Vanderbilt Era: Profiles of a Gilded Age

by Louis Auchincloss

Offers twenty-one biographical sketches profiling members of four generations of one of America's wealthiest families, focusing primarily on the elder generations

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Historical

214 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Louis Stanton Auchincloss was an American novelist, historian, and essayist.

Among Auchincloss's best-known books are the multi-generational sagas The House of Five Talents, Portrait in Brownstone, and East Side Story. Other well-known novels include The Rector of Justin, the tale of a renowned headmaster of a school like Groton trying to deal with changing times, and The Embezzler, a look at white-collar crime. Auchincloss is known for his closely observed portraits of old New York and New England society.

Reviews

[Dea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very surface-level overviews of three generations, with no real insight or analysis. There is nothing here that isn’t found in other works about the Vanderbilts (or on their Wikipedia pages).

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is essentially short chapters on Vanderbilts of the 19th and early 20th century, and some other players during that same time. I guess you might call each a vignette or maybe even an amuse bouche - that delightful (or at least hopefully interesting) little hors d'œuvre in a fancy schmancy restaurant served before the meal really begins. Each chapter on a Vanderbilt or Other Personage is an amuse bouche that may interest you in reading more about that particular person. Or perhaps the entire book is an amuse bouche, and the main meal is - what? Something by Edith Wharton or Henry James? A marathon session of Downton Abbey? Regardless, the book is a real treat. Especially as Louis Auchincloss name drops the entire way through, and with good reason - he's related to half of the people he's writing about. It's Roots for WASPs, or at least this particular WASP. In a chapter about Louis C. Tiffany and his famous costume balls: "I know an old French lady, a survivor of the era, who coined a term for such goings-on: silly-clever." Or, in the chapter on The Mrs. Astor: "I remember once, one a two-hour drive with her grandson... suggesting that we kill the time by trying to re-create her personality." This man knew of what he wrote and spoke, perhaps the last one to do so definitively and knowledgeably. You might say that what he writes is "hearsay" (or even gossip) but since 1989 hearsay has become history.

[Cliff Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This entertaining social history looks at the years 1880 through 1920 and is set largely in or near New York. The author’s primary subjects, beginning with Cornelius Vanderbilt, are four generations of a family who at one time controlled $200 million, “the largest fortune in America if not the world.” While Auchincloss’ research is obviously extensive, he conveys his erudition with a light touch and in a concise style.
In general, as in his novels the author’s subject is how money is made and spent. Especially striking here, however, are the portraits Auchincloss paints. Cornelius Vanderbilt “was puffed up with divine greed,” as a contemporary wrote. Gertrude Vanderbilt was an arts patron who instigated a scandalous battle for custody of her niece, Gloria Vanderbilt. Harold Stirling Vanderbilt was a champion yachtsman and “the father of contract bridge.”
In some cases, more interesting than the Vanderbilts are other individuals Auchincloss describes. These include the historian Henry Adams and his brothers, infamous speculator Jay Gould, the artists Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent and Louis C. Tiffany, the diplomat Henry White, the architect Stanford White and the author Edith Wharton. Auchincloss is notably good at relating her major novels to the era.

[Elizabeth Connors · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have a tablet nearby. These brief essays refer to numerous mansions and paintings you will want to view, especially portraits by John Singer Sargent. Besides Cornelius Vanderbilt, his family, Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, etc., Auchincloss includes vignettes of Sargent and Edith Wharton. His familiarity with the families comprising “The Four Hundred” gives us an honest and fair picture of a relatively small group of people, affected by wealth and a sense of superior standards and taste.

[Alec Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A portrait of the Vanderbilt family from the Commodore down to the 1970s, Auchincloss also includes portraits of their contemporaries - architects, painters, bankers, writers, etc. and in so doing gives us a nice overview of the upper society of the Gilded Age and beyond.

[J. Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this book in a roundbout way; in an interview i found on the hinternets, Dorothy Parker recommended another of Louis Auchincloss' books, The Rector of Somewhere-Or-Other, which I got from the library, but found slow and essentially uninteresting.
"Profiles of a Gilded Age", the subtitle, intrigued me, so I got it from the library as well. it was not what I was expecting, though it may have proven more readable and enjoyable in the state it was presented.
Instead of a multi-generational narrative of the fortunes of the Vanderbilt family since the era of the Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt through the generation most recently deceased at the time of the book's writing, in 1989.
Gloria, of "Little Gloria, Happy At Last" fame is only mentioned in reference to her adoption by her Aunt Gertrude Whitney, who gained custody from her mother in 1934.The Genological Chart of the Vanderbilt Family includes "only those persons treated in the text", so it explores the lineage of Anderson Cooper without coming any closer than the childhood of his mother.
The second half of the book includes portraits of the Vanderbilt circle, from Jay Gould, bandit financier, and painter John Singer Sargent to Mrs. Astor and J.P. Morgan.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book of vignettes about the Vanderbilts and their circle. The first half of the book deals with the family. The second half covers the movers and shakers of their society: artists, businessmen, craftsmen, and other societal figures.

