Wiki Search on Old Money-America's first aristocrats

The Livingston family of New York is a prominent family which migrated from Scotland to the Dutch Republic to the Province of New York in the 17th century. Descended from William, 4th Lord Livingston,[1] its members included signers of the United States Declaration of Independence (Philip Livingston) and the United States Constitution (William Livingston). Several members were Lords of Livingston Manor and Clermont Manor, located along the Hudson River in 18th-century eastern New York.
Descendants of the Livingstons include Presidents of the United States George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, Andrew Patterson, First Lady of the United StatesEleanor Roosevelt, Congressman Bob Livingston of Louisiana, much of the wealthy Astor family, New York Governor Hamilton Fish, actor Montgomery Clift, and actressJane Wyatt. The eccentric Collyer brothers are alleged to have been descended from the Livingston family.

The Astor family is a family known for its prominence in business, society, and politics in the United States and England during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Astor family is of German origin, appearing in North America during the eighteenth century with John Jacob Astor.

For many years, the members of the Astor family were known as "the landlords of New York".[2] Their New York City namesakes are the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, an Astor Row, Astor Court, Astor Place, and Astor Avenue in the Bronx, where the Astors used to stable horses. The neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, is named after the family as well.

connected families-Livingston family-Roosevelt family

This article is about the U.S. business and political family of Dutch origin.
The Roosevelt family is a prominent American business and political family whose members include United States Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.[1] The Roosevelts were among the earliest to settle in the Dutch colonial settlement of New Amsterdam, in what would later become New York.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt-October 11, 1884--at age 17 – Roosevelt returned from UK finishing school to the United States, ending her formal education, and was presented at a debutante ball at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.In the summer of 1902, Eleanor encountered her father's fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945)Eleanor became an important connection for Franklin's administration to the African-American population during the segregation era. Despite the President's desire to placate Southern sentiment, Eleanor was vocal in her support of the African-American civil rights movemen

Old money is "the inherited wealth of established upper-class families (i.e. gentry, patriciate)" or "a person, family, or lineage possessing inherited wealth."[1] The term typically describes a class of the rich who've been able to maintain their wealth over multiple generations, often referring to perceived members of the de facto aristocracy in societies which for historical reasons lack an officially established aristocratic class (typically, the United States of America).

United States[edit]

American locations that are associated with old money include the Upper East Side of Manhattan; Westchester County, New York; Long Island's North Shore; New Jersey's Central Jersey region, notably in and around Princeton, New Jersey; Fairfield County, Connecticut; Newport, Rhode Island; Boston's Back Bay and Beacon Hill; Weston, Winchester, and Wellesley, Massachusetts; Philadelphia's Main Line andChestnut Hill; Chicago's North Shore suburbs; and the Grosse Pointe area of suburban Detroit, Michigan. Ironically, these areas' inhabitants that are colloquially described as "old money" are almost always descendants of the people the term "nouveau riche" (new money) was originally coined to describe: nineteenth century industrialists, bankers, and builders. Traditionally, wealth was associated with landowning and these Gilded Age fortunes made money in a new way, hence the term new money. Edith Wharton, among Gilded Age America's greatest chroniclers, referred to industrialists and their ilk as "brazen new money".

Wealth—assets held by an individual or by a household—provides an important dimension of social stratification because it can pass from generation to generation, ensuring that a family's offspring will remain financially stable. Families with "old money" use accumulated assets or savings to bridge interruptions in income, thus guarding against downward social mobility.[2]

"Old money" applies to those of the upper class whose wealth separates them from lower social classes. According to anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner, the upper class in the United States during the 1930s was divided into the upper-upper and the lower-upper classes.[3] The lower-upper were those that did not come from traditionally wealthy families. They earned their money from investments and business rather than inheritance. In contrast to the nouveau riche, the upper-upper class was families viewed as "quasi-aristocratic" and "high-society".[3] These had been rich for generations. They lived off idle inheritances rather than earned wealth.

During the early 20th century, the upper-upper class were seen as more prestigious.[3]

"Old money" contrasts with the nouveau riche and parvenus. These fall under the category "new money" (those not from traditionally wealthy families). Some families with "old money" include:

The Roosevelt family of Manhattan arrived from the Netherlands as colonists and later became prominent in politics, producing presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.

The Cabots arrived in Salem from the Isle of Jersey in 1700 and made fortunes in shipping. At the age of 21, Godfrey Lowell Cabot (see Lowells below) founded the Cabot Corporation, the largest producer of carbon black in the country.

