During the Gilded Age, the Vanderbilts became one of the wealthiest families in the world. Yet within New York City society, simply having a fortune wasn't enough to be accepted by the fellow wealthy families of the upper echelon.
The Vanderbilts had money, billions of it by today's standards, but it was new money — and that wasn't enough to impress the old guard or its leading doyenne, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. Together with fellow society arbiter Ward McAllister, she developed the notorious 400 List, an exclusive index of New York City's social elite several Vanderbilts yearned to be a part of.
Social acceptance, then, required not just money but also a certain level of strategy, opulent galas and weddings being one way to cement a place in elite circles. For example, in an effort to impress Mrs. Astor, Alva Vanderbilt, the wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt — grandson of Cornelius "the Commodore" Vanderbilt, the first to make the Vanderbilt family fortune — hosted her famed Fancy Dress Ball, which reportedly cost roughly $250,000 at the time, about $6 million today. The Southern Belle turned suffragist invited 1,200 guests from New York's high society, except Mrs. Astor herself, who ultimately called personally for an invite.
© Getty Images
© Getty ImagesBut Alva's most ruthless (and successful by some, but not all, standards) act to entrench herself and her family into high society was marrying her teenage daughter, Consuelo Vanderbilt, one of the wealthiest heiresses in America, to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, a cash-poor but pedigree-rich Englishman.
Consuelo thus became one of the first American women in history to hold the title of Duchess — a poster child of "dollar princesses" who wed into titled European families, and of arranged, quid pro quo marriages. She secured the social standing her family longed for, and, thanks to her dowry, her husband secured the financial standing many aristocratic families abroad had come to lack.
© New York Public LibraryHow Consuelo's overbearing mother matched her a with duke
Alva was a famously overbearing mother to Consuelo, who everyone knew to have her own (albeit inherited) fortune of $20 million, over half a billion dollars today, thus limiting who would be eligible to marry her, at least to her mother's standards.
Her fate as her mother's pawn to stay at the top of Gilded Age society was determined from the time she was born. Her mother, who had set her eyes on British aristocracy, named her after an old friend, the Cuban-American Consuelo Montagu, Duchess of Manchester, the only duchess she knew at that point. She too married a fortune-hunting Duke, an early, notable union of Old World aristocracy and New World money.
"I considered I had a right to choose my own husband. These words, the bravest I have ever uttered, brought down a frightful storm of protest."
From then on, Alva strictly dictated every aspect of Consuelo's youth, and she was educated entirely at home by governesses and tutors. Amanda Mackenzie Stuart writes in her 2005 book Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and Mother in the Gilded Age, that Alva is believed to have told her daughter: "I do the thinking, you do as you are told."
© Getty ImagesIn her 1953 autobiography The Glitter and the Gold, Consuelo recalled how her mother would require her to wear a steel rod that ran down her back to improve her posture, and she would whip her with a riding crop even over small missteps.
Consuelo grew to embody the ideal beauty standard for the Belle Époque and Edwardian era, with her slim waist, porcelain skin, and rosy cheeks. The highly-sought after teen eventually drew five proposals from title-bearing but cash-poor suitors — four of which Alva disapproved of, and the last of which Consuelo personally disliked.
She did have one love interest, fellow socialite Winthrop Rutherfurd. Alva, however, was opposed to him, so much so that she locked Consuelo in her bedroom to avoid her eloping and threatened to kill Winthrop, who was 15 years Consuelo's senior. She also claimed Consuelo's stubbornness was making her so sick she was at death's door, only to magically recover once Consuelo relented to marrying the Alva-chosen Charles Spencer-Churchill.
"The wedding yesterday was, without exception, the most magnificent ever celebrated in this country."
The internationally recognized matchmaker responsible for introducing Consuelo (or rather Alva) to Charles was Lady Paget, the wife of Sir Arthur Paget, who was born as Mary "Minnie" Stevens, daughter of hotel entrepreneur Paran Stevens. She was one of the first American dollar princesses (and later responsible for many, many such marriages), when she married British general Sir Arthur Henry Fitzroy Paget in 1878.
"I considered I had a right to choose my own husband. These words, the bravest I have ever uttered, brought down a frightful storm of protest. I suffered every searing reproach, heard every possible invective hurled at the man I love," Consuelo wrote in her memoir.
© Getty ImagesThe "most magnificent" wedding America had ever seen
On November 6, 1895, the 18-year-old Consuelo married Charles, 9th Duke of Marlborough, at St. Thomas’s Church on 53rd Street and 5th Avenue in a morning ceremony, with a crowd outside swelling to the thousands. The New York Times ran a multi-page spread on the wedding (with seven paragraphs alone describing the florals), declaring, "She is now a duchess." It described Consuelo as "one of America's fairest young women" and the wedding as "a scene like one in fairyland."
"The wedding yesterday was, without exception, the most magnificent ever celebrated in this country, which was quite fitting, in view of the great wealth and social position of the bride and the high rank of the bridegroom," the newspaper wrote. "The floral decorations in the church and the bride's home were superb, the gowns of the women exquisite and costly, the music perhaps the finest ever rendered upon such an occasion."
© Getty Images"It was an event for a great outpouring of fashionable society, and the stalls of St. Thomas were filled with the wealthiest and most distinguished members of society," it added, noting that "even those who are used to the most exquisite decorations were enchanted by the magnificent spectacle."
Meanwhile, Consuelo — who wore a satin dress with a five-yard-long train "surrounded with embroidery in pearls and silver in a design of rose leaves" — is said to have stood at the altar, tears falling down her face, shielded by her veil of fine Brussels net.
© Getty ImagesConsuelo's marriage turned tragic soon after fairytale wedding
For marrying Consuelo, her appointed husband received a $2,500,000 trust with a guaranteed minimum annual income of $100,000, which adjusted for inflation are just shy of $100 million and $4 million, respectively, today. All in all, for the duration of their marriage (1895 to 1921) the couple and their two sons received approximately $20 million (approximately $795 million today) in gifts and inheritances from Consuelo's father.
The couple subsequently moved to the Duke's ancestral castle, Blenheim Palace, where his cousin Winston Churchill was born. He reportedly told Consuelo, on their honeymoon no less, that the only reason he'd married her was that her dowry would allow him to keep the massive country home, built between 1705 and 1722 and one of England's largest.
The marriage, which concluded with an official separation in 1906, divorce in 1921, and annulment in 1926, never improved from there. Consuelo and Charles lived separately for much of their union, and both were known to have had several affairs, Consuelo even reuniting with her former lover Rutherfurd for a time.
© Getty ImagesConsuelo found love with second husband after rare annulment
Charles remarried in 1921, to French-American socialite Gladys Marie Spencer-Churchill, and they remained wed until his death at 62 in 1934. Consuelo walked down the aisle for a second time in 1926, to Lt. Col. Jacques Balsan, a record-breaking French pilot to whom she remained married until his death in 1956.
Even Alva, who passed away at 80 in 1933, softened both her attitude and relationship with her daughter, approving of the annulment and telling investigators: "I forced my daughter to marry the Duke. I have always had absolute power over my daughter," per Stuart's book.
Consuelo, who became known for advocating liberal causes, particularly women's suffrage and other feminist policies, spent the last years of her life between New York City and Southampton. She died of a stroke in Southampton on December 6, 1964, at the age of 87.