I appreciate that Louis Auchincloss, a member by marriage of the family, had insights no one else had. He was able to litter the book with family gossip that was highly amusing. This was a quick read, and recommended for fans of Gilded Age society.

[Suzanne Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read book after book about Gilded Age families but I just can't get enough of them! Mr. Auchincloss knew them, is related to some of them, so reading his account is just somehow extra. This work introduced me to some new names and reminded me of old ones to read more about.

[Betsie Bush · Rating 3 out of 5]

2022 Read Harder challenge - about a time period of which I knew little.

I enjoyed learning about the artists and writers. Best outcome is that it prompted me to read Edith Wharton's House of Mirth.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author appeared to be a little more engaged once he moved beyond writing about his wife's family, but it was still pretty clear what he wanted to write about was himself. You have to presume there is not enough of a market for that story.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biographical sketches of various scions of the Mauve Age.

[Cassie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book contains, as the subtitle claims, profiles. They are predominantly Vanderbilts, Vanderbilt in-laws, and some important contemporaries of the family. While the author has clearly researched the family and their business interests, there is a suggestion in his writing that he is in awe of his subjects, instead of simply reporting on them. Reading more about Auchincloss later and also just taking cues from the book, it seems that the author was friends with a number of the family members and their descendents. So, perhaps that is where the indication of "awe" comes from--that he is talking about friends instead of just "subjects." The book also suffers from the lack of a concrete central line. Simply using the Vanderbilts as the tie that binds was not enough in this book. So, while it was interesting, it wasn't what I expected. I had been thinking of it more as biography from a third party instead of a memoir or history written by a friend. I would liken this more to Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir by A.E. Hotchner than a "biography" as such.

[Yvonne O'Connor · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book compiles short biographies of many of the early Vanderbilts and adds in profiles of other major societal figures like Adams, Morgan, and Edith Wharton. The book starts out with Cornelius Vanderbilt, the one who started the family fortune and then follows his sons and their children, but stops before the famous Gloria's generation. Through the others included in the novel, (Sullivan, Sergeant, and Tiffany too) we get a good sense of just how widespread the Vanderbilt way of life was on society as a whole.

Although I love learning about the "American Families", this book was organized in chapters that were too short to impart more than just gossipy items or wide-cast nets of profiles. Also, I didn't understand why many of the "Strangers" were included. There was no tie-in to many of them and lumping them all after the chapters on the Vanderbilts made the inclusion seem like a last minute idea or a poorly-edited piece. For a well-connected author, he didn't seem to take this piece very seriously.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Calling this book the Vanderbilt Era is a serious overstatement. If anything it proves the wealthy family had little impact at all on American society, outside of upper class parties and the construction of ridiculously large and architecturally dubious homes (their economic impact being hardly addressed). This book, in its short chapters, tries to grasp at character and biography via a handful of anecdotes. This can be entertaining, or at least gossipy, but the most interesting chapters are on literary/artistic figures like Edith Wharton, John Singer Sargent, and Henry Adams and not the tedious Vanderbilts. Auchincloss knew some of the participants in this story - he offers little in the way of new understanding and certainly no new criticism (greed and myopic selfishness being old criticisms).

[Maura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess I only skimmed this one, since some of his essays duplicated what I had just read in the other books on the Vanderbilts. Auchincloss writes about other figures from the Gilded Age such as Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Richard Morris Hunt. These essays filled in the gaps for me, since they had been mentioned in the Vanderbilt books but usually weren't treated in much detail.

In one essay, Auchincloss mentions the criticisms of poor taste that were often leveled at the Vanderbilts' many houses. They were seen as expressions of wealth only, built with no regard to function or comfort. He sort of sneers at American styles compared to European styles. Yet many of the European buildings were created for the same purpose, to display wealth and to show status. I didn't see any difference except that the European buildings were older.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A funcitonal enough portrait of an interesting family without either the sugarcoating or "gotcha" extremes.

[laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy, quick read. Bit boring. Reading about the women depressed me. Glad to live in the 21st century and, frankly, to not be rich.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting profile of the Vanderbilt family, once the richest family in America, and their contemporaries.