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Caroline Schermerhorn Astor

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"Caroline Astor" redirects here. For her daughter, see Carrie Astor Wilson.

Caroline Webster "Lina" Schermerhorn Astor (September 22, 1830 – October 30, 1908) was an American socialite who led the Four Hundred, high society of New York City in the Gilded Age.[1] Referred to later in life as "the Mrs. Astor" or simply "Mrs. Astor", she was the wife of yachtsman William Backhouse Astor Jr. They had five children, including Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, who perished on the RMS Titanic. Through her marriage, she was a member of the Astor family and matriarch of the American Astors.

Caroline Schermerhorn Astor
An illustration of Astor, c. 1853–1860
Born
Caroline Webster Schermerhorn

(1830-09-22)September 22, 1830
New York City, United States
DiedOctober 30, 1908(1908-10-30) (aged 78)
New York City, United States
Burial placeTrinity Church Cemetery
Known forself-proclaimed "the Mrs. Astor", matriarch of the American Astors
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1853; died 1892)​
Children5
Parents
RelativesSee Astor family

Early life

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Further information: Livingston family
 
Portrait of Caroline Webster Schermerhorn in 1860

Caroline Webster Schermerhorn, called "Lina", was born on September 22, 1830, into a wealthy family who were part of New York City's Dutch aristocracy,[1] descendants of the city's original settlers. Her father, Abraham Schermerhorn (1783–1850),[2] and the extended Schermerhorn family were engaged in shipping. At the time of Lina's birth, Abraham was worth half a million dollars[3] (equivalent to $14.31 million in 2023).[4] Her mother was Helen Van Cortlandt (née White) Schermerhorn (1792–1881). Lina was the couple's ninth child.[3] Her older sister Elizabeth married General James I. Jones, who owned a vast farm in upper Manhattan called Jones's Wood.[5]

Her maternal grandparents were Henry White and Anne (née Van Cortlandt) White while her paternal grandparents were Peter Schermerhorn and Elizabeth (née Bussing) Schermerhorn.[6] Among her extended Schermerhorn family was first cousin, William Colford Schermerhorn,[7] the father of Annie Schermerhorn Kane, wife of John Innes Kane (a great-grandson of John Jacob Astor).[8]

At the time of her birth, her family lived at 1 Greenwich Street, near the Bowling Green, but the population growth and increasing urbanization of lower Manhattan in the 1830s led her family to move farther north to 36 Bond Street, near the ultra-fashionable "Lafayette Place," which had been developed by her future husband's paternal grandfather, fur-trader John Jacob Astor.[9]

Young Lina was educated at a school run by Mrs. Bensee, a French emigrée. There, she learned to speak French fluently.[3]

Marriage and family

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Main article: Astor family
 
Ferncliff, the Astor family's country estate in Rhinebeck, New York
 
Beechwood, the Astors' summer home in Newport, Rhode Island
 
841 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan in 1895

On September 23, 1853, she married William Backhouse Astor Jr. (1829–1892) at Trinity Church. Her husband was the middle son of real estate businessman William Backhouse Astor Sr. and Margaret Alida Rebecca Armstrong. His paternal grandfather was John Jacob Astor and his maternal grandparents were Senator John Armstrong Jr. and Alida (née Livingston) Armstrong, daughter of Robert Livingston of the Livingston family.[9]

Her husband's family, the Astors, had made a fortune initially through the fur trade, and later through investing in New York City real estate.[10] Despite the wealth of the Astor family, Lina had the superior pedigree as a member of an old Knickerbocker (original 1600s Dutch settlers of Manhattan) family.[11]

Together, they had five children:

Socialite

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Although popularly imagined as wholly preoccupied with "high society", for the first several decades of her married life, Lina Astor was principally occupied with raising her five children and running her household, as was typical of women of her class in mid-19th-century New York City. Due to an inheritance from her parents, Lina had her own money, thus she was far less dependent on her husband than most American women of the time.[3]

In 1862, she and her husband built a four-bay townhouse in the newly fashionable brownstone style at 350 Fifth Avenue,[13] the present site of the Empire State Building.[3] The home was next door to her husband's elder brother, John Jacob Astor III; the two families were next-door neighbors for 28 years, although the Astor brothers' wives did not get along. The Astors also maintained a grand "summer cottage" in Newport, Rhode Island, called Beechwood, which had a ballroom large enough to fit "The 400" – the most fashionable New York socialites of the day.[14][15] It also neighbored his brother's family, who lived at Beaulieu.

