Jehanne Wake

“Remarkably quickly after their arrival, Bess and Louisa were known to be fashionable unmarried girls with a fortune who must therefore want husbands.” (page 111).

If you’re a fan of Jane Austen or Edith Wharton, you’ll love this real-life story of four sisters who took England by storm in the early nineteenth century. Marianne, Bess, Louisa, and Emily were all wealthy American heiresses raised to be educated, politically and financially savvy, fashionable, and fiercely independent, and all of them wound up marrying English aristocrats (in some cases several in succession). Decades before the first of the “dollar princesses” arrived, Marianne became the first American marchioness and courtier when she became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Adelaide. Meanwhile, Louisa married the son of a duke (and eventually became Duchess of Leeds) and Bess married a baron.

This provided some interesting insight into early Anglo-American relations – while political relations began to thaw after the end of the War of 1812, social attitudes were significantly chillier and some of the sisters’ marriages were bitterly opposed by their English in-laws. However, both political and social attitudes changed for the worst after the Panic of 1837 and the subsequent defaulting of several states on their debt, which dramatically affected British banks as well as American banks. While not mentioned, the nearly contemporaneous Oregon boundary dispute probably didn’t help. While the sisters’ social positions and British titles protected them, this wasn’t true for most Americans in Britain. Things got so bad it looked like a third Anglo-American war might break out, and because of this climate, the US return of the fully restored HMS Resolute had an incredibly dramatic impact.

I also found it interesting that, while the rights of women at the time were restricted on both sides of the Atlantic, English women seemed to have even fewer rights to their own property than American women. The book includes an account of how some people in England were resentful that Marianne’s husband did not have access to her wealth, which had been previously ring-fenced as “her own absolute property” and then put into a trust. However, if Marianne had been English, all her property would have automatically become her husband’s and she would not have retained any control over it. In addition, most states in the United States had enacted Married Women’s Property Laws well before England. Connecticut’s 1809 statute enabling married women to write wills independently of their husbands was an early example, and by the 1850’s the majority of states had gone even further in equalizing the legal rights of married and unmarried women. But England did not enact its Married Women’s Property Law until 1882, and married women who wanted to exercise any control over their money and how they invested it had to take the legal precaution of listing their accounts in the name of either a single or widowed female friend. Hence Bess (who was the last of the sisters to marry) managed accounts that actually belonged to Marianne and Louisa. And when Bess did marry in her late forties, she put all her American assets in one trust and all her British in another and then specified that they were for her sole and separate use, which had the practical effect of allowing her to retain the same amount of control over it that she would have had if she had remained single.

I enjoyed the fact that the sisters’ story was primarily told through their letters, which allowed me to see their individual personalities better. The family tree at the beginning was extremely helpful, especially since the Carroll family had three branches, and they didn’t always harmoniously interact. I also appreciated how the amounts of money listed in British pounds were also translated into dollars, as it gave me some better perspective, although I’m still not sure whether the dollar amounts corresponded to the amounts then or now; a note at the beginning explaining the amounts and perhaps some rough conversion factors would have helped immensely. I also wish there had been a little more detail on Richard Caton – the sisters’ father. But overall, a good read.
… (lisätietoja)

“Remarkably quickly after their arrival, Bess and Louisa were known to be fashionable unmarried girls with a fortune who must therefore want husbands.” (page 111).

If you’re a fan of Jane Austen or Edith Wharton, you’ll love this real-life story of four sisters who took England by storm in the early nineteenth century. Marianne, Bess, Louisa, and Emily were all wealthy American heiresses raised to be educated, politically and financially savvy, fashionable, and fiercely independent, and all of them wound up marrying English aristocrats (in some cases several in succession). Decades before the first of the “dollar princesses” arrived, Marianne became the first American marchioness and courtier when she became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Adelaide. Meanwhile, Louisa married the son of a duke (and eventually became Duchess of Leeds) and Bess married a baron.

This provided some interesting insight into early Anglo-American relations – while political relations began to thaw after the end of the War of 1812, social attitudes were significantly chillier and some of the sisters’ marriages were bitterly opposed by their English in-laws. However, both political and social attitudes changed for the worst after the Panic of 1837 and the subsequent defaulting of several states on their debt, which dramatically affected British banks as well as American banks. While not mentioned, the nearly contemporaneous Oregon boundary dispute probably didn’t help. While the sisters’ social positions and British titles protected them, this wasn’t true for most Americans in Britain. Things got so bad it looked like a third Anglo-American war might break out, and because of this climate, the US return of the fully restored HMS Resolute had an incredibly dramatic impact.

I also found it interesting that, while the rights of women at the time were restricted on both sides of the Atlantic, English women seemed to have even fewer rights to their own property than American women. The book includes an account of how some people in England were resentful that Marianne’s husband did not have access to her wealth, which had been previously ring-fenced as “her own absolute property” and then put into a trust. However, if Marianne had been English, all her property would have automatically become her husband’s and she would not have retained any control over it. In addition, most states in the United States had enacted Married Women’s Property Laws well before England. Connecticut’s 1809 statute enabling married women to write wills independently of their husbands was an early example, and by the 1850’s the majority of states had gone even further in equalizing the legal rights of married and unmarried women. But England did not enact its Married Women’s Property Law until 1882, and married women who wanted to exercise any control over their money and how they invested it had to take the legal precaution of listing their accounts in the name of either a single or widowed female friend. Hence Bess (who was the last of the sisters to marry) managed accounts that actually belonged to Marianne and Louisa. And when Bess did marry in her late forties, she put all her American assets in one trust and all her British in another and then specified that they were for her sole and separate use, which had the practical effect of allowing her to retain the same amount of control over it that she would have had if she had remained single.

I enjoyed the fact that the sisters’ story was primarily told through their letters, which allowed me to see their individual personalities better. The family tree at the beginning was extremely helpful, especially since the Carroll family had three branches, and they didn’t always harmoniously interact. I also appreciated how the amounts of money listed in British pounds were also translated into dollars, as it gave me some better perspective, although I’m still not sure whether the dollar amounts corresponded to the amounts then or now; a note at the beginning explaining the amounts and perhaps some rough conversion factors would have helped immensely. I also wish there had been a little more detail on Richard Caton – the sisters’ father. But overall, a good read.
… (lisätietoja)