Madeleine Astor Could Keep the Income—or Marry Again

Hey guys! We're now on Spotify 🎧 Join us here: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Cvs0yj... Nine days after marrying 18-year-old Madeleine Force in September 1911, Colonel John Jacob Astor IV signed a will that gave her the income of a $5,000,000 trust and the use of his Fifth Avenue mansion, but only for as long as she remained his widow. Seven months later he went down with the Titanic. In June 1916 the New York inheritance tax appraiser put a price on her remarrying: $3,571,036, from the trust income, the house and its furnishings. Four days later she married her childhood friend William K. Dick at a small chapel in Bar Harbor. It was the first of two choices that would cost her more than any appraiser could count. Subscribe to the channel: @velvetsociety-s7l In this video, we talk about what happened to Madeleine Astor after the Titanic, including the remarriage clause in her husband's will, the judge who questioned it, the Titanic baby and his $3,000,000 trust, four years of strict retirement at 840 Fifth Avenue, the sugar heir on her guest lists, the side-door wedding at St. Saviour's, the prenuptial rents on West 34th Street that the clause could never touch, the demolition of the Astor mansion, the Reno divorce, a fall in Bermuda, a hospital-room wedding to the boxer Enzo Fiermonte, a bigamy warning in Italy, the cruelty divorce of 1938, and the plantation house that burned the day she arrived. 🔔 Subscribe for more of the Gilded Age women who read the fine print and chose anyway. 💬 Comment where you're watching from, and tell me whether Madeleine was right to give up the Astor income to marry again. 📢 Share this on Facebook, Reddit or in the family group chat with whoever loves a good will story. You're the reason this channel keeps going. Chapters: 00:00 Opening 08:22 Home From the Sea to Fifth Avenue 21:11 A Baby Born Into Three Million 33:51 A Palace She Could Never Sell 48:16 Twenty Thousand Dollars for a Toddler 1:01:42 The Boy From the Sugar Fortune 1:08:34 The Price of Marrying Again 1:23:55 Who Moved Into Eight Forty Fifth 1:37:50 Two Sons and a Quiet Marriage 1:52:39 A Wedding in a Hospital Room 2:06:45 What the Divorce Papers Said 2:19:15 Fifteen Hundred Mourners and One Clause Sources: Mrs. John J. Astor to Marry W. K. Dick, New York Times, June 18, 1916 (Encyclopedia Titanica) https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org... Mrs. J. J. Astor Is Wed to Wm. K. Dick, New York Times, June 23, 1916 (Encyclopedia Titanica) https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org... The Lost John Jacob Astor Mansion, 840 Fifth Avenue (Daytonian in Manhattan) http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com... Astor Will Contest Not Contemplated, New York Times, August 18, 1912 (Encyclopedia Titanica) https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org... Astor Sale Likely to Help Mrs. Dick, New York Times, August 1, 1922 (Encyclopedia Titanica) https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org... Madeleine Talmage Astor (Encyclopedia Titanica) https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org... John Henry Dick collection (College of Charleston Libraries) https://findingaids.library.cofc.edu/... DISCLAIMER: This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from the sources listed above alongside primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional. #VelvetSociety #MadeleineAstor #JohnJacobAstor #Astor #AstorFamily #Titanic #TitanicSurvivor #TitanicWidow #VincentAstor #JohnJacobAstorVI #EnzoFiermonte #WilliamKDick #BarHarbor #FifthAvenue #PalmBeach #NewYorkSociety #GildedAge #Heiress #Socialite #OldMoney #1910s #1930s #History #Documentary