Download or read book Alva Vanderbilt Belmont written by Sylvia D. Hoffert and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-23 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating biography of the New York socialite who played a surprising role in the fight for suffrage. Born in the middle of the nineteenth century, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was known to be domineering, temperamental, and opinionated. She married two millionaires, and pressured her daughter to wed an aristocrat. This resolve to get her own way regardless of the consequences stood her in good stead when she joined the American woman suffrage movement in 1909. Thereafter, she used her wealth, her administrative expertise, and her social celebrity to help convince Congress to pass the 19th Amendment and then to persuade the exhausted leaders of the National Woman’s Party to initiate a worldwide equal rights campaign. In this book, Sylvia D. Hoffert argues that Belmont was a feminist visionary and that her financial support was crucial to the success of the suffrage and equal rights movements. She also shows how Belmont’s activism, and the money she used to support it, enriches our understanding of the personal dynamics of the American woman’s rights movement. Drawing upon and analyzing Belmont’s own memoirs, she illustrates how this determined woman went about the complex and collaborative process of creating her public self. “Engaging . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

Download or read book A Well Behaved Woman written by Therese Anne Fowler and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times and USA Today bestseller The riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family as they rule Gilded-Age New York, written by Therese Anne Fowler, a New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Alva Smith, her southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America’s great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Ignored by New York’s old-money circles and determined to win respect, she designed and built nine mansions, hosted grand balls, and arranged for her daughter to marry a duke. But Alva also defied convention for women of her time, asserting power within her marriage and becoming a leader in the women's suffrage movement. With a nod to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, in A Well-Behaved Woman Therese Anne Fowler paints a glittering world of enormous wealth contrasted against desperate poverty, of social ambition and social scorn, of friendship and betrayal, and an unforgettable story of a remarkable woman. Meet Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont, living proof that history is made by those who know the rules—and how to break them.

Download or read book Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt written by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2007-01-09 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Consuelo Vanderbilt's grandfather died, he was the richest man in America. Her father soon started to spend the family fortune, enthusiastically supported by Consuelo's mother, Alva, who was determined to take the family to the top of New York society—forcing a heartbroken Consuelo into a marriage she did not want with the underfunded Duke of Marlborough. But the story of Consuelo and Alva is more than a tale of enterprising social ambition, Gilded Age glamour, and the emptiness of wealth. It is a fascinating account of two extraordinary women who struggled to break free from the world into which they were born—a world of materialistic concerns and shallow elitism in which females were voiceless and powerless—and of their lifelong dedication to noble and dangerous causes and the battle for women's rights.

Download or read book The Legend of the First Super Speedway written by Mark Dill and published by BookBaby. This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Legend of the First Super Speedway," is a gritty tale punctuated by humor that chronicles the hero's journey through the pioneering age of American auto racing. It is a factual, previously untold story that must be read for a thorough understanding of auto racing history.

Download or read book The Suffragents written by Brooke Kroeger and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2017-05-11 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gold Medalist, 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the U.S. History Category Finalist for the 2018 Sally and Morris Lasky Prize presented by the Center for Political History at Lebanon Valley College The Suffragents is the untold story of how some of New York's most powerful men formed the Men's League for Woman Suffrage, which grew between 1909 and 1917 from 150 founding members into a force of thousands across thirty-five states. Brooke Kroeger explores the formation of the League and the men who instigated it to involve themselves with the suffrage campaign, what they did at the behest of the movement's female leadership, and why. She details the National American Woman Suffrage Association's strategic decision to accept their organized help and then to deploy these influential new allies as suffrage foot soldiers, a role they accepted with uncommon grace. Led by such luminaries as Oswald Garrison Villard, John Dewey, Max Eastman, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and George Foster Peabody, members of the League worked the streets, the stage, the press, and the legislative and executive branches of government. In the process, they helped convince waffling politicians, a dismissive public, and a largely hostile press to support the women's demand. Together, they swayed the course of history.

