Glitter, Gold, and Glory: The Social, Economic, and Political Legacy of the Dollar Princesses in Gilded Age Anglo-America

In the late nineteenth century, America and Europe were experiencing drastically different financial situations. While the British aristocracy struggled to maintain their estates and lavish lifestyle due to the repeal of the Corn Laws and agricultural decline, America’s newly self-made men celebrated the expansion of the American frontier, dominating industries and amassing huge fortunes. As a result, the dollar princesses emerged—wealthy American heiresses who married European nobility, stereotypically “trading” money for an aristocratic title and prestige. Many of these transatlantic marriages, however, were actually a result of love or parental/societal force. Through an analysis of the reasons behind the dollar princess phenomenon, a couple of specific dollar princesses/their marriages, and the dollar princesses’ public actions, this thesis is significant to the History discipline because it demonstrates the importance of these women in history and explains how vital transatlantic marriages were to Anglo-American culture and politics at the turn of the twentieth century.