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Arthur T. Vanderbilt

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Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt Paperback – Illustrated, January 1, 2001

by Arthur T Vanderbilt II (Author)

3,545 ratings

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Wall Street Journal Bestseller

For fans of Downton Abbey, a real-life American version of the Crawley family—Fortune's Children is an enthralling true story that recreates the drama, splendor, and wealth of the legendary Vanderbilts.

Vanderbilt: The very name is synonymous with the Gilded Age. The family patriarch, "the Commodore,” built a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet, less than fifty years after his death, no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Written by descendant Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children traces the dramatic and amazingly colorful history of this great American family, from the rise of industrialist and philanthropist Cornelius Vanderbilt to the fall of his progeny—wild spendthrifts whose profligacy bankrupted a vast inheritance.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Vanderbilt: the very name signifies wealth. The family patriarch, "the Commodore," built up a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet, less than fifty years after the Commodore's death, one of his direct descendants died penniless, and no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Fortune's Children tells the dramatic story of all the amazingly colorful spenders who dissipated such a vast inheritance.

About the Author

Arthur T. Vanderbilt II is the author of many books, among them Changing Law, a biography of his grandfather Arthur T. Vanderbilt, which won the American Bar Association's Scribes Award. He practices law in New Jersey.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow Paperbacks
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 1, 2001
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0062224069
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062224064
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.12 x 0.87 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #47,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #115 in Biographies of Business & Industrial Professionals
- #154 in Rich & Famous Biographies
- #1,597 in Memoirs (Books)

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Arthur T. Vanderbilt

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A graduate of Wesleyan University and the University of Virginia School of Law, Arthur T. Vanderbilt II is the author of many books of history, biography, memoirs, and essays. His books have been selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Reader's Digest's "Today's Best Nonfiction", the Easton Press Series of the 100 Best Books of American History, and other book clubs, and have been serialized in newspapers and magazines, translated into foreign languages, excerpted in anthologies, and optioned for film.

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Customers find this book to be an excellent read, particularly for fans of Downton Abbey, with a fascinating account of the Gilded Age family. The book is well-researched and easy to read, providing a detailed look at the Commodore's vast fortune and the squandering of money. Customers appreciate the vivid portrayal of the Vanderbilts and their colorful personalities, with one customer noting how the author portrays them neither as heroes nor villains. The pacing receives mixed reactions, with some finding it well-paced while others struggle to follow the timelines.

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Readability Story quality Information quality Writing quality Money use Look Character development Pacing

355 customers mention "Readability"355 positive0 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as a fascinating and entertaining beach read, particularly for fans of Downton Abbey.

"...All of this makes for great reading—with the delicious heady tinge of schadenfreude that they got what was coming to them...." Read more

"...This book was fascinating, but wasn’t without flaws. The editing was poor. I found numerous misspellings, especially in the photo captions...." Read more

"...This is a must read for all high income families and should be required reading for all executive level courses on wealth management. "..." Read more

"...of "you are there" insider detail to satisfy anyone who loves a good read. It keeps your interest and is well organized...." Read more

193 customers mention "Story quality"187 positive6 negative

Customers find the book's story engaging, describing it as an incredible and fascinating account of the Vanderbilt family's history, with one customer noting how the author explains historical backgrounds in great detail.

"“Fortune’s Children” is a lively look into the Vanderbilt family history...." Read more

"...I am profoundly grateful to the author for such a timeless classic and hope it will help many families to come in the years ahead and you may take..." Read more

"...This book is a peek into the Gilded Age, an era that eerily reflects our own with the gulf between the rich and the poor...." Read more

"This is a great story, very well told, with just the right perspective, just the right tone, just the right amount of information, and just the..." Read more

133 customers mention "Information quality"133 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative and well-researched, with enlightening details and interesting facts throughout.

"This book is a profoundly moving book. It incapsulates the challenges and real life problems that families of wealth must overcome or lose the hard..." Read more

"...with just the right perspective, just the right tone, just the right amount of information, and just the right amount of "you are there" insider..." Read more

"...This book was extremely informative and easy to read. Some folks have commented that it was boring...." Read more

"...II, did a good job of telling the story of his ancestors and researched it well. I just wonder what the author thinks of some of his family?..." Read more

125 customers mention "Writing quality"99 positive26 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book, noting that it reads like a novel and is easy to read, with one customer highlighting its flowing prose.

