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Frederick William Vanderbilt was the grandson of Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt and the son of William Henry Vanderbilt - both the richest men in America in their time. The Vanderbilts redefined what it meant to be wealthy. "Up to this time," wrote social observer Ward McAllister, "for one to be worth a million of dollars was to be rated as a man of fortune." By the 1880s, "fortune" connoted "ten millions, fifty millions, one hundred millions, and the necessities and luxuries followed suit."
How did the richest family in America spend money? Yachting, horse breeding, and racing automobiles became family avocations. They attended opera, attired in top hats and tiaras, and collected art. They gave to worthy causes, married European titles. Every one of William Henry's eight children eventually owned a mansion on Fifth Avenue as well as several "cottages" in the country or by the sea. With their grandfather's millions, the younger Vanderbilts gained admission to drawing rooms and ballrooms where the Commodore himself would have been unwelcome.
Along with his father's fortune, William Henry inherited the mixed blessing of fame for himself and his descendents. Their births, marriages, divorces, business doings, philanthropies, and scandals made for lively newspaper copy from the 1880s well into the 20th century. "Thank God for the Vanderbilts," a society columnist wrote. "The Vanderbilt family can always be relied upon in times of dullness to furnish either news or a sensation of some kind."
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