of those unscrupulous
robber-barons? The robber-barons themselves and their seemingly total (aforementioned)
lack of scruples? The beautiful women with their voluminous hair and
form-fitting dresses and scads of jewelry and no right to vote? I dunno, man; I
just dunno. Okay, onto the review: Amanda Mackenzie Stuart’s Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of
a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age is the history of one Consuelo
Vanderbilt (yes, of the Vanderbilts)
and her mother Alva and is well-written, impeccably researched and even
entertaining to read (even if the chapters were rather long; I, for one, prefer
more, though briefer, chapters rather than fewer, though longer chapters). This is
a tale of socialites, women of enormous wealth but little power whom we are
supposed to pity; granted, many referred to Consuelo’s betrothal to Charles
Richard John Spencer-Churchill, the 9th Duke of Marlborough, as the
sale of a fabulously wealthy American girl to a titled Englishman who was close
to destitute, and so I guess we could feel a little sorry for her – but not for
long, once you delve into the life of comfort and privilege she led.
But
as the tale of these two unfolds, we find there is so much more to Consuelo and
Alva than all of that money jewelry and hair. Alva Erskine Smith was born into
a prominent Southern family and, as such, was always ambitious, headstrong and rebellious.
She spent the Civil War in Europe, returning to New York City after the war; unfortunately,
her father suffered a series of financial setbacks because of the war, and so
it was important for Alva to marry into wealth to maintain the lifestyle she
had grown accustomed to (sans slaves).
At this time, Commodore Vanderbilt was considered vulgar by society queen, Mrs.
Astor, and excluded from NY society, but when Alva married the Commodore’s
wealthy grandson, William Kissam Vanderbilt, Alva convinced all the Vanderbilts
that they should use their money to become great patrons of the arts. She
compared them to the Medici of Florence, and encouraged them to create homes
that were not only works of art, but showed good taste, culture, and the
importance of the family. Soon, Mrs. Astor was knocking on their door. Consuelo
was her only daughter, a beautiful heiress and one of the most eligible girls
at the time. Her marriage to the Duke was orchestrated for a number of reasons,
but mainly to provide acceptance to the newly divorced Alva and to provide
Vanderbilt millions to the cash-strapped duke.
Stuart
makes clear that Consuelo’s prestigious standing as a peeress of the realm made
viable her strongly liberal political beliefs and increasingly progressive acts
of philanthropy. As her astute mother had intuited, her title offered her the
social “usefulness” and a safe shelter from criticism that she might never have
had if she’d married an American. The duchess’ activism became particularly
pronounced after her official separation from her husband in 1906, and her support
of Lloyd George and the anti-aristocratic tenets of the New Liberalism
(Marlborough’s bêtes noires) would
make her a more popular figure than ever in her adopted country; initially
focused on issues of child welfare and women’s higher education, she remained
untouchable throughout her militant support for women's suffrage. Yet in the
last year of World War I, when she found the love of her life, a wealthy French
bourgeois, she shed the protections and privileges of her title with as much
grace and lightness as she had borne them. Becoming Madame Louis-Jacques
Balsan, she retreated, aged 44, into a deep, lifelong, well-deserved happiness.
What
about Alva, the scheming mother whose daughter’s brilliant marriage served to
deflect attention from her own louche reputation as a divorcée? Soon after Consuelo’s wedding to the duke, she married
the wealthy, decent Oliver Belmont and plunged for some years into the New
York-Oyster Bay-Newport life of the average socialite, with this difference:
The Belmonts, like Consuelo, had extremely liberal views. When widowed (Belmont
died of peritonitis at 49), Alva, following her daughter’s example, sought
solace in feminism and radical politics, but grew far more militant. She led
striking garment workers in marches down the Bowery, bailed out Max Eastman’s
socialist magazine, The Masses, and
organized benefits for the extremist British feminist Emmeline Pankhurst, whom
she described as “the greatest woman of her age”. She was surely the first
woman of her station to describe wives as “paid legitimate prostitutes”, or to
publicly make statements such as “[d]o I believe in burning down houses?
Certainly, after what women have had to put up with!” Increasingly paranoid and
demanding in her advancing age, after women’s suffrage was a fait accompli, Alva dabbled in other
women’s rights issues but alienated most activists with whom she tried to
collaborate. She died in 1933 in her Paris apartment, her daughter at her side,
and was buried in New York according to her very precise directions.
Without
question, these were two extraordinary women, sharing at least three stories (in
fact, three stories may have been one story too many for easy integration into
a combined biography that is manageable in scope). The prose used by the
author, while adequate, never crosses that important line to engaging, for while
her subjects are always interesting, the book sometimes fails to be. There are
a number of niggardly flaws, admittedly minor at best, yet the quantity of
these flaws, in such a serious work, disrupt the flow of the history (and I can
never understand why the foreign phrases with which the book is peppered never
are translated; surely not every reader of an English-language publication can
be presumed to talk French). Alva was a complex woman – by modern standards, probably
one who was disturbed – and in the simpler times, when she ruled New York society,
money easily smoothed over one’s glaring peculiarities. Consuelo seems to have
been a kinder, more generous personality, just plain nicer all around, who obviously
had the greater capacity to love and be loved. Blessed with a very long life,
she had close and loving relationships with friends, servants and, most importantly,
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Consuelo and Alva had a
dynamic relationship; that much is well known. Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt details many of the now famous events
in their lives: Consuelo’s loveless first marriage, Alva’s divorce, their work
as suffragettes and philanthropy, balancing the facts and exploring some of the
possible emotional elements. The author bases her work in fact, using source
materials such as letters, newspaper articles and legal documents. It is a wonderful,
accessible book to read about the life of two strong women.
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