The Lowell family are descended from Boston colonists. Francis Cabot Lowell began the fortune in shipping and later textiles. The family has produced several noteworthy individuals, including Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who presided over Harvard for 24 years.

The Du Pont family fortune began in 1803, but they became an extraordinarily wealthy family by selling gunpowder during the American Civil War. By World War I, the DuPont family produced virtually all American gunpowder. In 1968, Ferdinand Lundberg declared the Du Pont fortune to be America's largest family fortune.[4] As of 2008 E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company ranked 81st on the Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations.[5]

The Forbes family of Boston made their fortune in the shipping and later railroad industries as well as other investments. They have been a prominent wealthy family in the United States for 200 years.

The Astor family made their fortune in the 18th century, through real estate, the hotel industry and other investments.

The Griswold Family of Connecticut made their fortune in shipping, banking, railroads, and industry. They have been prominent in American politics, producing five governors and numerous senators and congressmen.

Although many "old money" individuals do not rank as high on the list of Forbes 400 richest Americans as they once did, their wealth continues to grow. Many families increased their holdings by investment strategies such as the pooling of resources.[6]:115 For example, the Rockefeller family's estimated net worth of $1 billion in the 1930s grew to $8.5 billion by 2000. In 60 years, four of the richest families in the United States increased their combined $2–$4 billion in 1937 to $38 billion without holding large shares in emerging industries.[6]:115[7]:2

Europe[edit]

The Rothschild family, as an example, established finance houses across Europe from the 18th century and was ennobled by the Habsburg Emperor and Queen Victoria. Throughout the 19th century, they controlled the largest fortune in the world, in today's terms many hundreds of billions, if not in trillions (US$). The family has, at least to some extent, maintained its wealth for over two centuries. The Rothschilds were not, however, considered "old money" by their British counterparts. In Britain, the term generally exclusively refers to the landed gentry, usually the aristocracy and nobility who traditionally live off the land inherited paternally.[8]

Effects of World War II[edit]

Economists assert that the largest transfer of wealth will be as the older generation leaves wealth to the baby boomers. Inheritance has been estimated to make up 6% of the US GDP each year.[7]:16 The current generation is wealthier than any generation before. This increase in wealth and inheritance indicates a rise of "old money" in American families. Stephen Haseler argues that America is becoming an inheritance culture in which much economic opportunity is from family inheritance and not personal achievement.[7]:17

Influences on Popular Culture[edit]

The ITV television series Downton Abbey frequently contrasts the differences between Old Money and New Money. Notably between the Newspaperman Sir Richard Carlisle and the heiress Lady Mary Crawley, the distinction being the aggression of the parvenu Sir Richard and the Noblesse Oblige of the Crawleys.

Noblesse oblige is a French phrase literally meaning "Nobility obliges". It is the concept that nobility extends beyond mere entitlements and requires the person with such status to fulfill social responsibilities, particularly in leadership roles.
The Dictionnaire de l’Académie française defines it thus:--Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly.
(Figuratively) One must act in a fashion that conforms to one's position, and with the reputation that one has earned.
The Oxford English Dictionary meanwhile says that the term "suggests noble ancestry constrains to honorable behavior; privilege entails to responsibility."

Noblesse oblige" is generally used to imply that with wealth, power, and prestige come responsibilities.

In ethical discussion, it is sometimes used to summarize a moral economy wherein privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege or who cannot perform such duty. Finally, it has been used recently primarily to refer to public responsibilities of the rich, famous and powerful, notably to provide good examples of behaviour or to exceed minimal standards of decency. It has also been used to describe a person taking the blame for something in order to solve an issue or save someone else.

An early instance of this concept in literature may be found in Homer's Iliad. In Book XII, the Trojan prince Sarpedon delivers a famous speech in which he urges his comrade Glaucus to fight with him in the front ranks of battle. In Pope's translation, Sarpedon exhorts Glaucus thus: "’Tis ours, the dignity they give to grace / The first in valour, as the first in place; / That when with wondering eyes our confidential bands / Behold our deeds transcending our commands, / Such, they may cry, deserve the sovereign state, / Whom those that envy dare not imitate!"

