The riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family as they rule Gilded-Age New York, from the New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Alva Smith, her southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America's great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Ignored by New York's old-money circles and determined to win respect, she designed and built...

An account of a bygone world of privilege, money, power, and self-indulgence set in monumental mansions and country estates. Vanderbilt: The very name is synonymous with the Gilded Age. The family patriarch, "the Commodore," built a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet less than fifty years after his death, no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Written by descendant Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children...

Scope and content: Oral history interview with Nashville businessman and civic leader James Stephen Turner, conducted 21 June 2006 by Andrea Blackman as part of The Turner Interviews series of the Nashville Public Library's Nashville Business Leaders Oral History Project. During the 1 hour and 51 second interview, Turner discusses such topics as his childhood and early education in Kentucky; the importance of community support for families and businesses;...

Abstract: Photographs, news clippings, letters, and a scrapbook documenting the personal, professional, and social lives of Elizabeth and Bill Weaver of Nashville, Tennessee. The dates of the materials are 1858-1996 with the bulk being from 1940-1975. Scope and content: Series I. Family (1858-1970, 1996) - contains photos, clippings and letters concerning the Weaver family and the Craig family of Nashville, Tennessee. This series comprises approximately...

Scope and content: The collection consists of audio interviews with Nashville business and civic leaders and local restaurateurs. The interviews detail projects conducted by business and civic leaders that positively impacted the Nashville community and the stories of Southerners that eat, serve and consume food and drink locally. Some interviews include an index and transcript. Many individual interviews in this collection have been cataloged separately,...

Scope and content: The 1910-1935 Oral History Project is comprised of 29 extant audio recordings conducted from 1980 to 1982 by two staff members of Historic Nashville, Inc. Focus of the interviews is upon lived experiences during the early decades of the twentieth century, particularly from the perspective of upper class and upper middle class, white, well-educated individuals. General topics include: childhood, courtship and marriage, social life,...