Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper

 

Summary (from the publisher): New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.

When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,” subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all.

Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other.

Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.

Review: In this book, author and journalist Anderson Cooper chronicles the rise and fall of his mother's family, the Vanderbilts. During the Gilded Age, Cornelius Vanderbilt, known as "the Commodore", built up a massive empire through shipping and railroads, leaving him the richest man in America. After his death, his son Billy doubled his inheritance. But in subsequent generations, excess, poor financial choices, and splitting of the fortune among many heirs left it largely depleted. In 2018, the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers - the severy-room summer estate in Newport Rhode Island built by the Commodore's grandson and a living monument to the family's wealth and excessive spending. 

Author Anderson Cooper is the Commodore's great-great-great-grandson. He argues that his mother Gloria, who inherited millions as a little girl after her father's untimely death, was the last Vanderbilt to live a truly Vanderbilt lifestyle. "She was the last living Vanderbilt who'd slept at The Breakers when it was still a private home, owned by her grandmother Alice, who'd built it with her grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt II before the advent of air-conditioning, to escape the stifling heat that made even their sprawling mansion in Manhattan feel oppressive. She was the last child to ride in cars driven by liveried chauffeurs, guarded by private detective in overcoats and fedoras. She was the last to be born before the Depression, when the Vanderbilt riches seemed as limitless and eternal as the stars in the sky. [...] She was a symbol of an era, of a set of values or experiences - the way that money can bend and warp relationships, the way that one family's ambitions can either uplift or infect the members of the family, sometimes for good, but more often than we might think, for ill" (264-265.)

I love reading histories on the Vanderbilts and this one was well done, and this book did a credible job at providing a survey course in the family's origins, early years, and major figures. The authors did a great job researching and providing a lot of detailed background on the family. Where the book really diverged from other Vanderbilt histories I have read was in the detail on more recent generations on the family. For instance, I loved that the book opened with the sad scenes of the last Vanderbilts having to vacate The Breakers before then diving back into history to show the origins of the wealth and mansions. I also of course loved that the author could weigh in as a member of the family, although he's careful to always say he feels more like a Cooper and that it was his mother who was the Vanderbilt of the family. 

The book did seem to flounder about halfway through. After the first couple generations of wealth in the family, it becomes much more fractured, all spread out and with far less wealth. It seemed as if the authors weren't sure where to go with it from that point on and how to tie the narrative thread together with Anderson's mother Gloria. They decided to go with a long-winded chapter on Truman Capote, which was only about the Vanderbilts very tangentially. I found it an odd inclusion and it didn't really match the other chapters, which all focused on Vanderbilts more centrally. However, it redeemed itself with the chapters on Gloria Vanderbilt and her lavish spending even in the face of ever diminishing wealth as she aged. 

Stars: 4

Related Titles: 

• Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt by Arthur T. Vanderbilt II
• Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart 
• The Glitter and the Gold: The American Duchess - In Her Own Words by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan 
• The Husband Hunters: American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy by Anne de Courcy
• A Season of Splendour: The Court of Mrs. Astor in Gilded Age New York by Greg King