Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey Listener discretion advised. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is Dani Schwartz, host of Noble Blood. If you
Speaker 1: want to support the show, you can sign up on
Speaker 1: our Patreon, Patreon dot com slash Noble Blood Tails. There's
Speaker 1: a link in the episode description where you get episode scripts,
Speaker 1: monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive merch like a seasonal sticker
Speaker 1: that is designed by incredible artists. There's so much fun.
Speaker 1: I have them now all over my kitchen. If you're
Speaker 1: listening to this episode, the day comes out. My book
Speaker 1: comes out next week, and preorders are so important in
Speaker 1: the book world. I'm sure you're tired of people telling
Speaker 1: you about that, but it's true. So if you like
Speaker 1: slightly maccabre historical stories, I think you'll really like my book.
Speaker 1: It's a sequel to my first novel, Anatomy A Love Story.
Speaker 1: This one is called Immortality a Love Story, and it's
Speaker 1: a sort of fictional alternate universe where a young female
Speaker 1: surgeon becomes the personal physician to Princess Charlotte of Wales,
Speaker 1: the granddaughter of King George the Third. So if you're
Speaker 1: interested in this podcast. I really think you'll like it.
Speaker 1: Please preorder it and thank you for listening. Alice Thought
Speaker 1: was the wealthy daughter of an even wealthier man, a
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh railroad magnet, who was convinced that his money should
Speaker 1: be able to buy his family entry into the upper
Speaker 1: echelons of society. This was three and as had been
Speaker 1: the practice for hundreds of years, the best way to
Speaker 1: elevate and cement your family social status was by marrying
Speaker 1: off your daughter. In this case, Alice Thought was going
Speaker 1: to be married to the Earl of Yarmouth, an English
Speaker 1: visitor who would sweep young Alice back across the Atlantic
Speaker 1: and into a life of title and balls. It should
Speaker 1: have been the happiest day of her life. The setup
Speaker 1: sounds like a fairy tale, a rich, beautiful girl marrying
Speaker 1: an earl. But Alice waited at the church in Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: no doubt listening behind a door or screen. As all
Speaker 1: of the esteemed society guests filed into the pews to
Speaker 1: take their seats, and Alice waited and waited. There were
Speaker 1: frantic whispers and grimaces barely disguised as smiles. The wedding
Speaker 1: was delayed, Was it a case of cold feet. Not
Speaker 1: quite that morning, the groom had gone to the courthouse
Speaker 1: to get his marriage license, and on his way back
Speaker 1: to the Hotel schlen Ley where he was staying, he
Speaker 1: was served a writ by a constable and local alderman's agent.
Speaker 1: You see, the groom was an earl, but he was
Speaker 1: also a habitual gambler who had a talent for avoiding
Speaker 1: paying his debts. His marriage to Miss Alice Thaw was
Speaker 1: in large part thanks to her generous dowry and inheritance,
Speaker 1: and her wealth was tremendous. Between the inheritance she received
Speaker 1: from her by then dead father and the money that
Speaker 1: she would inherit from her independently rich mother, Alice was
Speaker 1: a multimillionaire many times over, and this was more than
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago. Money the Thaw family had, but
Speaker 1: they wanted prestige, which George Seymour, Earl of Yarmouth, could provide.
Speaker 1: Upon marrying him, Alice thought would become a countess and
Speaker 1: her family would get the bragging rights of having an
Speaker 1: English noble in the family. The Earl was an amateur
Speaker 1: actor and the young couple had only known each other
Speaker 1: for three months before the wedding. Still, it seemed like
Speaker 1: a perfectly reasonable arrangement, at least until the day of
Speaker 1: the wedding, when Alice was pacing at the church and
Speaker 1: her younger brother had to race down to the courthouse
Speaker 1: for a last minute renegotiation of the dowry so that
Speaker 1: the groom would be released from custody. Once the earl's
Speaker 1: debtors were satisfied, the groom headed to the church, where
Speaker 1: he took his place at the altar with his betrothed
Speaker 1: a few hours late, but with the guests none the wiser.
Speaker 1: At least none the wiser until The New York Times
Speaker 1: wrote an article about the whole snaffhoo a few weeks later.
