The Vanderbilt Duchess

Consuelo Vanderbilt was not directly involved with auto racing, but her brother, William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., was. He founded the Vanderbilt Cup, America's first major auto race, in 1904. Consuelo's story is one of the age-old, sick ego that is at the heart of so much of humanity's woes.
 
Not Consuelo's ego so much as her mother Alva's, whose id was so selfishly and disgustingly on display in her relationship with her daughter. Consuelo, regarded as exceedingly beautiful and the product of America's wealthiest family, was ideal fodder for gossip and the object of the general public's insatiable appetite for garbage news. She would have been the irresistible topic of scrutiny for today's Gawker, US, National Enquirer or any number of tabloid or Internet click bait sites today.
 
Back to Alva, though. Alva Erskine of a wealthy Alabama family hooked up with William K. Vanderbilt Sr. of New York's gilded 5th Avenue in 1875. William's grandfather, Cornelius, had clawed his way from abject poverty by way of his relentless energy and God-given business savvy. He was ruthless and demanding in building his railroad empire - so much so some say he drove his son Henry to an early grave.
 
The sad story there is that Henry had a work ethic too and once in command multiplied his father's fortune. He also chewed himself up - literally - with severe stomach ulcers that bled him out. Henry's sons were raised in not just privilege but entitlement. William proved a capable playboy, spending much of his time philandering and eventually angering Alva to the then-unthinkable divorce filing.
 
Prior to that, though, Alva was determined to establish herself and her family in what she coveted most - High Society. With all the pretension imaginable she set about spending large chunks of the family fortune on numerous palatial homes almost as if she needed a mansion for an occasion like she might require a gown for a ball.
 
Yes, gowns, jewelry, yachts, horses and more were all part of communicating to the world that she and her kin were clearly superior, even ordained by God as such. There were charities, evenings at the Met, grand balls and all manner of wealth proclamations.
 
One more on the list was a moniker few if any in her social world had acquired: an Old World title of aristocracy. Not that the Rockefellers, the Astors, the Payne-Whittneys or the Goulds - all her contemporaries - couldn't, it was, perhaps, that they had not thought of it. Or maybe they did but just believed no one else would bust that move, so they didn't act.
 
Alva did.
 
Alva Vanderbilt set about spending a fortune in arranging matrimony for her daughter with Charles Spencer-Churchill, the 9th Duke of Marlborough. The Duke was cash poor. He held grand, historic and decaying property and lacked the funds to maintain both his castle and a lifestyle for such an esteemed person. The Vanderbilt money could fix that - tens of millions of dollars by today's value - and in return Alva could introduce her daughter as a Duchess.
 
It wasn't easy. The biggest problem was that Consuelo understandably felt used and insisted she did not love the Duke. Alva either dismissed the notion of "love" as childish or simply didn't care in the face of her lust for social position.
 
Consuelo eventually consented not through a change of heart but simply because she had been browbeaten and threatened by her mother all her life and this was the crowning glory of such abuse. Consuelo married to become a Duchess in 1895.
 
Consuelo and the Duke did have two sons but the marriage was tepid at best and they were destined to divorce in 1926. By all accounts they actually separated 20 years prior and during their time "together" they both took lovers to live out their sexual passions.
 
The image you can see here was published in the Indianapolis News during March 1907. Consuelo was the topic of pop culture study as she was looking to find a way to return to America without public acknowledgement of her separation from the Duke. What you see here was originally a photograph of another emblem of the elite in the day: an etching by the artist, Paul César Helleu. This was a trendy form of artistic expression reserved only for those most deserving - like social climbing opportunists.
 
The fact that the image appeared in the Indianapolis News and not just the Gotham papers might have had something to do with the Hoosier capital's interest in all things even remotely relevant to the Vanderbilt Cup because of the Indiana auto industry. Then again, it might have had everything to do with the ego sickness that has always dominated human society - and has driven it to so much misery. Like the accident at the side of the road people are compelled to gawk - like how "Gawker" got its name a century later.
 
Yes, this is a stretch of relevance for First Super Speedway, but the connection is real. By clicking thru on the link above you can start with this woman's bizarre tale and can be quickly whisked to a saner place: like driving brakeless, behemoth mechanical steeds at the brink of control.
 
Don't be afraid. Click thru...the Duchess awaits you.