Customer Reviews

Families of Fortune

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The American Gilded Age (1870-1929) and the wealthy few businessmen who profited exorbitantly from it is royally portrayed in Families Of Fortune: Life In The Gilded Age, a beauteous book lavishly illustrated on virtually every page with artwork, photographs, and images of how the nouveau rich of that era made and spent their fortunes. The straightforward text contains an immense wealth of economic and historical information, concerning how a few famous "robber barron" families (a questionable term, since they technically weren't breaking laws against theft and certainly were not blood aristocracy) amassed such incredible fortunes, as well as how they ultimately spent those fortunes. Families Of Fortune is truly a combination of art, economics, and historical storytelling; highly recommended for anyone with a keen interest in the lifestyles of the rich and famous of the Gilded Age.

Families of Fortune is very good at depicting the rise to wealth and power that accompanied the businessmen of the Industrial Era in America. The Gilded Age homes and lifetyles are lavishly depcited, using hundreds of photos and basic, supporting text that will adequately portray the subject intended in the book. Overall, it is useful, but would not be helpful for a person trying to specialize solely on the well-known names of Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and others.

I've owned this book for years and have enjoyed it very much. Informative, well researched, visually exciting. Much more than just a coffee table book. Very highly recommended.

The "Gilded Age" is usually taken to mean the period in Europe and the United States following the American Civil War and ending with the Great War (which changed everything forever), though the author redefines the term to run through the Crash of 1929 (when not much changed at all for most of those with huge amounts of money). It was the age of unregulated accrual of immense wealth by a very few, often through bribery of public officials (the Grant Administration was especially skilled at being bought, especially by the Union Pacific Railroad) and the carefully arranged bankruptcy of smaller competitors (which cost thousands of jobs), and at the expense of hundreds of thousands of others who lived in slums (most of which in New York City were owned by the Astors). Workers who tried to organize were suppressed by the Army, called out by the federal government, which the robber barons largely owned. The bloodthirsty and piratical activities of people like John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, William Randolph Hearst, George Pullman, and most of their immediate descendants would today land them in jail -- though there are those in our nation's upper economic class who still model themselves on their predecessors. This is an oversize volume with lots of color illustrations and early photos -- most of them depicting egregious examples of conspicuous consumption -- which ought to make for an interesting few hours. However, Gregory's background is as a travel and "arts" writer for Vanity Fair and Town and Country, and whoever did his historical research for him seems not to have tried very hard. He doesn't appear to know the facts about Robert Fulton's supposed monopoly of the New York river trade (which Vanderbilt took over), and his comments about the differences between "Puritan" moneyed families like the Astors (John Jacob was German) and the Vanderbilts (Dutch) and their Jewish counterparts like the Rothschilds ought to raise some eyebrows. This book could have been much, much better.