Speaker 1: Alice's arrangement was fairly common. There was a name for
Speaker 1: girls like her, dollar princesses. They were the results of
Speaker 1: an old social system crashing violently against a new way
Speaker 1: of making an extreme amount of money. The marriage between
Speaker 1: Alice Thaw and the Earl of Yarmouth was, and try
Speaker 1: your best not to be too shocked by this, a
Speaker 1: wildly unhappy one. Alice was miserable almost as soon as
Speaker 1: the two boarded the St. Paul to begin sailing for England,
Speaker 1: and five years later, she sued for divorce. The annulment
Speaker 1: was granted on the ground of non consummation. Alice moved
Speaker 1: back to Massachusetts, taking her wealth with her. It had
Speaker 1: seemed like a perfect arrangement, a way of taking and
Speaker 1: giving in ways meant to game the system during a
Speaker 1: sort of social and cultural no man's land when the
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution had turned everything on its head. But the
Speaker 1: system itself was designed on its exclusivity, meant to keep
Speaker 1: certain people out, and some people, even when they married
Speaker 1: dukes or earls or princes, preferred to break the system entirely.
Speaker 1: I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. The late
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, a periods sometimes referred
Speaker 1: to as the Guilded Age, was a fascinating period in
Speaker 1: the social history of the American elite. Comparing ourselves to Europe,
Speaker 1: Americans sometimes like to boast about the fact that we
Speaker 1: have no aristocracy. Well that's not exactly true. Well we
Speaker 1: don't have well titled landed gentry. There was very clearly
Speaker 1: a defined upper class in the Gilded Age, so clearly defined,
Speaker 1: in fact, that there was a group called the four
Speaker 1: Hundred who were considered part of the elite social circle,
Speaker 1: as determined by Caroline Astor anecdotally, four hundred was the
Speaker 1: amount of people who could fit inside Mrs Astor's ballroom,
Speaker 1: though there have been questions even at the time whether
Speaker 1: explicitly a list existed, and if it did, who was
Speaker 1: on it. What's very clear is that there was an
Speaker 1: in crowd, and getting in wasn't always something that money
Speaker 1: could buy. Though our social strata have become maybe slightly
Speaker 1: less rigid, I want to be clear, the hidden American
Speaker 1: aristocracy still very much exists, probably in a pile marked
Speaker 1: legacy in the Yale Admissions office. But something strange was
Speaker 1: happening at the turn of the century. Certain common people
Speaker 1: were making money, a lot of money from steel and railroads,
Speaker 1: money that would have been unthinkable a century or even
Speaker 1: half a century prior. The Industrial Revolution had changed things,
Speaker 1: and now there were people whose parents had been nobody's
Speaker 1: who were now able to buy homes facing Central Park.
Speaker 1: They could afford the right clothes and the right wall
Speaker 1: paper and the right chefs, and they wanted to go
Speaker 1: to the right parties. But the social system of the
Speaker 1: Gilded Age still scoffed at new money, and when the
Speaker 1: likes of Mrs ass refused to allow them entry into
Speaker 1: her private kingdom. The so called new money decided that
Speaker 1: the best way to get ahead was to go overseas.
Speaker 1: Originally a move borne out of creative desperation among the
Speaker 1: new vaux reach, marrying into a title soon became the
Speaker 1: most fashionable thing that a young American woman could do.
Speaker 1: It's still pretty glamorous today if you think about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're raised on Disney movies that promise that
Speaker 1: the most beautiful and virtuous among us are destined to
Speaker 1: be royalty. Even today, a lot of Americans are suckers
Speaker 1: for a British accent titled or not. But this was
Speaker 1: a mutually beneficial arrangement for the mail order grooms across
Speaker 1: the pond as well. Their titles were centuries old, but
Speaker 1: so often were the estates that came with them, and
Speaker 1: the world had changed in that time, particularly the way
Speaker 1: that people made money. Lar swatches of farming land simply
Speaker 1: weren't going to make a man as rich as say,
Speaker 1: being a railroad magnet machinery was the new superpower. Years
Speaker 1: of gradually diminishing inheritances left dukes and earls with magnificent estates,
Speaker 1: but no cash to heat them or fix their leaking roofs.
Speaker 1: They needed an influx of cash, and they could get
Speaker 1: it through marriage. I saw one figure estimating that twenty
Speaker 1: five billion dollars made its way into England via American brides.
Speaker 1: If you've seen Downton Abbey, you're familiar with the arrangement.
Speaker 1: Running a massive estate with a massive staff takes money,
Speaker 1: and so in Downton Abbey, the fictional Earl of Grantham
Speaker 1: married an American heiress named Cora to help keep Downton running.
