MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Season one of acclaimed historical drama Downton Abbey begins in 1912, but a key element of the show’s storyline, known to all dedicated viewers, had occurred decades earlier, off screen, when a wealthy young American heiress named Cora Levinson of Cincinnati met and married Robert Crawley, Viscount Downton, the future Earl of Grantham. As part of their marriage contract, Cora’s fortune would be tied to the Grantham family’s failing estate to prevent it from going bankrupt. In return, Cora would eventually earn the title of Countess of Grantham. While Downton Abbey’s Granthams are fictional, the idea of wealthy American heiresses marrying impoverished European nobility is not. So pervasive was the practice that a quarterly publication called ”The Titled American” even sprang up, listing American women who successfully married nobility as well as the names of eligible titled bachelors in a section titled “A carefully compiled List of Peers Who are Supposed to be eager to lay their coronets, and incidentally their hearts, at the feet of the all-conquering American Girl.” There were ultimately hundreds of these transatlantic marriages, some more well-known than others, many breathlessly reported by the initially adoring American media. The media, the American public, and even American politicians eventually soured on these marriages as they began to bemoan the flight of American dollars from our shores. This paper will discuss some of the so-called “dollar princesses” of the Gilded Age, with a particular focus on those from NJ: to include Lady Monson (nee Romaine Stone, daughter of General Roy Stone of Morristown NJ), Lady Roberts (nee Elizabeth Marie LaRoche, daughter of William Tell LaRoche of Harrington Park, NJ), and Princess Miguel of Braganza (nee Anita Stewart, born in Elberon, NJ). Who were these women? What motivated them? And how did their “loves lives” impact the US economy?