The Widows Who Quietly Took Control of Gilded Age Fortunes

Hey guys! We're now on Spotify 🎧 Join us here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2OSafPW... Fall asleep to the quiet story of six Gilded Age widows, and the one door the law left open to them. From 1893 to 1898, Jane Stanford lived on a court allowance of $10,000 a month, kept $350 of it, and paid Stanford's professors with the rest. In 1907, at nearly eighty, Olivia Sage gave $10 million to found the Russell Sage Foundation, as nearly 40,000 begging letters were counted at her door in 18 months. Bertha Palmer took an $8 million estate and roughly doubled it in Florida cattle and farmland. And at 9 o'clock on New Year's night 1903, Isabella Stewart Gardner rolled back a mirror to reveal a courtyard in bloom. So what did each of them do, once the pen was finally hers? Subscribe to the channel: @oldsocietynights In this video, we talk about how six widows took control of great American fortunes, including coverture and the widow as "feme sole," the mourning calendar of crape, jet and black-bordered paper, Phoebe Hearst and the Anaconda money, the Berkeley competition and the first woman regent, Jane Stanford's six dark years and the professors as "personal servants," the jewels carried to London in a suitcase, Memorial Church, Arabella Huntington's three birthplaces and her Velázquez, the 1913 marriage with separate fortunes, Bertha Palmer's castle with no doorknobs, the cattle dip vats of Meadowsweet Pastures and the eight compotes, Russell Sage's thrift and Olivia's long table of letters, the founding of the Russell Sage Foundation, Fenway Court's opening night, and the rooms on the fourth floor. 🔔 Subscribe so the next long night among the old American families finds you without any searching. 💬 Comment where you're listening from, and tell me which widow stayed with you, the one with the suitcase of jewels or the one who counted the compotes. 📢 Share this with someone who loves Gilded Age history and quiet stories of remarkable women, on Facebook, Reddit or in the family group chat. Listeners like you are the reason this channel keeps going. Chapters: 00:00 Opening 15:50 A schoolteacher from Missouri 37:45 The children of California 58:20 The woman who kept her own story 1:18:55 A castle with no doorknobs 1:40:13 The governess and Old Straddle 2:01:58 The Queen of the Back Bay 2:22:20 The ink dries, the doors stay open Sources: Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Of Husband and Wife (Yale Avalon Project) Avalon Project - Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First : Chapter the Fifteenth : Of Husband and Wife David Starr Jordan, Jane Lathrop Stanford (Popular Science Monthly, 1909) Popular Science Monthly/Volume 75/August 1909/Jane Lathrop Stanford - Wikisource, the free online library Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Our Founder Our Founder: Phoebe Apperson Hearst – Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology The Huntington, Arabella Yarrington Huntington https://emuseum.huntington.org/people... Art Institute of Chicago, Bertha Honoré Palmer and Potter Palmer https://publications.artic.edu/pissar... Russell Sage Foundation, Foundation History Foundation History | Russell Sage Foundation Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, A Grand Opening A Grand Opening | Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 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. #OldSocietyNights #GildedAge #GildedAgeWidows #OldMoney #HistoryForSleep #SleepStory #BedtimeHistory #IsabellaStewartGardner #JaneStanford #PhoebeHearst #BerthaPalmer #OliviaSage #ArabellaHuntington #RussellSageFoundation #StanfordUniversity #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #History #Documentary