Speaker 1: It was such a common practice at the time that
Speaker 1: there was a quarterly publication called the Titled American that
Speaker 1: would run ads from bachelor's looking for rich wives. One
Speaker 1: ad read, the Marquess of Winchester is thirty two years
Speaker 1: old and a captain of the Coldstream Guards. You know
Speaker 1: what you could do worse. It wasn't always the case
Speaker 1: that these men were holding their noses and being forced
Speaker 1: to marry gasp tacky Americans for purely mercenary reasons. There
Speaker 1: was some charm to their new brides. As a rule,
Speaker 1: American girls were well educated and fun and typically outspoken,
Speaker 1: which was a novelty compared to their more demure English counterparts.
Speaker 1: Even still, unlike Downton Abbey, these marriages almost invariably ended
Speaker 1: in disaster. So let's take a look at some of
Speaker 1: these marriages. The trend began with a young woman named
Speaker 1: Jenny Jerome, the Brooklyn born daughter of a land speculator,
Speaker 1: who married Lord Randolph Churchill in eighteen seventy four. Neither
Speaker 1: set of parents were thrilled at the man the couple
Speaker 1: had met, if you can believe it, at a sailing
Speaker 1: regatta introduced by Queen Victoria's son, the then Prince of Wales,
Speaker 1: who had been delighted and charmed by Jenny. American girls
Speaker 1: like Jenny Jerome were faring better in Europe than they
Speaker 1: were among the New York City elite. Though the Jerome's
Speaker 1: could buy a mansion at the corner of twenty six
Speaker 1: Street and Madison Avenue, they couldn't buy their way out
Speaker 1: of the perception that Jenny's father was a rake. I
Speaker 1: found one source claim that he was quote a noted
Speaker 1: chaser of comely opera singers, and that Jenny's mother had
Speaker 1: gasp rumored Iroquois ancestry. But in Europe, Jenny Shone. In
Speaker 1: her diary, she wrote of why she thought English boys
Speaker 1: were so delighted by American girls. Quote, they are better
Speaker 1: read and have generally traveled before they make their appearance
Speaker 1: in the world. Whereas a whole family of English girls
Speaker 1: are educated by a more or less incompetent governess, the
Speaker 1: air Can girl in the same condition of life will
Speaker 1: begin from her earliest age with the best professors. By
Speaker 1: the time she's eighteen, she's able to assert her views
Speaker 1: on most things and her independence in all. Three days
Speaker 1: after meeting Lord Randolph, Jenny and he were engaged. His
Speaker 1: parents were upset about the aforementioned blemishes on Jenny's parents reputations.
Speaker 1: Lord Randolph's father wrote in a letter to his son
Speaker 1: that Jenny's father quote drives about six and eight horses
Speaker 1: in New York. One may take this as an indication
Speaker 1: of what the man is. To be quite honest, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if that's too many horses or too few,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure Lord Randolph knew what that meant of
Speaker 1: what kind of man he was. Meanwhile, Jenny's parents were
Speaker 1: myth that Lord Randolph hadn't asked their permission before proposing,
Speaker 1: and they were a little upset that because Lord Randolph
Speaker 1: wasn't his father's eldest son, he wouldn't inherit the title
Speaker 1: of Due of Marlborough. But now either family could argue
Speaker 1: with the fact that it was a smart arrangement, on
Speaker 1: top of the fact that the Prince of Wales had
Speaker 1: ostensibly set them up. Because Randolph was a younger son,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have any money of his own outside of
Speaker 1: a meager allowance. The Jerome's were getting into bed with
Speaker 1: a powerful British noble family, and for that they paid
Speaker 1: fifty thousand pounds in a dowry and a one thousand
Speaker 1: pound yearly allowance for Jenny. It had been a long
Speaker 1: negotiation before the marriage could actually take place, despite the
Speaker 1: speed at which the couple had originally become engaged, which
Speaker 1: had probably something to do with the slight scandal when
Speaker 1: their first child, a son, was born, only um seven
Speaker 1: months after the wedding. By the standards of dollar princess marriages,
Speaker 1: theirs was successful, at least successful enough that after her
Speaker 1: husband died, Jenny would go on to marry two more Englishmen,
Speaker 1: but more often than not, the marriages were disasters from
Speaker 1: the start. Consider the case of another American, a young
Speaker 1: woman named Winnoretta Singer, the heiress to the Singer sewing
Speaker 1: machine fortune. In eighteen eighty seven, when Winneretta was twenty two,
Speaker 1: she was married to a French prince named my sincerest
Speaker 1: apologies for this pronunciation, Louis de sa mont Bayard. The
Speaker 1: marriage did not go well. On their wedding night, Winneretta
Speaker 1: climbed on top of an armoir and shouted at the
Speaker 1: groom that if he touched her, she would kill him.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a distaste for frenchmen. Winneretta was a lesbian,
Speaker 1: and five years later their marriage was annulled on the
Speaker 1: grounds of non consummation. Winnoeretta would marry again another French aristocrat,
Speaker 1: a man named Prince Edmund de Polignac, whose grandmother, the
Speaker 1: Duchess Polignac, had coincidentally been one of Marie Antoinette's favorites.
