Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty

The period of American history known as the Gilded Age was an important period in the rise of the Vanderbilt family. It spanned from roughly the end of the Civil War to the dawning of the 20th century. Some restrict it more specifically to the years between 1877 (the end of Reconstruction in the South) and 1896 (when an economic depression occurred). The period took its name from a novel called The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, which satirized the excess and corruption for which the era was known. In these decades, business greatly expanded in the United States, pulling the country out of the economic downturn caused by the Civil War. One important part of this boom was due to the expansion of railroads, from which the Vanderbilts made a large part of their fortune. The nation was expanding ever westward, eventually all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and railroads provided the best way to move goods and people for trade and migration.

It was during this time that the economy of the United States grew to become among the largest in the world. By the end of the 19th century, the nation had overtaken Great Britain in manufacturing. Innovation helped spur this on, including in the areas of electricity, communication, and the internal combustion engine. Large corporations became larger as industries integrated to the point of monopoly. This was a time before any significant business regulation or the advent of federal income tax, so enormous profits could be made. Other families joining the Vanderbilts in amassing extreme wealth were the Rockefellers (oil), the Carnegies (steel), and the Morgans and the Mellons (banking and finance).

Members of the upper classes spent lavishly on houses, home decoration, and art collections, among other things. Having a summer home in places like Newport, Rhode Island, and Bar Harbor, Maine, came into vogue, and the Vanderbilts eagerly joined that competition to have the biggest and best. As the authors note, The Breakers, the name for Cornelius and Alice Vanderbilt’s summer home in Newport, encompassed 70 rooms and square footage three times the size of the White House.