In a Gilded Cage: From Heiress to Duchess - Softcover

Between 1870 and 1914, 100 American women married into British nobility, usually offering wealth in exchange for social status. In this lively and gossipy biography, Fowler (Below the Peacock Fan: First Ladies of the Raj) describes five marriages uniting British dukes and wealthy American women. Consuelo Yznaga, for example, upon whom Edith Wharton based the character of Conchita Closson in The Buccaneers, endured the Eighth Duke of Manchester's philandering by becoming a society leader. Lily Hammersley ignored the mistresses of her husband, the Eighth Duke of Marlborough. However, Consuelo Vanderbilt, who was forced by her mother to mary the Ninth Duke of Marlborough, subsequently divorced him, became a feminist and wrote an autobiography, The Glitter and the Gold. After Helena Zimmerman married the Ninth Duke of Manchester, he gambled away her fortune. Only May Goelet's marriage to the Duke of Roxburghe was successful, according to Fowler, because they married for love. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A popular song of the time called them "the dollar princesses." They were American heiresses who around the turn of the century married into European aristocracy. It was no isolated incident--it was the fashion to do so; in fact, between 1870 and 1914 there were 454 rich young American ladies who crossed the Atlantic with plenty of Daddy's money in hand and exchanged it for a title by marrying into some cash-poor but noble family. It was a case of social advancement on the part of the American woman who did it, and Fowler focuses on five who did particularly well for themselves by marrying British dukes. Fowler sees those five not only as exemplars of a fascinating social situation but also as individuals who for better or worse (and only one of the five had a personally fulfilling marriage) endeavored to make lives for themselves as transplants to a new culture. Richly detailed, well-told social history for all popular collections. Brad Hooper