Download or read book Gilded Suffragists written by Johanna Neuman and published by Washington Mews Books/NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York City’s elite women who turned a feminist cause into a fashionable revolution In the early twentieth century over two hundred of New York's most glamorous socialites joined the suffrage movement. Their names—Astor, Belmont, Rockefeller, Tiffany, Vanderbilt, Whitney and the like—carried enormous public value. These women were the media darlings of their day because of the extravagance of their costume balls and the opulence of the French couture clothes, and they leveraged their social celebrity for political power, turning women's right to vote into a fashionable cause. Although they were dismissed by critics as bored socialites “trying on suffrage as they might the latest couture designs from Paris,” these gilded suffragists were at the epicenter of the great reforms known collectively as the Progressive Era. From championing education for women, to pursuing careers, and advocating for the end of marriage, these women were engaged with the swirl of change that swept through the streets of New York City. Johanna Neuman restores these women to their rightful place in the story of women’s suffrage. Understanding the need for popular approval for any social change, these socialites used their wealth, power, social connections and style to excite mainstream interest and to diffuse resistance to the cause. In the end, as Neuman says, when change was in the air, these women helped push women’s suffrage over the finish line.

Download or read book Stories from Suffragette City written by M. J. Rose and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One City. One Movement. A World of Stories. Stories from Suffragette City is a collection of short stories that all take place on a single day: October 23, 1915. It’s the day when tens of thousands of women marched up Fifth Avenue, demanding the right to vote in New York City. Thirteen of today's bestselling authors have taken this moment as inspiration to raise the voices of history and breathe fresh life into their struggles and triumphs. The characters depicted here, some well-known, others unfamiliar, each inspire and reinvigorate the power of democracy. We follow a young woman who is swept up in the protests when all she expected was to come sell her apples in the city. We see Alva Vanderbilt as her white-gloved sensibility is transformed over the course of the single fateful day. Ida B. Wells battles for racial justice in the women's suffrage movement so that every woman's voice can be heard. Each story stands on its own, but together Stories From Suffragette City becomes a symphony, painting a portrait of a country looking for a fight and ever restless for progress and equality. With an introduction by Kristin Hannah and stories from: Lisa Wingate M.J. Rose Steve Berry Paula McLain Katherine J. Chen Christina Baker Kline Jamie Ford Dolen Perkins-Valdez Megan Chance Alyson Richman Chris Bohjalian and Fiona Davis

Download or read book Vanderbilt written by Anderson Cooper and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts. One of the Washington Post's Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2021 When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,” subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all. Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other. Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.

Download or read book Consuelo and Alva written by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fabulously wealthy New York beauty marries a cold-hearted British aristocrat at the behest of her Machiavellian mother - then leaves him to become a prominent Suffragette.

Download or read book King Lehr and the Gilded Age written by Elizabeth Drexel Lehr and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HARRY SYMES LEHR was born in 1869 into a family that was neither wealthy nor socially prominent. His natural gift for entertaining and his penchant for hobnobbing with the very rich earned him entry to the powerful circle of the New York and Newport social elite, where Harry clowned his way to a position of prominence. One of his admirers and patrons, Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, introduced him to a young widow, Elizabeth Wharton Drexel. Elizabeth was smitten with young Harry, his elegant dress, and outrageous behavior. They were soon married. But King Lehr had a secret—he was not what he seemed. On their wedding night he cruelly dictated the rules of their strange relationship to his new bride. For twenty-three years, Mrs. Lehr protected his secret and remained in a loveless and abusive marriage. After Harry’s death Elizabeth remarried, to the Baron Decies. Lady Decies wrote down her secret story in 1938, incorporating Harry’s most intimate diaries, and told all in this scandalous tale of power, desire, and deception.

Download or read book Long Island and the Woman Suffrage Movement written by Antonia Petrash and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of how the women’s rights movement found fertile ground on Long Island and succeeded thanks to the suffragettes’ classic grassroots campaign. For seventy-two years, American women fought for the right to vote, and many remarkable ladies on Long Island worked tirelessly during this important civil rights movement. The colorful—and exceedingly wealthy—Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was undoubtedly the island’s most outspoken and controversial advocate for woman suffrage. Ida Bunce Sammis, vigorous in her efforts, became one of the first women elected to the New York legislature. Well-known Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, worked with countless other famous and ordinary Long Islanders to make her mother’s quest a reality. Author Antonia Petrash tells the story of these and other women’s struggle to secure the right to vote for themselves, their daughters and future generations of Long Island women.

