Frank Carlson Library

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage takes us behind the paneled doors of the Titanic’s elegant private suites to present compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers. 
The Titanic has often been called "An exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era,” but until now, her story has not been presented as such. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal...

Vanderbilt: the very name signifies wealth. The family patriarch, "the Commodore," built up a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet, less than fifty years after the Commodore's death, one of his direct descendants died penniless, and no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Fortune's Children tells the dramatic story of all the amazingly colorful spenders who dissipated such a vast inheritance.

Drawing on historical documents and interviews with the long-silent 'illegitimate' branch of the family, Mann paints a group portrait of this legendary family. He argues that the Roosevelts' rise to power and prestige was driven by a series of intense personal contests that at times devolved into blood sport. Eleanor Roosevelt experienced this brutality firsthand, witnessing her uncle Theodore cruelly destroy her father, Elliott-- Theodore's brother...