"This is a great story, very well told, with just the right perspective, just the right tone, just the right amount of information, and just the..." Read more

"...This book was extremely informative and easy to read. Some folks have commented that it was boring...." Read more

"...Not great, but good. I enjoyed reading this book. It is written in a readable style, more of an entertainment than for its actual historical value...." Read more

"...This book was fascinating, but wasn’t without flaws. The editing was poor. I found numerous misspellings, especially in the photo captions...." Read more

69 customers mention "Money use"54 positive15 negative

Customers appreciate how the book explores the Commodore's vast fortune and how it was squandered, serving as a lesson about greed and excess in the Gilded Age.

"...Vanderbilt’s squandering their fortune away, it is a good look at how haughty high society is...." Read more

"...Just finished book and it was a wonderful education of people, finances, US History, and the ambitions of men and women gone amuck...." Read more

"...An excellent read and a lesson in greed and excess." Read more

"...The wretched and shameless excess of virtually every member of this family and their arrogance was hard to believe or worse yet to understand...." Read more

43 customers mention "Look"40 positive3 negative

Customers find the book visually engaging, providing a wonderful picture of the Vanderbilts, with one customer particularly noting its masterful description of clothes.

"...This is a great insiders' look into the most renowned family dynasty of the Gilded Age, from their humble farm origins to their eventual dissolution..." Read more

"...I do think its a shame that all of those beautiful, artistic mansions on 5th Avenue are gone though...." Read more

"...The author has a wonderful grasp on his style, and walks the line between personal family history and historical account with wonderfully..." Read more

"...This book is a fascinating look into one of the founding families of the upwardly mobile...." Read more

26 customers mention "Character development"20 positive6 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book, describing them as rich and colorful, with one customer noting how the author portrays the Vanderbilts as neither heroes nor villains.

"...Not everything in the family was their fortune. Some of the most colorful characters one might encounter are introduced in this book...." Read more

"...Fudes, drama and many larger than life personalities (both male and female, don't underestimate the women) set the bar for an age of wealth some..." Read more

"...In Fortune's Children, Arthur T. Vanderbilt II paints a vivid portrait of his ancestors...." Read more

"...up to 1.5 hours long, and detailed, if a bit dry, these characters never quite pop...." Read more

28 customers mention "Pacing"16 positive12 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with some finding it well-paced and quick to read, while others report difficulties following the timelines and keeping track of the narrative.

"...A tremendous feat and a wonderful document." Read more

"This book jumped around quite a bit, and had so many characters I had trouble keeping each generation straight at times, but all in all, it painted..." Read more

"Well paced, well written tome on the Vanderbilt family...." Read more

"...long and repetitive, it is difficult to follow because it jumps from one time to another...." Read more

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J. B. Wight
Riveting story of family dysfunction and wealth destruction
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

We are living today in the second Gilded Age, in which the sons and daughters of the obscenely rich frantically search for fame and airtime.

And a Russian oligarch thinks nothing about spending $300 million for a yacht with faucets costing $40,000.
But all of this is chump change, compared to the real big spenders—the Vanderbilts of the 19th Century.

Fortune’s Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt, by Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, lays out this sad and sordid history. If you think you had bad parents, just read this book!

Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) is famous for being the stingiest, most foul-mouthed monopolist of the Robber Baron era. (Okay, under duress he did fund Vanderbilt University, my alma mater, but that was for the pocket change of $1 million.)

Nicknamed “the Commodore” for his fleet of steamships that made his first fortune, Vanderbilt got ahead not only by extreme hard work and risk taking, he made much of his wealth from stifling competition—either by forcing out weaker companies through predatory pricing or by buying out stronger companies.
His second fortune was made in railroads, using the same tactics. In several instances Vanderbilt feigned starting a competing line against another and was paid handsomely to withdraw from that competition. Monopoly rents were the name of the game, then and now.

Vanderbilt, for all his business acumen, knew or cared little for being a father, despite having 13 children. The horror of growing up in that rich dysfunctional family went on for generations.

Fortune’s Children also reports in detail on the lavish spending that will make any working person weep—considering the millions spent on lavish balls while people languished in the deep depression of the 1890s. (If you are about to argue for trickle-down economics, consider the weakness of this argument; that does not mean redistribution is necessarily better.)