In Le Lys dans la Vallée,[1] written in 1835 and published in 1836, Honoré de Balzac recommends certain standards of behaviour to a young man, concluding: "Everything I have just told you can be summarized by an old word: noblesse oblige!"[2]

Noblesse oblige, while seeming to impose on the nobility a duty to behave nobly, thereby apparently gives the aristocracy a justification for their privilege. Their argument is "as nobles, we have rights, but we have duties also; so such duties validate our rights". The jurists Dias and Hohfeld have pointed out that that rights and duties are jural correlatives, [3] which means that if someone has a right, someone else owes a duty to him. This reasoning of Dias' was used in Murphy v Brentwood DC to disapprove Lord Denning MR's judgment in Dutton v Bognor Regis UDC

Dutton v Bognor Regis Urban District Council [1972] 1 QB 373 is an English contract law and English tort law case concerning defective premises and the limits of contract damages. It was disapproved by the House of Lords in Murphy v Brentwood DC and is now bad law---Mrs Dutton sought to recover damages from a builder, Bognor Regis Building Co Ltd, and the local council, Bognor Regis Urban District Council, that certified her house was sound, when it emerged that her house's foundations were defective because it had been built on a rubbish tip. This would have been discoverable if proper checks were made. Mrs Dutton had bought the building from a Mr Clark, who in turn had bought the building from the builder, so that Mrs Dutton had no direct contract with either the builder or the council. She settled the claim with the builder for £625 after getting advice that an action in negligence could not succeed, but continued in an action against the council, and Cusack J awarded damages £2,115. The council appealed. This is a Denning judgment that is deeply flawed. Denning essentially argues that if an inspector has a statutory right to inspect the property under construction, he thereby acquires a duty of care to inspect carefully. That is to say: a person who has a right has duties attached to that right. But jurists Dias and Hohfeld have shown that rights and duties are jural correlatives.[2] That means that if someone has a right,someone else owes a duty to him. So here, the inspector has a right (to inspect), and the builder has a duty to let him inspect. The Murphy v Brentwood DC case at last revealed Denning's reasoning in Duttonto be nonsense, (not unlike like noblesse oblige).

The American gentry were members of the American upper classes, particularly early in the settlement of the United States.

Mount Vernon, Virginia, was theplantation home of George Washington.
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Monticello, in Virginia, was the estate of Thomas Jefferson.

The Colonial American use of gentry followed the British usage (i.e., landed gentry); before the independence of the United States. The Southernplantation was commonly evidenced in land holdings by estate owners in Virginia and South Carolina. North of Maryland, there were few large compatible rural estates, except in the Dutch domains in the Hudson Valley of New York.

The families of Virginia (see First Families of Virginia, Colonial families of Maryland) formed the Virginia gentry class, such as General Robert E. Lee's paternal ancestors, who were among the earliest settlers in Virginia. Lee's family was considered among the oldest of the Virginia gentry class.

Thomas Jefferson, the patron of American agrarianism, wrote in his Notes on Virginia (1785), "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if He ever had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue."

George Washington was a hard-working commercial farmer much interested in innovations. He happily quit his public duties in 1783 and again in 1797 to manage his plantation at Mount Vernon. Washington lived an upper-class lifestyle — fox hunting was a favorite leisure activity enjoyed by gentry, worldwide. Like most planters in Virginia, Washington imported luxury items and other fine wares from England. He paid for them by exporting his tobacco crop. Extravagant spending and the unpredictability of the tobacco market meant that many Virginia planters financial resources were unstable; likewise with Thomas Jefferson.

Wood notes that "Few members of the American gentry were able to live idly off the rents of tenants as the English landed aristocracy did."[1] Some landowners, especially in the Dutch areas of upstate New York, leased out their lands to tenants, but generally —"Plain Folk of the Old South"— ordinary farmers owned their cultivated holdings.[2]

The first Families of Virginia and Maryland

George Mason IV
Gunston Hall was the home of the United States Founding Father George Mason IV.
Bishop John Carroll
Mount Clare, one of the Carroll family residences
Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee's Arlington estate

First Families of Virginia originated with colonists from England who primarily settled at Jamestown and along the James River and other navigable waters in the Colony of Virginia during the 17th century. As there was a propensity to marry within their narrow social scope for many generations, many descendants bear surnames which became common in the growing colony.

Many of the original English colonists considered members of the First Families of Virginia migrated to the Colony of Virginia during the English Civil Warand English Interregnum period (1642–1660). Royalists left England on the accession to power of Oliver Cromwell and his Parliament. Because most of Virginia's leading families recognized Charles II as King following the execution of Charles I in 1649, Charles II is reputed to have called Virginia his "Old Dominion", a nickname that endures today. The affinity of many early aristocratic Virginia settlers for the Crown led to the term "distressed Cavaliers", often applied to the Virginia oligarchy. Many Cavaliers who served under King Charles I fled to Virginia. Thus, it came to be that FFVs often refer to Virginia as "Cavalier Country". These men were offered rewards of land, etc., by King Charles II, but they had settled Virginia and so remained in Virginia.