The Gatekeeper

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Portrait of Mrs. William Astor by Carolus-Duran, 1890, painted in Paris and now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[16] This painting was placed prominently in Mrs. Astor's house; she would stand in front of it when receiving guests for receptions.[citation needed]

In the decades following the Civil War the population of New York City grew almost exponentially, and immigrants and wealthy arrivistes from the Midwest began challenging the dominance of the old New York Establishment.[17] Aided by the social arbiter Ward McAllister, whose first cousin, Samuel Cutler Ward, had married into the Astor family, Lina attempted to codify proper behavior and etiquette, as well as determine who was acceptable among the arrivistes for an increasingly heterogeneous city.[18] They were the champions of old money and tradition.[17]

McAllister once stated that, amongst the vastly rich families of Gilded Age New York, there were only 400 people who could be counted as members of Fashionable Society. He did not, as is commonly written, arrive at this number based on the limitations of Mrs. Astor's New York City ballroom. (McAllister referred to her as the "Mystic Rose.") Her husband's lack of interest in the social whirl did not stop but instead fueled her burgeoning social activities, which increased in intensity as her children grew older.[19]

Lina was the foremost authority on the "Aristocracy" of New York in the late nineteenth century.[20] She held ornate and elaborate parties for herself and other members of the elite New York socialite crowd. None was permitted to attend these gatherings without an official calling card from her. Lina's social groups were dominated by strong-willed "aristocratic" women. These social gatherings were dependent on overly conspicuous luxury and publicity. More so than the gatherings themselves, importance was highly placed upon the group as the upper-crust of New York's elite. She and her ladies therefore represented the "Aristocratic," or the Old Money, whereas the newly wealthy Vanderbilt family would establish a new wave of New Money.[21]

Relationship with the Vanderbilts

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Caroline Schermerhorn Astor and her guests at a New York City ball in 1902

The Vanderbilts, as members of socialite New York through the copious amounts of money that the family had earned rather than inherited, represented a type of wealth that was abhorrent to Astor and her group. Lina Astor found railroad money distasteful.[22] For this reason, she was reluctant to call upon the Vanderbilt girls. In 1883, however, Astor was forced to formally acknowledge the wealthy socialite Alva Erskine Smith, first wife of horse breeder/railroad manager William Kissam Vanderbilt, thereby providing the Vanderbilts, the greatest "new" fortune in New York, entrance into the highest rungs of society.[23]

An oft-repeated New York legend has it that Alva Vanderbilt had planned an elaborate costume ball for her housewarming, with entertainments given by young society figures, but at the last minute notified young Caroline Astor (Lina's youngest daughter) that she could not participate, because Astor had never formally called on Vanderbilt. Also likely, Astor had noted the rising social profile of the Vanderbilt family, led by Alva and Willie and, viewing them as useful allies in her efforts to keep New York society exclusive, had called formally on the Vanderbilts prior to Alva's lavish ball which Astor herself attended. The Vanderbilts were subsequently invited to Astor's annual ball, a formal acknowledgement of their full acceptance into the upper echelon of New York society.[23]

Use of "Mrs. Astor"

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Until 1887, Lina Astor had been formally known as "Mrs. William Astor", but with Charlotte Augusta Gibbes's death that year, she shortened her formal title to "Mrs. Astor", as she was then the senior Mrs. Astor, the only remaining one in her generation. Charlotte's son, William Waldorf Astor, felt that his own wife, Mary "Mamie" Dahlgren Paul, should be "the Mrs. Astor." With the death of John Jacob Astor III in 1890, William Waldorf Astor had inherited his father's share of the Astor holdings and, titularly, became the head of the Astor family. In his mind, this made Mamie "the Mrs. Astor." However, Mamie was eighteen years younger than Lina and lacked Lina's social power.[24] His further attempts at challenging Lina's preeminence in New York society, however, were thwarted, and he soon moved with his family to England, where he later became a viscount.[25]

