Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune

Coauthor Katherine Howe draws on her experience telling vivid historical tales. Born in Houston, she studied art history at Columbia University in New York for her undergraduate work and holds a master’s degree in American and New England Studies from Boston University. While a graduate student there, she began to write historical fiction, including stories that paralleled aspects of her own family’s history. She published her first novel, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, in 2009. Since then, she has written several other adult and young adult works, edited two source readers for Penguin, and collaborated with Cooper on the bestselling Vanderbilt and Astor stories.

Howe’s The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane interwove a story set during Salem Witch Trials with a story of a contemporary researcher. Her later novels followed a similar pattern of connecting US history from colonial times with the modern day, giving particular attention to women’s role in society. Each relied on combining historical research with vivid descriptions of events and characters to bring the past alive. Her collaboration with Cooper on Vanderbilt and Astor aims to bring both those skills to Cooper’s family connections and journalistic savvy. In addition, she applies strong editorial sensibility about what facts and people would make a good story and what, while perhaps historically valuable, might undermine the easy flow of the text. The result is a fast-paced text replete with provocative quotations mined from previous histories and a wide array of intriguing or scandalous anecdotes.

Born Johann Jakob Astor, John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) founded the family fortune. He came to New York as an immigrant from Germany via England in 1784 and entered the fur trade. Through hard work, a gift for languages, a willingness to brave the wilderness, and ruthless cunning, he became the leading figure in the trade. His American Fur Company gained almost a monopoly on trade in the lower Midwest, and its offshoot—the Pacific Fur Company—created the first commercial American presence at Astoria in what later became the state of Oregon. Employees died during these ventures, trappers found that his monopolistic power running trading posts sucked away profits, and his sale of alcohol to Indigenous Americans at exorbitant prices put several tribes in debt and contributed to problems with alcoholism. The War of 1812 led to Astoria’s destruction and ended John Jacob’s dream of a Pacific empire. Still the wealthiest man in America, he shifted his focus from fur to Manhattan real estate, especially after the 1830s. He rented out the land to sub-landlords, who built shoddy slum housing that then reverted to John Jacob. This enterprise made him even richer as he carefully hoarded his wealth until his death.

One key to his success was his marriage to Sarah Todd, a hardworking and shrewd woman who helped him in some critical decisions such as opening his first storefront. They had eight children together. They first son had a disability, so John Jacob groomed his second son, William Backhouse, as his successor.

The authors of Astor introduce John Jacob as someone with “a genius for making money that bordered on the pathological” (7). They directly acknowledge his business sense but also use adjectives (like “pathological”) that hint at the immoral greed and ruthlessness of his character. They back these descriptions with anecdotes that reveal the devastation caused by his business practices and his lack of concern. For example, they recount how, as an elderly man, he vehemently rebuked an estate agent who wanted to grant an extension to a struggling widow. Nonetheless, he could be cool and focused on his goals almost to the point of callousness. When the ship the Tonquin was blown up in Astoria, in what became the state of Oregon, with his chief representatives aboard, it was a major setback for the company and resulted in a tragic loss of life. John Jacob reacted to the news by continuing on his way to enjoy the opera. Physically, he was a sturdy man in his youth, standing 5’9”, and had piercing eyes under thick brows. In old age, he lost both his strength and his teeth but retained a sharp mind for business.

The book portrays William Backhouse Astor (1792-1875), heir to John Jacob Astor, as the opposite of his father in many respects. While his father was fierce and bold, William was shy and reticent. His father forged his own way; William bowed to his father’s wishes even when they opposed his own desires (such as longing to immerse himself in scholarship) or beliefs (such as the evils of alcohol). He was a devoutly religious man who, unlike his father, had scruples, though he didn’t feel sympathy toward the family’s disadvantaged tenants. The most important characteristic they shared was an ability to make money. While William did not engage in his father’s risky, flamboyant ventures or legally questionable tactics (such as John Jacob’s skirting of embargoes for the War of 1812), William knew how to run the family business well, and it continued to make money easily as immigrant families flooded the Manhattan real estate market.

Despite his quiet, even boring personality, William had a happy marriage (a rarity among many later Astors). He wed Margaret Armstrong, another quiet figure, who had a secretly romantic soul and named their Catskills estate Rokeby after a Sir Walter Scott poem. Together they had seven children, including William Backhouse Jr. and John Jacob III.