Most of such early settlers in Virginia were so-called "Second Sons". Primogeniture favored the first sons' inheriting lands and titles in England. Virginia evolved in a society of second or third sons of English aristocracy who inherited land grants or land in Virginia. They formed part of the southern elite in America.

Many of the great Virginia dynasties traced their roots to families like the Lees and the Fitzhughs, who traced lineage to England's county families and baronial legacies. But not all: even the most humble Virginia immigrants aspired to the English manorial trappings of their betters. Virginia history is not the sole province of English aristocrats. Such families as the Shackelfords, who gave their name to a Virginia hamlet, rose from modest beginnings in Hampshire to a place in the Virginia firmament based on hard work and smart marriages. Families such as the Mathews from the later Scotch-Irish immigration also formed political dynasties in Old Virginia. At the same time, other once-great families were decimated not only by the English Civil War, but also by the enormous power of the London merchants to whom they were in debt and who could move markets with the stroke of a pen.

The Colonial families of Maryland were the leading families in the Province of Maryland. Several also had interests in the Colony of Virginia, and the two are sometimes referred to as the Chesapeake Colonies. Many of the early settlers came from the West Midlands in England, although the Maryland families were composed of a variety of European nationalities, e.g., French, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and Swedish, in addition to English.

The Carroll family is an example of a prominent political family from Maryland, of Irish descent and origin in the ancient kingdom of Éile, commonly anglicized Ely, as a branch of the ruling O'Carroll family. Another is the Mason family of Virginia, who descended from the progenitor of the Mason family, George Mason I, a Cavalier member of the Parliament of England born in Worcestershire, England.

Charles I of England granted the province palatinate status under Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. The foundational charter created an aristocracy of lords of the manor for Maryland. Maryland was uniquely created as a colony for Catholic aristocracy and landed gentry, but Anglicanism eventually came to dominate, partly through influence from neighboring Virginia.

A parvenu is a person who is a relative newcomer to a socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb parvenir (to reach, to arrive, to manage to do something).he word parvenu typically describes a person who recently ascended the social ladder, especially a nouveau riche or "new money" individual. The famous Molly Brown, who survived the Titanic sinking in 1912, was portrayed as a "new money" individual in the "climbing social classes" musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown because of her impoverished Irish immigrant roots and lack of social pedigree.he word parvenu typically describes a person who recently ascended the social ladder, especially a nouveau riche or "new money" individual. The famous Molly Brown, who survived the Titanic sinking in 1912, was portrayed as a "new money" individual in the "climbing social classes" musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown because of her impoverished Irish immigrant roots and lack of social pedigree.

Established royal families of Europe regarded the Bonaparte family as parvenu royalty. Napoleon III tried to marry into Swedish and German royalty, but was unsuccessful because he was a parvenu. This was also said to be the case with the marriage of Egyptian Princess Fawzia to the future Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. One of the reasons speculated for their divorce is that Fawzia's family, includingKing Farouk I, viewed the Pahlavis as parvenus. Though the Muhammad Ali Dynasty of Egypt and Sudan, to which Fawzia belonged, had humble beginnings, it had solidified its status in Egypt and the Arab World since 1805. In contrast, the Pahlavis were a far more recent dynasty, owing their position entirely to the coup d'état of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's father, Reza Khan, in 1921.

Many parvenus in the United States worked their way up the social ladder, starting as poor immigrants. Originally immigrant workers, they would have found themselves able to take advantage of the growing opportunities in the U.S., moving on to become civil servants, "white collar" (business/office) workers and finally member of respectable society. Such an example might be John Jacob Astor, whose family once skinned rabbits for a living[1] and went on to build such icons of New York City as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel with his brother; his grandson moved to England, where he eventually became the first Viscount Astor.
In the novel The Great Gatsby, Gatsby represents the newly rich. He obtains his wealth through bootlegging, spends it lavishly, and struggles to gain the acceptance of older money.

The International Debutante Ball is an invitation-only formal debutante ball to officially present well-connected young ladies from upper-class families to high society. Founded in 1954, it occurs every two years at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City The scene at the International Debutante Ball has been described as a "Gatsby-style splendour in Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria" Debutantes of the International Debutante Ball have been dubbed as 'Blue Blooded Socialites', 'the crème de la crème of young women'

The Bullingdon Club is an exclusive but unofficial all-male students' dining club at Oxford University, noted for its wealthy members, grand banquets and boisterous rituals, such as the vandalising ('trashing') of restaurants and college rooms.

prominent American and international families including:

The Nixon family
The Eisenhower family
The Johnson family
The Astor family
The Rockefeller family
The Vanderbilt family
The Spencer-Churchill family [52]
The Bourbon-Parma family
The Habsburg-Lothringen family
The Von Bismarck family

Patricianship, the quality of belonging to a patriciate, began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a class of patrician families whose members were the only people allowed to exercise many political functions. In the rise of European towns in the 10th and 11th centuries, the patriciate, a limited group of families with a special constitutional position, in Henri Pirenne's view,[3] was the motive force. In 19th century central Europe, the term had become synonymous with the upperBourgeoisie[citation needed]. With the establishment of the medieval Italian city-states and the maritime republics, the patriciate was a formally defined class of governing elites found within metropolitan areas such as Venice, Florence, Genoa and Amalfi and also in many of the Free imperial cities of Germany such as Nuremberg, Ravensburg, Augsburg,Konstanz and Lindau, including the independent Swiss towns of Bern, Basel, and Zurich.
As in Ancient Rome, patrician status could generally only be inherited. However, membership in the patriciate could be passed on through the female line[citation needed]. For example, if the union was approved by her parents, the husband of patrician daughter was granted membership in the patrician society Zum Sünfzen of the Imperial Free City of Lindau as a matter of right, on the same terms as the younger son of a patrician male (i.e., upon payment of a nominal fee) even if the husband was otherwise deemed socially ineligible[citation needed]. Accession to a patriciate through this mechanism was referred to as "erweibern.

Grand Burgher [male] or Grand Burgheress [female] (from German: Großbürger [male], Großbürgerin [female]) is a specific conferred or inherited title of medievalGerman origin and legally defined preeminent status granting exclusive constitutional privileges and legal rights (German: Großbürgerrecht),[1] who were magnates and subordinate only to the Emperor, independent of feudalism and territorial nobility or lords paramoun

The Hanseaten (English: Hanseatics) is a collective term for the hierarchy group (so called First Families) consisting of elite individuals and families of prestigious rank who constituted the ruling class of the free imperial city of Hamburg, conjointly with the equal First Families of the free imperial cities Bremen and Lübeck. The members of these First Families were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership (German: Großbürgerschaft) of these cities, including the mayors(Bürgermeister), the senators (Senatoren) and the senior pastors (Hauptpastoren). Hanseaten refers specifically to the ruling families of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, but more broadly, this group is also referred to as patricians along with similar social groups elsewhere in continental Europe.

The Colonial American use of gentry followed the British usage (i.e., landed gentry); before the independence of the United States. The Southernplantation was commonly evidenced in land holdings by estate owners in Virginia and South Carolina. North of Maryland, there were few large compatible rural estates, except in the Dutch domains in the Hudson Valley of New York.The families of Virginia (see First Families of Virginia, Colonial families of Maryland) formed the Virginia gentry class, such as General Robert E. Lee's paternal ancestors, who were among the earliest settlers in Virginia. Lee's family was considered among the oldest of the Virginia gentry class.
Thomas Jefferson, the patron of American agrarianism, wrote in his Notes on Virginia (1785), "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if He ever had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue."
George Washington was a hard-working commercial farmer much interested in innovations. He happily quit his public duties in 1783 and again in 1797 to manage his plantation at Mount Vernon. Washington lived an upper-class lifestyle — fox hunting was a favorite leisure activity enjoyed by gentry, worldwide. Like most planters in Virginia, Washington imported luxury items and other fine wares from England. He paid for them by exporting his tobacco crop. Extravagant spending and the unpredictability of the tobacco market meant that many Virginia planters financial resources were unstable; likewise with Thomas Jefferson.

First Families of Virginia (FFV) were those families in Colonial Virginia who were European, socially prominent and wealthy, but not necessarily the earliest settlers.[1]They descended from English colonists who primarily settled at Jamestown, Williamsburg, and along the James River and other navigable waters in Virginia during the 17th century. These elite families generally married within their social class for many generations and, as a result, most surnames of First Families date to the colonial period.

Rentier capitalism is a Marxist term currently used to describe the belief in economic practices of parasitic monopolization of access to any (physical, financial, intellectual, etc.) kind of property, and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society

La Distinction (1979), by Pierre Bourdieu, is a sociological report about the state of French culture, based upon the author’s empirical research, from 1963 until 1968. In the US, the book was published as Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1984). In 1998 the International Sociological Associationvoted La Distinction as one of the ten most important books of sociology of the 20th century.n La Distinction (1979), the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu proposed that those with a high volume of cultural capital - non-financial social assets, such as education, which promote social mobility beyond economic means - are most likely to be able to determine what constitutes taste within societ[