In 1895, nine American girls, including a Vanderbilt (railroads), LaRoche (pharmaceuticals), Rogers (oil), and Whitney (New York trolleys), married peers of the British realm—among them a duke, an earl, three barons, and a knight. It was the peak year of a social phenomenon that began in the Gilded Age after the Civil War and handed down the legacy of Anglomania, preppies, and the world of the television series Downton Abbey. In all, more than one hundred American heiresses invaded Britannia and swapped dollars for titles. Filled with a wealth of historical personalities, grand houses, gossipy anecdotes, and a feature called comme il faut—the very finest points of etiquette that ruled Victorian and Edwardian society—To Marry an English Lord is their story.