What the book brings out is that most of this lavish spending was done simply to try to impress others. It provided little lasting satisfaction, as told by William Vanderbilt, the heir of Cornelius, who doubled the inheritance and became the richest man in the world:

“[My neighbor] isn’t worth a hundredth part as much as I am, but he has more of the real pleasures of life than I have. His house is as comfortable as mine, even if it didn’t cost so much; his team is about as good as mine; his opera box is next to mine, and he will probably outlive me. And he can trust his friends” (p. 82, emphasis added).
One can’t help remember Adam Smith’s story of the “Poor Man’s Son” in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, who struggled his whole life to amass riches only to discover that in the process he had ruined his life: he had no real peace of mind.

Neither did most of the Vanderbilts, who over the next two generations completely squandered the fortune, building block-long palaces on 5th Avenue in New York and rural fortresses like the Biltmore in North Carolina, not to mention mansions in Newport and yachts that were large enough to be mistaken for military vessels.
All of this makes for great reading—with the delicious heady tinge of schadenfreude that they got what was coming to them.

As we enter a new Gilded Age today, has anything changed? I would say partly. It is now not quite so respectable to be rich and not at least pretend to care about others. Yet people live behind gated walls and may have little real sympathetic feeling for those of lower economic status in their communities.
That is the paradoxical destruction caused by obscene wealth: like obscene poverty, it can lead to isolation and loneliness.

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Kelley Ridings
Lively history yet technically flawed book
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
“Fortune’s Children” is a lively look into the Vanderbilt family history. The founder, Cornelius Vanderbilt (known as the Commodore), amassed more wealth than any other American through ferry lines and railroads. His son William doubled that fortune with his work with family railroad. Both men earned the distinction of being the richest men in the world in their respective heydays. Yet today, 150+ years later, while “Vanderbilt” is a historically significant name, none rank among the wealthiest Americans. While Cornelius and William displayed enormous genius at mastering the art of making money, their descendants were masters at spending the largest fortune ever known (at that time). While Cornelius tried to keep the fortune concentrated among a head of the family (primogeniture), his heirs chose to divide the wealth among their kids and wives/husbands, which by this book’s writing included almost 800 living members. Many of the Commodore’s children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren spent lavishly to support a life of leisure that rivaled royal households. They built numerous mega-mansions (from 50 to 250 rooms — most of which were torn down within 50 years or were sold later at a huge losses to other buyers), held multiple such mansions per family around the world, had the largest yachts ever built (at the time), and/or gambled away money with reckless abandon thinking it would never run out. But it did. Other Vanderbilt family sub-groups were incredibly imperious in their attitudes, and cut off family members who were deemed to marry “beneath them”. In a few situations, they took each other to court in a no-hold barred battle over the Commodore’s will, or to argue over who had conservatorship over an underage but wealthy heir (Gloria Vanderbilt). While the family may have had extreme wealth, riches clearly didn’t bring happiness as many had unhappy marriages, and lived the lives of the idle (and often very bored) rich.

As one reads this book, one cannot help but see that time tends to reclaim even the greatest of fortunes through excess spending and taxation, and while it may not happen instantly, it does happen. Unless successive generations add to the wealth, it cannot be sustained if they overspend, and this showed with later Vanderbilt generations, many of whom never knew anything but extreme, and excessive wealth, and overspent, overspent, overspent. They didn’t appreciate the value of money, and didn’t realize the value and satisfaction from earning it. There are a few exceptions, such as Gloria Vanderbilt (whose childhood is examined thoroughly in this book), and her son Anderson Cooper (whose success as a journalist came after this book was written), but those are exceptions in this family story. It is also most disappointing that for most of the Vanderbilt family in the earliest generations (as well as for their other ultra-wealthy contemporaries), philanthropy wasn’t high on their list of priorities. While they did give away some to support good causes (such as the founding of Vanderbilt University), largely their charitable contributions were minor in comparison to their wealth, and their endless pursuit of social dominance among the wealthy elite.

This book was fascinating, but wasn’t without flaws. The editing was poor. I found numerous misspellings, especially in the photo captions. There were several formatting problems on the Kindle edition I read. Additionally occasionally, the author used the exact same passage at different points of the book. Some chapters, were too gossipy and salacious, repeating extensive personal conversations (in quotes) that I’m not sure how the author would have known about, and whose origins weren’t entirely explained. The author, Arthur Vanderbilt II, also didn’t explain his own family origin and what (if any) connection he had to the family. I looked it up on the internet but didn’t learn of any connection. With a name like “Vanderbilt”, more disclosure was needed to give him more credibility as an author.