Speaker 1: This marriage between winner Etta and Prince Edmund was also
Speaker 1: never consummated, but it was a much happier arrangement. The
Speaker 1: two were both gay, and so they remained married, happily
Speaker 1: hosting salons and sponsoring causes of arts and culture, while
Speaker 1: each took whichever lovers they wanted on the side. On
Speaker 1: Winneretta's end, those lovers included a number of prominent female
Speaker 1: socialites and artists, including allegedly Virginia Wolf. I want to
Speaker 1: say here, I realized that this episode of the podcast
Speaker 1: is a little bit different than others I've done that
Speaker 1: focus on a single story. This episode is more the
Speaker 1: story of a phenomenon, and so we're jumping between individual
Speaker 1: cases to understand a larger pattern. But this is Noble Blood,
Speaker 1: and I want to tell you a story. So let
Speaker 1: zoom back in on the wedding day of one of
Speaker 1: the most iconic dollar princesses in American history, a young
Speaker 1: woman named Consuelo Vanderbilt. By her wedding day in eighteen
Speaker 1: Consuelo was one of the most well known socialites in
Speaker 1: New York. Her father was the oldest son of the
Speaker 1: oldest son of the railroad baron, Cornelius Vanderbilt. For a time,
Speaker 1: the Vanderbilts were considered the wealthiest family in America. Still,
Speaker 1: they had been snubbed by Old New York, and Consualo's
Speaker 1: mother was determined to give her daughter a match that
Speaker 1: would exalt her. What better way of establishing importance on
Speaker 1: an altogether arbitrary system of social standing than by giving
Speaker 1: her daughter a title Duchess. Consualo's groom was Charles Spencer Churchill,
Speaker 1: the Duke of Marlborough, who went by Sonny because of
Speaker 1: another title he also held, Earl of Sunderland. He was
Speaker 1: actually the nephew of the man that Jenny Jerome had
Speaker 1: married two decades earlier. It was to be the event
Speaker 1: of the season. On the morning of November six. Swarms
Speaker 1: of people lined both sides of Fifth Avenue, waiting to
Speaker 1: catch just a glimpse of the bride as she arrived
Speaker 1: to St. Thomas Episcopal Church, but their jubilant spirit hadn't
Speaker 1: reached Consuelo. She would later write, quote, I spent the
Speaker 1: morning of my wedding day in tears and alone. No
Speaker 1: one came near me. A footman had been posted at
Speaker 1: the door of my apartment, and not even my Governess
Speaker 1: was admitted. Like an automaton. I donned the lovely lingerie
Speaker 1: with its real lace and the white silk stockings and shoes.
Speaker 1: I felt cold and numb as I went down to
Speaker 1: meet my father and the bridesmaids, who were waiting for
Speaker 1: me and quote. Allegedly, Consuelo had been in love with
Speaker 1: another man, but regardless, the bride was already bought and
Speaker 1: paid for. The dowry was two point five million dollars
Speaker 1: worth of shares in Vanderbilt stock. The family would also
Speaker 1: give one hundred thousand dollars annually to both Consuelo and Charles.
Speaker 1: The wedding happened, and miserable as Consuelo had been that morning,
Speaker 1: things for her were about to get much, much worse.
Speaker 1: As soon as the wedding was over, Consuelo and Sonny
Speaker 1: left for his dreary family home, Lennim Palace. When they
Speaker 1: got there, Sonny told his new bride that he actually
Speaker 1: had a lover and intended to keep her on the side.
