Vanderbilt family Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The prominent United States Vanderbilt family was founded by Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877), the fourth of nine children born to a Staten Island, New York family of modest means. His great-great-great-grandfather, Jan Aertson (1620-1705), was a Dutch farmer from the village of De Bilt, Utrecht, the Netherlands who emigrated to New York as an indentured servant in 1650. Aertson’s village name was eventually added to the Dutch "van der" (from the) to create "van der bilt" which was evolved to Vanderbilt.Cornelius Vanderbilt left school at the age of 11 and went on to build a shipping and railroad empire that, during the 19th century, made him one of the wealthiest men in the world.
The Vanderbilt family owned land in Corwith Township, Michigan which was settled about 1875. When the Vanderbilt-owned Michigan Central Railroad came through in 1880, the village of Vanderbilt, Michigan was established. Although Cornelius Vanderbilt always occupied a modest home, members of his family would use their wealth to built magnificent Vanderbilt mansions. On his death in 1877, Cornelius Vanderbilt bequeathed $1 million for the establishment of Vanderbilt University.
Members of the family dominated what has come to be known as the "Gilded Age," a period when Vanderbilt men were the merchant princes of American life through their prominence in the business world and as patrons of the arts. Some of Cornelius Vanderbilt's offspring gained fame as successful entrepreneurs while several achieved prominence in other fields such as Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (1877-1915), a noted horse breeder, who went down on the RMS Lusitania. Harold Sterling Vanderbilt, (1884–1970), gained fame as a sportsman, winning the most coveted prize in yacht racing, the America's Cup on three occasions. Cornelius Vanderbilt IV (1898-1974) became an accomplished writer, newspaper publisher, and film producer. However, others made headlines as a result of drug and alcohol abuse and multiple marriages.
Cornelius Vanderbilt had been awarded a gold medal by the United States government during the Civil War for donating his steamer "S.S. Vanderbilt" to the Union forces. Inheritance of this medal became the symbol for the titular head of the Vanderbilt family. Cornelius Vanderbilt and a number of his offspring are interred in the family mausoleum at the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp on Staten Island, New York.
Present-day economist John Kenneth Galbraith said that several generations of Vanderbilts showed both the talent for acquiring money and the dispensing of it in unmatched volume, adding that they dispensed of their wealth for frequent and unparalleled self-gratification and very often did it with a forthright stupidity. Confirmation as to the validity of Galbraith's views is that only forty-eight years after the death of Cornelius Vanderbilt one of his direct descendants died penniless. Within seventy years of his passing, the last of the ten great Vanderbilt Fifth Avenue mansions in New York City had been torn down. In 1973, the first Vanderbilt family reunion took place at Vanderbilt University. Of the 120 descendants gathered there, not a single one of them was a millionaire.
written by distant cousin Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, was published in 1989.
Vanderbilt family connection (alphabetical listing):
By birth:
- Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (1877-1915)
- Alfred G. Vanderbilt Jr (1912-1999)
- Amy Vanderbilt (1908-1974)
- Consuelo Vanderbilt (1877-1964)
- Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877)
- Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843-1899)
- Cornelius Vanderbilt III (1873-1942)
- Cornelius Vanderbilt IV (1898-1974)
- Florence Vanderbilt (1854-1952)
- Frederick William Vanderbilt (1856-1938)
- George Washington Vanderbilt (1862-1914)
- George Washington Vanderbilt II (1862-1914)
- Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942)
- Countess Gladys Vanderbilt Szechenyi (1886-1965)
- Gloria Vanderbilt (born 1924)
- Harold Sterling Vanderbilt (1884-1970)
- Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt (1880-1925)
- William Henry Vanderbilt (1821-1885)
- William Henry Vanderbilt II (1870-1892)
- William Kissam Vanderbilt (1849-1920)
- William Kissam Vanderbilt, Jr (1878-1944)
- Alva Belmont (1853-1933)
- Gloria Laura Mercedes Morgan-Vanderbilt (1904-1965)
- Grace Wilson-Vanderbilt (1870-1953)
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