Download or read book Gilded Dreams written by Donna Russo Morin and published by Next Chapter. This book was released on 2021-12-09 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of GILDED SUMMERS comes a powerful novel of the last eight years of the American Women’s fight for suffrage. The battle for the vote is on fire in America. The powerful and rich women of Newport, Rhode Island, are not only some of the most involved suffragettes, their wealth - especially that of the indomitable Alva Vanderbilt Belmont - nearly single-handedly funded the major suffrage parties. Yet they have been left out of history, tossed aside as mere socialites. In GILDED DREAMS, they reclaim their rightful place in history. Pearl and Ginevra (GILDED SUMMERS) are two of its most ardent warriors. College graduates, professional women, wives, and mothers, these progressive women have fought their way through some of life’s harshest challenges, yet they survived, yet they thrive. Now they set their sights on the vote, the epitome of all they have struggled for, the embodiment of their dreams. From the sinking of the Titanic, through World War 1, Pearl and Ginevra are once more put to the test as they fight against politics, outdated beliefs, and the most cutting opponent of all... other women. Yet they will not rest until their voices are heard, until they - and all the women of America - are allowed to cast their vote. But to gain it, they must overcome yet more obstacles, some that put their very lives in danger. An emotional and empowering journey, GILDED DREAMS is a historical, action-packed love letter to the women who fought so hard for all women who stand on the shoulders of their triumph.

Download or read book The Gilded Hour written by Sara Donati and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Haunted by childhood losses in spite of successful medical careers in 1883 New York City, surgeon Anna Savard and her obstetrician cousin, Sophie, consider taking in a child and helping a desperate young mother, while avoiding dangerous anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock.

Download or read book Alva that Vanderbilt Belmont Woman written by Margaret Hayden Rector and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biography of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont.

Download or read book The Barons of Newport written by Terrence Gavan and published by . This book was released on 1988-06 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Long Island Motor Parkway written by Howard Kroplick and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2008-09-01 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Long Island Motor Parkway was constructed at a pivotal time in American history, and it often considered a precursor to the modern highway system. A forerunner of the modern highway system, the Long Island Motor Parkway was constructed during the advent of the automobile and at a pivotal time in American history. Following a spectator death during the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Race, the concept for a privately owned speedway on Long Island was developed by William K. Vanderbilt Jr. and his business associates. It would be the first highway built exclusively for the automobile. Vanderbilt's dream was to build a safe, smooth, police-free road without speed limits where he could conduct his beloved automobile races without spectators running onto the course. Features such as the use of reinforced concrete, bridges to eliminate grade crossings, banked curves, guardrails, and landscaping were all pioneered for the parkway. Reflecting its poor profitability and the availability of free state-built public parkways, the historic 48-mile Long Island Motor Parkway closed on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1938.

Download or read book A Woman s Crusade written by Mary Walton and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-08-17 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alice Paul began her life as a studious girl from a strict Quaker family in New Jersey. In 1907, a scholarship took her to England, where she developed a passionate devotion to the suffrage movement. Upon her return to the United States, Alice became the leader of the militant wing of the American suffrage movement. Calling themselves "Silent Sentinels," she and her followers were the first protestors to picket the White House. Arrested and jailed, they went on hunger strikes and were force-fed and brutalized. Years before Gandhi's campaign of nonviolent resistance, and decades before civil rights demonstrations, Alice Paul practiced peaceful civil disobedience in the pursuit of equal rights for women. With her daring and unconventional tactics, Alice Paul eventually succeeded in forcing President Woodrow Wilson and a reluctant U.S. Congress to pass the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote. Here at last is the inspiring story of the young woman whose dedication to women's rights made that long-held dream a reality.