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

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Further information: Waldorf–Astoria (1893–1929)
 
Engraved vignettes of the original hotels, c. 1915
 
Astor arranged for a cenotaph at Trinity Church cemetery

In retaliation for his aunt's intransigence, William Waldorf Astor had his father's house torn down and replaced by the first Waldorf Hotel. The hotel was specifically designed to overshadow Mrs. Astor's mansion, which was right next door, in an attempt to overshadow her status with it. The Waldorf Hotel was thirteen stories tall and was built in the form of a German Renaissance chateau: it thus not only overshadowed Lina, but all other structures in the neighborhood as well. Mrs. Astor famously stated about the hotel, "There's a glorified tavern next door."[26]

Until the opulence of the Waldorf Hotel revolutionized how New York socialized publicly, polite society did not gather in public places, especially hotels. Unwilling to live next door to New York's latest sensation and public draw, Mrs. Astor and her son, Jack, first contemplated tearing down her house and replacing it with livery stables. Eventually she and Jack tore down their house and erected another hotel at its site, the Astoria, and soon the two hotels merged and became the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.[26] Astor consequently built a double mansion, one of the largest ever built in New York, for her and her son, with Mrs. Astor occupying the northern residence, 841 Fifth Avenue and her son occupying the southern half, 840 Fifth Avenue.[27]

The Astors' Fifth Avenue home and the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel were both eventually torn down in 1927 and 1928 to make way for Temple Emanu-El and the Empire State Building, respectively.[28][26]

Death

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By the time she moved into her new house facing Central Park, at the corner of 65th Street, Mrs. Astor's husband had died, and she lived with her son and his family. Spending her last several years suffering from periodic dementia, she died at age 78 on October 30, 1908, and was interred in the Trinity Church Cemetery in upper Manhattan.[29]

Her youngest daughter, Carrie, erected a commemorative 39-foot-tall (11.9 m) cenotaph in her memory, in addition to her uptown burial plot. The inscription is dated A.D. MCMXIV and the cenotaph is located within the small churchyard cemetery at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street, in which many prominent early Americans are buried.[30][31][32]

Following Mrs. Astor's death, it reportedly took three women to fill her role in New York Society: Marion Graves Anthon Fish, the wife of Stuyvesant Fish, Theresa Fair Oelrichs, the wife of Hermann Oelrichs, and Alva Belmont, by then the wife of Oliver Belmont.[25]

Mrs. Astor has been portrayed by Donna Murphy in the HBO drama The Gilded Age.

