BERTIE, BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, AND BOUNTIFUL BUCKS

 



Post Civil War America faced great financial changes. Industrialization and an agrarian economy no longer based on enforced labor created opportunities for anyone to make a great fortune. Old Guard families with immense wealth resented this encroachment to their whole their hold on society. Families from all over America arrived in New York (snidely called arrivistes) replete with cash and two goals : build mansions and enter their daughters into society. But, when father's womanizing reputation or mother's unsavory past became grist for the gossip mill, these daughters had no chance of a proper debut or snagging an eligible society bachelor. Over the sea, to London and Paris went mothers and daughters. Flush with cash, beauty, and personality, these young women wove themselves into the British upper class and saved the aristocracy from ruin.

America became fascinated with all things British because of Bertie - Prince Albert Edward, eldest son of Queen Victoria. Bertie came to America in 1861 and young ladies mobbed him wherever he went ; basically Bertie was the Monarchy's version of David Cassidy, circa 1971. Bertie was handsome, young, rich, and idle - his job kind of was hanging around waiting for Queen Victoria to die (and he waited a looooong time for that.) Bertie boozed and babed his time away.  He would have to marry royalty as Heir Apparent, but still he loved ladies. So when young American women started arriving on British shores Bertie was all too happy to be their Welcome Wagon.

Meanwhile in the states, young women were facing rejection from society. Daddy had dollars, but if daddy and not great-great grand daddy made the money, daddy's money meant nothing. If the money was made in a way society didn't approve of, again, society turned their backs. In the interest of becoming more cultured, these daughters and their mothers sailed to Europe where the daughters would learn multiple foreign languages, and study art and literature. Given their interest in culture, their intelligent conversation, sparkling personalities, beauty, and the way they filled out a Worth gown, upper class British men took notice. These young women would be dubbed "Penny Princesses" and they set off the first wave of marrying for the social cache of a title. Why worry about not getting invited to the Patriarch's Ball when you dine with The Prince of Wales?

Great Britain suffered an economic decline and that was all America's fault. First we dumped their tea into the ocean, now our wheat was more bountiful, cheaper, and easier to ship. Britain's aristocracy was agrarian based. Large estates relied on farming villages to not only supply food for the great houses, but the profits of selling produce funded the estate's upkeep. Without that money estates couldn't make necessary repairs and those estates were LARGE. We've all binged Downton Abbey like a million times right?

By this time the art of trading cash for class was no longer a secret. Magazines listing eligible titled Aristocrats were published. One former Penny Princess set up a matchmaking service. British bachelors would come to Newport or Saratoga to find wives for themselves. Fathers would issue estate saving dowries, and the young women would give up family and friends for lonely lives of sacrifice and duty. The trend died out as World War I began but over 450 marriages took place between 1870 and 1940. And what about Bertie, who helped kick off the anglo-mania that fueled the phenomenon? Well, his great, great, great-grand son was recently crowned king, and the Royal Family owe the continuation of the monarchy to a Princess - yes, that one - Diana ; Lady Diana Spencer was Penny Princess progeny herself. 
Saving England : America - 2 / Britain - 0.

SOURCES :

American Dollar Princesses. Wikipedia.


FURTHER MEDIA :

BOOKS :

The Buccaneers ~ Edith Wharton

The Husband Hunters ~ Anne de Courcy

The Transatlantic Marriage Bureau ~ Julie Ferry

To Marry an English Lord ~ Gail MacColl / Carol McD Wallace


PODCASTS : 

Graham, Beckett / Vollenweider, Susan, hosts. "Gilded Age Heiresses." Episode 9, The History Chicks, 2 June 2011.

Raymond, Carl, host. "The ‘Real’ Buccaneers : Gilded Age Million Dollar Princesses." The Gilded Gentleman, Episode 57, Bowery Boys Media, 5 September 2023. 


FURTHER VIEWING :

Million Dollar American Princesses

The Buccaneers - 1995

The Buccaneers - 2023



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