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The
huge fortunes they derived from their mining, railroad, banking,
merchandising or industrial activities, brought the American
capitalists a status, second to none, including royalty. And like
the kings and earls of Europe or the somewhat more modest colonial
manor lords and plantation owners, the kings of fortune left their
landmarks to posterity, mainly in the form of their castles and
mansions. Superlative architectural expressions of great wealth were
built in many places, but they tended to favor certain spots, such
as Long Island and Newport R.I.
The
Vanderbilt family easily outdid all other wealthy families of the
Gilded Age in their architectural aspirations, although
the Du Ponts
of Delaware later made it to a close second. Their favorite
architect, Richard Morris Hunt, built the Vanderbilts no less than
five castle like mansions, including 660 Fifth Avenue, Idle Hour,
Marble House, the Breakers and Biltmore, the largest of them all. A
dozen other mansions rounded the set of Vanderbilt family seats,
which had reputedly cost an aggregate of more than $ 100 million.
Like the Livingstons a hundred years earlier, the Vanderbilts built
their social prominence on the stones of their lofty country
estates.
The
Du Pont family's mansions were all built in the countryside of
Delaware and nearby Pennsylvania in an area which is known as the
"American château country". Nemours, Longwood, Winterthur, Louviers,
Granogue, Montchanin, Chevannes, Owls Nest, Bellevue, Henry Clay and
Guyencourt are so many lofty estates, nestled in the quiet
Brandywine valley. Many of them are nowadays open for visitors, as
are most Vanderbilt castles, but some are still entirely private
properties.
Like
the Vanderbilts and the Duponts, other wealthy families built their
mansions preferably in the countryside close to their hometowns, in
Newport or in Florida. John Davison Rockefeller's "Kyukuit" and
Jay
Gould's "Lyndhurst" are examples of the first type. "The Elms" of
Edward Julius Berwind and Theresa Fair Oelrichs "Rosecliff" and
Ogden Goelet's "Ochre Court" are famous Newport mansions. James
Deering's "Vizcaya" and
Henry Morrison Flagler's "Whitehall" were
famous Floridian palaces. Many more could be cited here.
But
the great capitalists of the Gilded Age also left more public minded
legacies. Many of them ended a lifelong passion of art collectors by
leaving their collections to a museum, sometimes also endowing the
necessary buildings and running costs. The most notable art
collectors and donators were
J. Pierpont Morgan, Henry Osborne
Havemeyer, Andrew William Mellon and his mentor
Henry Clay Frick.
But Gilded Age fortunes would go on nurturing art endowments for
generations, as in the case of the
Guggenheims or the Wideners.
Some
of the greatest magnates just left a sizeable part of their fortune
to philanthropic foundations, to fund worthy endeavors for
generations to come, along the guidelines established by the donors.
Andrew Carnegie devoted the last two decades of his life spending
the money he had made before. John Davison Rockefeller did likewise
in what some would later term as an attempt to restore his image and
shed the cloak of the villain, he had inherited from Jay Gould.
Other large endowments were made by the
Harknesses of Standard Oil,
James Buchanan Duke and the widow of money king
Russell Sage. In
their philanthropic moves, these capitalists followed the examples
set by the wealthy men of the earlier mercantile era, men like
Amos
Lawrence, Stephen Girard and
George Peabody.
The Gilded Age
>
Introduction and Index
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