References

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  1. ^ a b "Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
  2. ^ "Astor, Caroline Schermerhorn (1830–1908) - Dictionary definition of Astor, Caroline Schermerhorn (1830–1908)". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d e Homberger, Eric (1 September 2004). Mrs. Astor's New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300105150.
  4. ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  5. ^ "DIED. Jones" (PDF). The New York Times. August 23, 1874. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
  6. ^ Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York (1905). The Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York: History, Customs, Record of Events, Constitution, Certain Genealogies, and Other Matters of Interest. V. 1-. p. 138. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
  7. ^ "W.C. SCHERMERHORN DEAD; Passes Away in This City After a Few Hours' Illness. Was a Member of One of New York's Oldest Families, and a Patron of Letters, Science, and Art" (PDF). The New York Times. January 2, 1903. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
  8. ^ "WILL OF MRS. KANE LEAVES $4,000,000 TO CITY CHARITIES -- $1,000,000 Each Goes to Home for Incurables and Columbia University". Brooklyn Eagle. September 9, 1926. p. 5. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
  9. ^ a b Gavan, Terrence. 'The Barons of Newport: A Guide to the Gilded Age'. Newport: Pineapple Publications, 1998. pp. 25-8. ISBN 0-929249-06-2
  10. ^ "Astor family". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
  11. ^ James, Edward T.; James, Janet Wilson; Boyer, Paul S.; College, Radcliffe (January 1, 1971). Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. p. 62. ISBN 9780674627345. caroline astor.
  12. ^ "A WEDDING AMID FLOWERS; THE MARRIAGE OF MISS ASTOR AND MR. WILSON. | MANY PRINCELY PRESENTS | A NECKLACE THAT COST $75,000 | BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLES OF WORTH'S ART". The New York Times. November 19, 1884. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  13. ^ "The House of "The" Mrs Astor". HouseHistree. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  14. ^ Vanderbilt II, Arthur T. Fortune's Children. Wm. Morrow and Co.: 1989. 143.
  15. ^ "The Leader of Society". The New York Times. 1 November 1908. Retrieved 14 January 2018.
  16. ^ Mrs. William Astor (Caroline Webster Schermerhorn, 1831–1908), Metropolitan Museum of Art
  17. ^ a b "Vanderbilt Ball – how a costume ball changed New York elite society". Museum of the City of New York. August 6, 2013. Retrieved November 12, 2016.
  18. ^ Gavan, Terrence. 'The Barons of Newport: A Guide to the Gilded Age'. Newport: Pineapple Publications, 1998. p. 27. ISBN 0-929249-06-2
  19. ^ Vanderbilt II, Arthur T. Fortune's Children. Wm. Morrow and Co., 1989: 92-97. ISBN 0-688-07279-8
  20. ^ Nicholls, Charles Wilbur de Lyon (1904). The Ultra-fashionable Peerage of America: An Official List of Those People who Can Properly be Called Ultra-fashionable in the United States. New York: George Harjes, Publisher. pp. 7–8. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  21. ^ Frederic Cople Jaher. "Nineteenth-Century Elites in Boston and New York". Journal of Social History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn, 1972), pp. 32-77.
  22. ^ Vanderbilt. 98.
  23. ^ a b Vanderbilt, 104-6.
  24. ^ Madsen, Axel (March 14, 2002). John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780471009351.
  25. ^ a b MacColl, Gail; Wallace, Carol McD (March 15, 2012). To Marry an English Lord: Tales of Wealth and Marriage, Sex and Snobbery. Workman Publishing. ISBN 9780761171980.
  26. ^ a b c Annabel Wharton. "Two Waldorf-Astorias: Spatial Economies as Totem and Fetish". The Art Bulletin, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Sep., 2003), pp. 523-543.
  27. ^ "MRS. WILLIAM ASTOR'S DANCE | A LARGE BALL IN HER NEW FIFTH AVENUE HOME | The House Decorated with Roses and Violets--The Cotillion Led by Elisha Dyer, Jr., and Mrs. J. J. Astor" (PDF). The New York Times. February 4, 1896. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  28. ^ "TEMPLE EMANU-EL WILL OPEN TODAY; Jewish New Year's Eve Service to Be Held in $8,000,000 Edifice in Fifth AvMANY VAINLY SEEK SEATSExterior Is Austerely Proportionedand Spacious AuditoriumRich in Color. Exterior Austerely Proportioned. Auditorium Richly Colored. Seats for 2,600 Worshipers" (PDF). The New York Times. October 4, 1929. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  29. ^ "MRS. ASTOR DIES AT HER CITY HOME; Only Her Daughter, Mrs. M. Orme Wilson, with Her When the End Came Early Last Night. HEART TROUBLE KILLED HER Col. Astor and His Wife Had Left His Mother When the Last Sinking Spell Set In -- Her Notable Career". The New York Times. 31 October 1908. Retrieved 14 January 2018.
  30. ^ NYC Go
  31. ^ Audubon Park Alliance
  32. ^ Keister, Douglas (2011). Stories in Stone New York: A Field Guide to New York City Area Cemeteries and Their Residents. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 9781423621027. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
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