Still despite these shortcomings, this book was very engaging — not only from a historical point of view (if one is interested in this genre of US history), but also from a sociological and economic point of view when considering accumulation of wealth and how it is spent and misspent by subsequent generations.

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39 people found this helpful

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howell
A Psychological Wealth Masterpiece, a must read for all. Outstanding!!
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2024
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This book is a profoundly moving book. It incapsulates the challenges and real life problems that families of wealth must overcome or lose the hard work that created it. Coming from a multigenerational family of the highest order of wealth and history it is clear how self absorbed people both men and women that don't know how to appreciate or handle money in a conservative manner that they have inherited can through ignorance, envy, spitefulness, ego, drama, grand delusions and a playboy attitude can ruin a great legacy. I believe this one of the finest books of its type. My only criticism is that it could have used a Vanderbilt family tree on one page. This is a must read for all high income families and should be required reading for all executive level courses on wealth management. "Fortunes Children" is definitely page turner and as heart breaking as it might be you will learn more from it than all the so-called experts that you could ever hear on the subject of wealth, "how not to lose it and what it takes to keep it". I am profoundly grateful to the author for such a timeless classic and hope it will help many families to come in the years ahead and you may take that from the heir of one of the oldest fortune 500 families in America.

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Top reviews from other countries

Musicista
A thrilling account of an extraordinary dynasty
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 1, 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Having lately visited the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville North Carolina, I became intrigued with the Vanderbilt famy and 'Old New York Money'. Imagine my delight to find this wonderful book, a real page turner, which reads in parts like a good thriller. Highly recommended - especially I imagine with fans of the successful TV series (very popular in the States), 'Downton Abbey'!!

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Music Collector
Eminently readable
Reviewed in Canada on May 5, 2021
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Ignore the silly line on the cover(“...real life Downton Abbey....”. There is no comparison to be made with the fictional characters of Downton. This book details some of the most reckless people to inhabit “society”; their self indulgence is appalling. But the book is an excellent read.

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JanB.
An engaging slice of history!
Reviewed in Canada on March 31, 2022
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Quite the read! When I saw that this book was 700+ pages, I was like, whaaaat? But it's captivating, and now that I'm 2/3rd way through it I'll be lost when I'm done!! There is quite a bit of repetition - however, because of so many family members entangled in the drama, the reiterated serves to answer "now who was that again?" I'm hooked on the non-fiction "past" and comparisons of todays' world. Events do come full circle.

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Mr F Blurton
an impressive sweep of a family's decline
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2020
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I found this a great read, divided into well thought-out chapters and plenty of detail. Some of the family dramas could have been edited down a little. The main failing is a lack of a family tree, which all is the more pressing as the guys are all called Cornelius or William. The ideal family tree would also show the address of their mansions, as this is a story just as much about properties as the people who lived in them. A map of the New York Central railroad group would have been perfect, as would photographs of some of the non-family players who figure in the story, such as Winthrop Rutherfurd, the man Consuelo Vanderbilt (destined to be the reluctant Duchess of Marlborough) was barred from marrying

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D. King
iNTERESTING BOOK
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 3, 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
During our visit to USA and in Ashville,NC , we got talking to another visitor who put us on to this book which we found all this very interesting and resdable

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Great informative gilded age and of course Vanderbilt

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting story of family dysfunction and wealth destruction

4.0 out of 5 stars Lively history yet technically flawed book

5.0 out of 5 stars A Psychological Wealth Masterpiece, a must read for all. Outstanding!!

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars A thrilling account of an extraordinary dynasty

5.0 out of 5 stars Eminently readable

4.0 out of 5 stars An engaging slice of history!

4.0 out of 5 stars an impressive sweep of a family's decline

5.0 out of 5 stars iNTERESTING BOOK

Riveting story of family dysfunction and wealth destruction

Lively history yet technically flawed book

A Psychological Wealth Masterpiece, a must read for all. Outstanding!!

A thrilling account of an extraordinary dynasty

Eminently readable

An engaging slice of history!

an impressive sweep of a family's decline

iNTERESTING BOOK