The original “Mrs. Astor,” Caroline “Lina” Webster Schermerhorn Astor (1830-1908) dominated New York City society in a way no other woman of the family did except Brooke Astor. Caroline married William Backhouse Astor Jr., but their marriage was unhappy, and they spent much of their time apart, William throwing himself into extramarital affairs and Caroline throwing herself into society while professing not to know about her husband or anything that might tarnish the family reputation. She was the guardian of the family’s public standing and the arbiter of high society. The book relates how Mrs. Astor told visitors that she wished she could go on her husband’s yacht but got horribly seasick—a lie, given her outings on others’ yachts. It was, however, a socially acceptable excuse to explain why her husband was apart from her with other women, and her pokerfaced lie revealed what was important to her.

The authors’ anecdotes about Mrs. Astor emphasize how she sought to create and enforce social hierarchy. She and her companion, Samuel Ward McAllister, coined the term the “Four Hundred” for the circle of the elite in New York City and worked hard to create criteria for it and enforce it. Newcomers like the Vanderbilts had to prove themselves (by spending extravagantly) to pass her muster. In the end, she alienated some people. Her insistence on being the Mrs. Astor put her in conflict with her nephew, William Waldorf Astor, from the line of the eldest son, who thought the title should go to his wife. Caroline Astor’s social reign began to crumble when William Waldorf took revenge on her by building the Waldorf Hotel on her doorstep, disrupting her space as a hostess, and then competing with her hostess credentials by creating a public space that anyone with money could use. Nevertheless, Caroline maintained her dignity despite a mental health crisis that ended her social role a couple years before she passed.

The dramatic death of John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV (1864-1912) on the Titanic gave him the dubious distinction of being the most mythologized Astor. He had a closer relationship with his mother, Caroline Astor, than his father, William Backhouse Astor Jr., and he lived with his mother until her death. Like most Astor men, he remained connected to the family business while devoting most of his time to society parties and rich men’s hobbies such as collecting fancy automobiles. He raised men for the Spanish American War and received the rank of colonel. He had an unhappy marriage to his first wife, Ava, and had one son, William Vincent Astor, with her. When his mother died (and along with her, restraints on avoiding scandal), he divorced Ava and married a teenaged girl named Madeleine. She was pregnant with their first child when they boarded the Titanic.

Early reports and films about the Titanic disaster portrayed Jack Astor as a noble gentleman. In these stories, he helped his pregnant wife aboard a lifeboat and then gallantly offered his seat to another woman, thereby willingly sacrificing his life to help those whom protocol deemed most worthy of protection. However, the book argues that Jack was instead a cold man ensconced in privilege. He once vindictively persecuted a tramp who stumbled into his home. During the Titanic’s sinking, he would have entered the lifeboat if a ship’s officer hadn’t forbidden it. In the last reliable report, Jack Astor demanded to know the number of the lifeboat, perhaps to lodge a formal complaint against the officer if he survived.

The grandson of William Backhouse Astor Sr. via his elder son, John Jacob Astor III, William Waldorf “Will” Astor (1848-1919) found life as an Astor more constricting than most Astor men. The authors describe how he yearned to immerse himself in European culture and passionately wished to marry an Italian girl, but his father recalled him to New York. He instead married Mary “Mamie” Dahlgren Paul, and they were happy. As an alternative to the normal elite life of leisure, he sought to enter US politics but failed. Gaining financial freedom after his father’s passing, he had a taste of being a diplomat in Rome and permanently moved abroad, renouncing the US and becoming a British gentleman of leisure. There, despite many who resented this provincial interloper, he was made a viscount, thus achieving his dream. After his wife’s death, however, his personal life became unhappy. He grew increasingly paranoid, and his one love affair in late life ended in heartbreak.

Will plays three key roles in the book. First, his life and decision to move overseas illustrates how the elite society the Astors created was in many ways at odds with American ideals. Second, he founded the highly successful Waldorf Hotel (later the Waldorf-Astoria), one of the Astor family’s most recognizable public legacies. Third, he relocated the elder branch of the Astor line from New York to Britain. That branch has been successful, but from the authors’ narrowly-focused New York perspective, Will’s decision removed his descendants from the family saga, leaving the fate of the Astors’ US fortune in the hands of his cousin John Jacob IV and his son, Vincent. The “Fall of an American Fortune” of the book’s subtitle is explicitly only about the American fortune, which “fell” when Vincent decided to give it away as charity since he had no son of his own. Had Will remained in the US, his half of the family fortune might still be part of the New York story.