Speaker 1: Consuelo's role then was wife, yes, but also bank. The
Speaker 1: marriage to her finally allowed the Marlborough family enough money
Speaker 1: to begin to restore their historic home. For Consulo, it
Speaker 1: was a misery living there, she wrote, quote, we spent
Speaker 1: the first three months in a cold and cheerless apartment
Speaker 1: looking north. They were ugly, depressing rooms, devoid of the
Speaker 1: beauty and comforts my own home had provided. Remember, of course,
Speaker 1: that Consualo's family had been extraordinarily rich in America. Their
Speaker 1: homes in New York had electricity and running water. Those
Speaker 1: were not luxuries that stately but very very old houses
Speaker 1: in England had. Blenheim was sixty five miles from London
Speaker 1: and did not have indoor plumbing. The couple remained married
Speaker 1: for ten years, with multiple affairs from both parties, until
Speaker 1: they finally divorced, although it couldn't have been all bad
Speaker 1: for Consuelo because when she finally died, she did ask
Speaker 1: that she be buried at Blenhim Palace, which her money
Speaker 1: had done so much to restore. The times would evolve,
Speaker 1: and the heyday of the American dollar princess ended at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the twentieth century. George the Five became
Speaker 1: king in nineteen ten, and his ascension began to usher
Speaker 1: in a season of English prudence and austerity that lasted
Speaker 1: throughout the First World War. Excesses, a labortt parties, and
Speaker 1: displays of wealth began to seem vulgar, and so the
Speaker 1: need to import it via American brides began to diminish. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: things began gradually improving for the new money set in America.
Speaker 1: Wealthy heiresses were granted more social capital. They didn't need
Speaker 1: a title so badly that they were willing to spend
Speaker 1: their lives mill doing on a dreary property outside London
Speaker 1: while a cheating husband tore through her fortune restoring his
Speaker 1: family's home. They could get enough attention and parties. In America.
Speaker 1: The final heiress that will talk about today is a
Speaker 1: young woman named Frances Ellen Work who married a baron
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty. She would eventually inherit fifteen million dollars,
Speaker 1: which is a good thing because her husband spent an
Speaker 1: estimated two point five million gambling. Francis works father, Frank,
Speaker 1: was a self made New York millionaire, and by the
Speaker 1: time he died in nineteen eleven, he came to despise
Speaker 1: the idea of dollar princesses exchanging titles for money, even
Speaker 1: though that's exactly what his own daughter had done. His
Speaker 1: obituary in the New York Tribune included a quote, It's
Speaker 1: time this international marrying came to a stop, for our
Speaker 1: American girls are ruining our own country by it. As
Speaker 1: fast as our honorable hard working men can earn this money,
Speaker 1: their daughters take it and toss it across the ocean,
Speaker 1: and for what For the purpose of a title and
Speaker 1: the privilege of paying the debts of so called nobleman.
Speaker 1: If I had anything to say about it, I'd make
Speaker 1: an international marriage a hanging offense. Ultimately, Francis work Baroness
Speaker 1: would become the great grandmother of a woman who married
Speaker 1: into a title even grander than her own, the title
Speaker 1: Princess of Wales. Her great granddaughter was Princess Diana, But
Speaker 1: like her ancestor, the title and the marriage was ultimately
Speaker 1: not worth the price. That's the story or stories of
Speaker 1: a few notable dollar princesses. But stick around after a
Speaker 1: brief sponsor break to hear a little fun fact. I
Speaker 1: think you'll enjoy. The englishmen and women I know take
Speaker 1: a certain pride in looking down on Americans, not overtly,
Speaker 1: but little jokes bragging, you know, But an American is
Speaker 1: actually responsible for one of Great Britain's biggest points of pride.
Speaker 1: Do you remember Jenny Jerome, the girl who all but
Speaker 1: started the trend of marrying for titles when she wed
Speaker 1: Lord Randolph in eight seventy four. Well, Jenny Jerome did
Speaker 1: her duty of providing her husband and air a baby
Speaker 1: born scandalous Lee seven months after their marriage, a son
Speaker 1: who would go on to become a statesman, scholar, and
Speaker 1: Prime minister. Jenny Jerome's son was Winston Churchill. Noble Blood
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Speaker 1: Danish Sports. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston,
Speaker 1: hannah's Wick, Mirra Hayward, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman. The
Speaker 1: show is produced by rema Il Kali, with supervising producer
Speaker 1: Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex will Lilliams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.