Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty

by Anderson Cooper

“It is well to be in with the nobs who are born to their position,” theorized McAllister in writing. “But the support of the swells is more advantageous, for society is sustained and carried on by the swells, the nobs looking quietly on and accepting the position, feeling they are there by divine right; but they do not make fashionable society, or carry it on.” Caroline Astor was a “nob,” someone with a long pedigree and old money. The Vanderbilts, in contrast, were “swells,” nouveau riche arrivistes who were ready to lavish their fortunes on social climbing. Mrs. Astor and Ward McAllister together had the genius and distinctly American insight that society would result from the knitting together of these two worlds—carefully, of course, and under their expert tutelage and domination. “A nob can be a swell if he chooses, i.e. if he will spend the money,” McAllister elaborated. “But for his social existence this is unnecessary. A nob is like a poet—nascitur non fit; not so a swell—he creates himself.”