William K. Vanderbilt

New Money, Old Titles: Dollars, Dreams and Dowries

October 21, 2026 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

The Gilded Age, roughly from the late 1870s to the late 1890s, was an era of economic expansion and technological advance in which American industrial tycoons made massive fortunes. New elites competed to define their place in a society in flux, giving rise to an obsessive craving for status.

The desire for validation manifested itself in the building of mansions that mimicked castles or palaces. Their owners toured European capitals, ordering paintings and antiquities to decorate these grand homes. [Read more…] about New Money, Old Titles: Dollars, Dreams and Dowries

Anne Vanderbilt: Three Husbands, Four Children, and One Sutton Place

February 23, 2026 by Randall Whitestone 1 Comment

On July 22, 1920, with his wife, daughter, and two sons at his bedside, railroad tycoon and financier William Kissam “Willie” Vanderbilt I, grandson of the legendary Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, died in Paris at the age of 70. His widow soon set out to make a new life for herself. For the third time.

Anne Harriman Sands Rutherfurd Vanderbilt (1861 – 1940) had a knack for choosing husbands and an independent, public-minded spirit – in the words of author Alfred Allan Lewis, “a dutiful Victorian daughter, who, through successive widowhoods, married better and better.” But a simple gold digger she was not. [Read more…] about Anne Vanderbilt: Three Husbands, Four Children, and One Sutton Place

A Remarkable Saratoga Race Track Souvenir

July 13, 2023 by Bill Orzell 3 Comments

The New York Racing Association (NYRA) has four “giveaway” days planned for the 2023 Saratoga Racing season, which kicked-off today. This tradition, while the supply lasts, has been a standard at the Spa for decades. This year’s red and white swag includes a cooler jug, a T-shirt, a bucket hat and a tote bag.

Souvenirs date back to the earliest visitors at Saratoga Springs, wanting to return home with a tangible memento of their visit to the Spa, in the foothills of the Adirondacks. The Saratoga Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses early on recognized this desire of visitors, and devised of a plan for a valuable keepsake early in the twentieth century. [Read more…] about A Remarkable Saratoga Race Track Souvenir

Central Park Casino: The Epitome of Jazz Age New York City

July 5, 2023 by Holley Snaith 2 Comments

The Central Park Casino, situated at Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street, was a premier New York City restaurant and nightclub, epitomizing the era of the Jazz Age. The Casino, with its grand dining room and perfectly polished dance floor, entertained some of the most prominent names in New York, from Tammany Hall politicians to Broadway stars and even royalty. Yet this exclusive, glamorous, and somewhat dangerous, appeal that was the Casino’s trademark, led to its demise during the darkest days of America’s great financial crisis. [Read more…] about Central Park Casino: The Epitome of Jazz Age New York City

William K. Vanderbilt

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