Dollar princess

Dollar princesses (sometimes known as "dollar duchesses") were wealthy American women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who married into titled European families, exchanging wealth for prestige. They were often the daughters of nouveau riche industrialists whose families wanted to gain social standing. The term was also used occasionally in the Danish press for any woman of means marrying into a titled family.

According to a book called Titled Americans (1915), there were 454 marriages between Gilded Age and Progressive Era American women and European aristocrats. The Library of Congress claimed in a reference guide that "American heiresses married more than a third of the House of Lords". The Spectator claims that among the marriages were 102 "British aristocrats", including "six dukes".

Women called dollar princesses

• Katy Bird, of the extremely influential Muncie Birds, married Sir Thaddeus of York, 7th in line for the throne of Montenegro
• Jeanette "Jennie" Jerome, daughter of Leonard Jerome, married Lord Randolph Churchill, third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, in 1874. They were the parents of Sir Winston Churchill.
• Mary "Minnie" Stevens, daughter of hotel magnate Paran Stevens, married General Sir Arthur Paget, eldest son of Lord Alfred Paget and a grandson of the 1st Marquess of Anglesey, in 1878.
• Frances Ellen Work married Hon. James Roche (later 3rd Baron Fermoy), second son of the 1st Baron Fermoy, in 1880. They were the great-grandparents of Diana, Princess of Wales.
• Mary Leiter, daughter of Levi Leiter, married Hon. George Curzon (later 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston), eldest son of the 4th Baron Scarsdale, in 1895. Upon her husband's appointment as Viceroy of India in 1899, she became Vicereine of India, making her the highest-ranking American-born woman in the history of the British Empire.
• Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughter of William Kissam Vanderbilt, married Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895.
• Nancy Langhorne, daughter of Chiswell Langhorne, married Waldorf Astor (later 2nd Viscount Astor), eldest son of William Waldorf Astor and a great-great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, in 1897.
• Mary Goelet, daughter of Ogden Goelet, married Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe in 1903.
• Eli Marie Thaulow, who became the Norwegian-Danish silent film actor Else Frölich. She married Danish opera singer Louis de la Cruz Frölich on June 9, 1903. The Danish press called her a "dollarprinsesse," which was inaccurate because she came from a highly accomplished and noted Norwegian family and had no need to marry up.
• Alberta Sturges, daughter of William Sturges, married George Montagu (later 9th Earl of Sandwich), only son of Rear-Admiral Hon. Victor Montagu and a grandson of the 7th Earl of Sandwich, in 1905.
• Margaretta Drexel, daughter of Anthony Joseph Drexel, married Guy Finch-Hatton, Viscount Maidstone (later 14th Earl of Winchilsea and 9th Earl of Nottingham), eldest son of the 13th Earl of Winchilsea, in 1910.
• In the early 1920s, Princess Anastasia of Greece and Denmark, a wealthy widow born Nonnie May Stewart in Zanesville, Ohio, who had married the brother of the King of the Hellenes, was described as battling the American dollar princess stereotype.
• A 1928 news report suggested that an unnamed American dollar princess might be last in the running to wed Boris III of Bulgaria.
• Consuelo Yznaga became Viscountess Mandeville, and was the inspiration for Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers. She became the Duchess of Manchester when her husband succeeded to the dukedom in March 1890

In fiction

The phrase seems to appear frequently as a trope of fiction, such as in Georgina Norway's Tregarthen (1896):

With Coventry so expensive a man, and Algernon's debts always coming to be paid off, and the girls unmarried, I can assure you that we are awfully poor ourselves. I may tell you, in confidence, strict confidence, that I often dare not send Madame Elise's bills to the earl! But you must must try, my dear. We must look out for an American dollar princess for you. They expect a title, certainly, in general, but we must hope.

A 1920 book review described a new novel as "plot simplicity itself, being concerned essentially with the struggle of two wealthy girls, a vulgar American 'Dollar Princess' and a charming Lancashire lass, for the love of a young farmer baronet who cleaves, like his forefathers, to the old religion."

The Buccaneers, a 1938 novel by Edith Wharton, is set in this milieu.

Cora Crawley (née Levinson), the Countess of Julian Fellowes' Downton Abbey, is written as a wealthy American heiress who married the Earl of Grantham, and whose dowry helped save Downton from financial ruin.

A 2023 Library Journal review of a title in the "Gilded Age Heiresses" romance-novel series describes a plot scenario wherein "American 'Dollar Princess' Camille, now the Dowager Duchess of Hereford after her horrible husband's death, decides to ask Jacob Thorne, co-owner of an infamous club and the illegitimate son of an earl, for help discovering if she can find pleasure with a man."

See also

• List of American heiresses
• Nouveau riche
• Regency romance – Subgenre of romance novels
• British peerage

Further reading

• De Courcy, Anne (2017). The husband hunters : American heiresses who married into the British aristocracy. New York, N.Y. ISBN 978-1-250-16459-9. OCLC 1001329527.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Montgomery, Maureen E. (1989). "Gilded prostitution" : status, money, and transatlantic marriages, 1870–1914. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-00626-0. OCLC 18351804.