How To Marry An English Lord: The Uniting of British Lords and American Heiresses
A class distinction between "nobs" - that is old money, and "swells" - new money, began to develop in fashionable New York, Newport, Boston, Philadelphia, and other "societies." While this was never as rigid as in Britain, it still was serious enough to enable Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, The Mrs. Astor, to "run" New York society, limiting it to "the 400," during the 1870s and 1880s. However, when Mrs. Astor started "to retire" during the 1890s, fierce competition between several younger society hostesses, including Ruth Livingston Mills and others, ensued. As a leading society hostess, it was incumbent that you married your children off to the "right" persons. The ability to do so meant the difference between further rising in social circles, or a decline in them. In order for a social hostess to be able to "run" society, this meant that they had to find suitable European, preferably British, husbands for their daughters.
Thus it was only a matter of time before both groups figured that they each shared the same goal. The English lord wanted to marry the American because of her fortune, the American because of the added status in society such a marriage would bring. The Americans sent over a substantial dowry payment to help stabilize the English family's financial future, the British lord married the American to help cement the American family's social status. Both sides ended up "winners."
Which brings us full circle to the question over whether actually a "Special Relationship" exists or has existed between the United States and Great Britain. On a policy basis and in a political/economic history context, that question will be hard to answer, and there will always be controversy on the subject. However, it certainly exists when considering the social history of 20th Century Britain. How can it be otherwise, especially when we consider the example of one British peer, the current 10th Earl of Granard (the great-grandson of Ruth Livingston Mills), who can trace his lineage back to both the British military governor of New York during the American Revolution (Lord Hastings) as well as a signer of the Declaration of Independence (Francis Lewis)?? Society sure makes strange historical bedfellows!!!
Footnotes:
[1] See John Charmley, Churchill's Grand Alliance, 2nd ed., (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995).
[2] A depression in prices. During much of the time period, there was actually deflation instead of inflation. This adversely affected the rural, aristocratic regions of
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