Belonging to a minor sub-branch of the Astor family but one with an interesting story, John Armstrong “Archie” Chanler (1862-1935) was the son of Maddie, who was the daughter of Emily, the beloved first child of William Backhouse Astor Sr. When the elder man died, he left a fraction of the Astor wealth, including the Rokeby estate in the Catskills, to his granddaughter Maddie. Her eight children, in turn, each inherited a smaller share of it. Unfortunately for them, both she and their father died early, leaving them orphans. Archie, the eldest, was at boarding school in England when the news came. Despite being an indifferent student and unremarkable up until then, he stepped up as a leader to his brothers and sisters.

As an adult, however, he became erratic and had mental health difficulties. He scandalized some family members by unexpectedly marrying a woman they considered improper, a writer of romances named Amélie. She, however, soon found him distant and unpredictable. He moved away from her and then became convinced he had psychic powers, which he called his “X-faculty.” His siblings had him “committed” to a mental hospital for treatment. Eventually he escaped, was involuntarily taken back, and was then freed after challenging the diagnosis in court. After having his sanity legally affirmed, Archie pursued a career lecturing about his supposed X-faculty and the potential of human psychic power.

Cooper, using his mother’s words, introduces Vincent Astor (1891-1959) right at the beginning of the book as a “dreadful” man whom a woman might tolerate only if she married him for his money. He was the last Astor man in the US to inherit a sizeable fortune—which he and his wife left dissipated. When Cooper and Howe tell Vincent’s story in later chapters, however, a more complex portrait emerges.

Vincent was the son of John Jacob Astor IV and his first wife, Ava. Vincent’s mother shunned him, and his father had little time to devote to his child, even though Vincent adored him. Vincent felt even more alienated by his father’s affair and subsequent marriage to a woman younger than Vincent. His father’s untimely death on the Titanic left him adrift. A bout of illness left him impotent, which hit him hard. He clearly adored children, making them a focus of his later charity and doting on the little children of his otherwise unacknowledged stepson, Tony Marshall. Whether because of or in spite of these personal difficulties, he became “the first Astor in four generations to display an apparent sense of guilt” (219). Horrified at how his family made money by exploiting economically disadvantaged tenants, Vincent shut down or sold off most of the family business and gave much of the proceeds to charity. Rumors held that he even personally investigated accusations that Astor-owned tenements had been turned into exploitative brothels. Vincent found little happiness with his first two wives but had an arrangement that made at least him happy with his final wife, Brooke. She would reminisce about the sweet love letters he sent her while courting. Vincent entrusted her with the charitable foundation in which he had placed most of his fortune since he had no children of his own to inherit it.

Despite these bright points in Vincent’s character, which led to the Astor fortune being given back to the people of New York, Cooper and Howe paint a largely negative picture of Vincent. They emphasize how Vincent continued to use his wealth during his lifetime to live a life of excess, boasting fancy yachts and automobiles. In addition, they point to his difficult personal relationships. Many fellow members of high society considered him aloof and cold. His first two wives had no desire to stay with him after a few years of marriage. The authors hold that his third wife, Brooke, married and stayed with him only for his money, despite her denials. In particular, they note how Vincent refused to acknowledge Brooke’s son, Tony, as part of his family and worked to separate his wife from him. This decision shows him as a cold, controlling husband.

The last Astor to dominate New York City high society was Brooke Astor (1902-2007). Cooper characterizes her, based on their two brief encounters, as a haughty, perfectly put-together lady who snobbishly ignored anyone below her social station. However, she came from a middle-class family. Her first husband, Dryden Kuser, was abusive and unfaithful, and he divorced her to pursue another woman. Her only son, Anthony, was from that marriage, but she was never close to him. She then married Buddie Marshall, a stockbroker. This was a much happier marriage. When he died, leaving her financially precarious, her friend introduced her to Vincent Astor. He aggressively pursued her, and they soon married, whether because of his ardor (her version) or because of his wealth (the gossip among high society members). Regardless of her reason, she parlayed the marriage into becoming one of the most prominent women in New York society.

When Brooke grew old, however, her problems with her son came back to haunt her. She had secured several jobs for Tony and finally settled on making him her money manager. When she started to develop Alzheimer’s, he began to take a more active role in controlling her staff, determining whom she could see, running her daily life, and urging her to change her will. According to the media and Tony’s sons, he took advantage of her declining mental faculties to swindle her and engaged in elder abuse. When Tony relinquished guardianship to his son and some of Brooke’s friends, they reversed some of his moves and worked to ensure that she died in dignity. Her final will honored Vincent’s wish that most of the Astor fortune be given away in charity, although Tony inherited a sizeable portion.