The American Heiress - Quick, Fun Read

The American Heiress 

by Daisy Goodwin (St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, 2010)

I picked this up at the library because it looked like an easy, fun read. It didn't disappoint. 

I am a fan of "Downton Abbey" and other such shows and books. I am intrigued by the role of women during the late 1800s. It's interesting to read about what women could do out in the open and then how they manipulated people and situations behind the scenes because they had so few legal and "cultural" rights. I am interested in the relationships between the “upstairs and downstairs” people. I'm fascinated how the downstairs people created their own class system among themselves - even when they realized this class or caste system kept people in their places, themselves included.  The downstairs people often had fierce loyalty to the upstairs people and were willing to prop up them up even when their lives were very different from the "front" put on for outsiders. The downstairs people knew the secrets, knew the realities, and often kept the pretenses going, kept up appearances.

From the Daisy Goodwin's website: 

"... set in the 1890’s, ... Queen Victoria had been on the throne for sixty years ... Britain was going through an agricultural depression and its great landowning aristocracy were hit by declining incomes and the new inheritance tax ‘death duties’.

On the other side of the Atlantic fortunes were being made every day and the new American millionaires were coming East to buy themselves the best of what the Old World had to offer.”

My heroine Cora Cash is loosely based on Consuelo Vanderbilt, the beautiful American heiress who married the 10th Duke of Marlborough in 1895. Consuelo was forced into this marriage by her domineering mother Alva who longed for the social cachet that being the mother of a Duchess would bring her."

The author mentions that "American girls basically propped up the English aristocracy for a generation... a quarter of the British nobility made transatlantic marriages." There was even a publication, "The Titled American" that listed American women who married foreigners of rank. This magazine also contained a list of bachelors along with age, property (and its income), and accomplishments. Read more about "cash for titles" here and here. 

I liked the comment by Teddy, Cora’s former American friend, someone who would have been a suitor if both their families (their mothers) hadn’t had other plans for them - to marry into families that would strengthen their standings in society. As her mother wished, Cora married into a title in England and was now a duchess.

Teddy visits her and says, “This isn’t the life you should have, Cora, pandering to princes and worrying whether one raddled old duchess should walk in front of another. None  of them do anything, except shoot things and gossip. Of course the houses are beautiful and everyone has perfect manners, but how can you live like this in a world built on lies?”  (italics in book; page 414)

When I read books like this I am thankful for the rights and opportunities I have as an American woman. 

I am even more thankful to know I am a daughter of God and thankful for all the opportunities that come with this divine heritage. That's a topic for another post.