The true story behind The Gilded Age: Did you know Consuelo Vanderbilt?

This article on Gilded Age is published in the number 38 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until September 16, 2025.

If you think the wedding of Jeff Bezos In Venice it was a little excessive, again
You don’t know the wedding of Consuelo Vanderbilt. When he married Charles Spencer-ChurchillIX Duke of Marlborough in New York, on November 6, 1895, Consuelo Vanderbilt was eighteen years old, a family heritage of 200 million dollars – to the value of today just under 8 billion – and no intention of saying yes.

He did so for duty, because everyone was waiting for it, and thousands of women of each extraction were gathered on the Fifth Avenue To see at least one edge of the dress, Satin and French lace. After all, the New York Times He had a reporter assigned only to the bridesmaids, and in the headquarters of Vogue Various pieces of personal linen of his equipment embroidered in small flowers had been delivered with the bewilderment (the corset instead had massive gold hooks) so that they were designed and published.

But he married above all at the behest of his mother. Alva Vanderbilt had orchestrated the wedding of her daughter as a military campaign And now that the agreement, a British aristocratic area, was made, with the lawyers who arrived from London and the ambassador ready to attend, could not be wrong at the last mile.

He had come to planton the Consuelo bedroom to the Petit Châteauthe Palazzo dei Vanderbut at 660 of Fifth Avenue, capable of hosting 1,000 guests all placé, and with a certain cruelty he even simulated a heart attack with the complicity of an aunt willing to everything. There were not a few New York who bet on a raid in the church of Winthrop Rutherfurd, even well -born boy known to one of the dances of the season that she intended to marry.

To know how this story is not really of love, but of money, power and affirmation in the narrow and impregnable circle of the Society (as the American Gotha was called), last August 5 million fans of the series The Gilded Age They stood out in front of the TV, and many are then unfortunate on Tiktok to cheer, transforming Consuelo into a small digital icon. Indeed, it would be better to say Gladys Russell: this is the name of the Alter Ego Fiction almost perfect of the very young Duchess Consuelo really existed. It is she who in the third season of the period drama signed by Julian Fellowesthe father of Downton Abbeyreported Gilded Age and its families Fight between Old Money and New Money In a new York illuminated for the first time
From electric light and swirling investments, the buildings under construction, the homes that occupied the whole blocks of Manhattan (always at the risk of taking fire: in the payroll of the vanderbuts they also appeared 5 resident firefighters).

Such a bright reflector on this exaggerated era had not happened since Martin Scorsese brought **The age of innocence ** To the Oscar (1994). Just Edith Wharton had liquidated the building excesses of the Vanderbilts as follows: “Families like those … entrenched in the thermopylae of bad taste”.

A world where only 400 people count, the famous “400 of Mrs Astor», That is, the maximum number of people that the dance hall of the noblewoman could host. The Queen Ape of New York was one Knickerbocker, the highest degree of the American social scale: the families of Dutch origin arrived first in the new Amsterdam. Entering that room was the one to which everyone aimed, first Alva Vanderbilt, the richest and fierce exponent of the new arrivals. That the absolute Jolly had just secured: A surname of ancient English nobility to be combined with that of the Vanderbilts (Van der Bilt, to pay attention to us. He also seems, he worked to build Dutch ancestry, but what activities had fed the first vanderbilt who arrived in America remained smoky and in a hint of working class). They possessed, it is true, portraits signed by Boldini and Sargent, but they had jumped among the ultra rings in only two generationsthanks to the construction of the railway. Too little, too fast. A British aristocrat in the family was used urgently; He would also open the most splashy doors practically forever.

The bridegroom, called Sunny, He did not make a very honor character and personality to his sunny nickname (Typical habit of the British aristocrats, his mother to say was called Goosey …). He had arrived in New York with the actual intent in reality of looking for a solution for his disastrous finances close to bankruptcy: the immense seal in Oxfordshire, Blenheim Palace, risked falling to pieces. If the Americans were looking for titles, the Europeans in New York on the contrary were looking for America: money to marry. It was not a question of pink chronicle, but of the exchange of capital. Wealth by prestige.

Post like this, it may seem brutal, but on closer inspection the same definition of Gilded Age
It does not mean at all a golden age but its opposite. Mark Twain, who ingenious the term invented, deliberately said “Gilded”, golden, that is superficially covered with a patina,
but certainly not of value. These are the famous years between the seventies of the nineteenth century and the end of the century in which the rules in the business did not exist and the new capitalists such as i Rockefelleri Morgan he is Vanderbilt They were still called Robber Baron (the thief barons) and above all Only one dollar of these rapid and giant heritages were not taxed that were born from steel, banks and railways. His criticism of an era of corruption, greed without limits, social inequalities and poverty, is all elegantly but strongly in that Gilded, and hid the enormous problems that after the 1920s would unfortunately come to light in an equally striking way.

But in 1895 we are still in the glitter, and the best is still all to be shown. That transoceanic wedding was certainly not a fact of mere gossip but marked the creation of something very modern for the time, destined to stay with us: The celebrities of money were bornthe press officers, the news almost live, the deep gorges of the news, including economic news – but Alva Vanderbit preferred to manage everything by itself. Also the bold sending of the kit to Vogue It was almost certainly one of his moves. The newspapers were at the top of the success and had insiders in every club, each newspaper wanted to know everything. And he didn’t spare embarrassments. It certainly did not make a good effect that The count refused to pay customs duties (A story that has ancient roots …) For family jewels brought as a gift to the bride, claiming that they would occupy American soil only a few days. But she in the end came to the altar and said “I do”. With a worrying delay that every newspaper recorded, like his face: “deeply troubled” And “decidedly afflicted». In a satirical cartoon that circulated was kneeling next to the husband handcuffed to a chain held by the mother. However, it was a royal wedding, in church very high felci touched the ceiling between triumphs of roses and alpine violets, the wedding march was of Wagner, the most fashionable choice in high society, but does not start with the best premises.

The couple of the year, practically incompatible in everythingmoved to Great Britain and was never happy. Blenheim Palace was restored, today you can visit and it remains one of the most remarkable historical houses in Europe. But it was not the right choice for the It Girl in New York who had lived between Paris and the super yachts – this also a side of the rich we owe to the Gilded Age: the family yacht, baptized Alva, brought them easily to India and Egypt. He proved to be a huge, sad and very cold place for her, especially as affections. “Practically I married a house, not a manThen he confessed. Two beloved children to ensure the descendants, and the couple was wrecked. Almost happily, however: in fact separated for some time, both remarried, 26 years later – the divorce remained very complicated for the wealthy. And the new husband, a completely different character: Jacques Balsanaviation pioneer and prominent figure of the Belle époque whose brother Étienne
He was very close to Coco Chanel. Twin souls.

Also for her mother the Gilded Age continued between not a few surprises, but here we have to stop, because HBO at the end of July announced the Waiting for fourth season of the series and the spoiler would not be elegant. However, we can say that on the value of a good marriage of convenience, Alva Vanderbilt never changed her mind: «First I get the money“, He reiterated many years later,”Then the love is married».

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