From their 19th-century roots in the fur trade and New York City real estate to their dwindling influence today, go inside the rise and fall of the Astor family.
Lucius RossiA painting of the Astor family in their home in New York City.
The story of the Astor family is one of immense fortune, ambition, tragedy, and scandal. It all began with John Jacob Astor, an immigrant from modern-day Germany who arrived in the United States in the late 18th century and transformed himself into the wealthiest man in America.
Starting out as a modest instrument maker, Astor eventually made a fortune in the fur trade and New York City real estate, amassing wealth that would lay the groundwork for generations of Astors to become some of the richest and most prominent figures of the 19th and 20th centuries.
As the family’s fortune grew, so did their influence in New York’s high society. William Backhouse Astor, John Jacob Astor’s son, inherited the family empire and expanded its involvement in real estate. Later on, William Backhouse Astor’s son, William Backhouse Astor Jr., married a socialite named Caroline, who became known for her control over Gilded Age social circles.
However, the family’s wealth couldn’t always save them from tragedy. The most famous loss in the family was that of John Jacob Astor IV, the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, who died aboard the RMS Titanic in 1912. Tensions between family members throughout the decades also resulted in a number of high-profile scandals, from a faked death to a looted fortune.
Today, the Astor family’s influence is still felt in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Though they’re not as prosperous today as they were years ago, their story still captivates many in modern times.
John Jacob Astor Builds An Empire Of Wealth
Wikimedia CommonsA portrait of John Jacob Astor by Gilbert Stuart. Circa 1794.
The history of the Astor family begins with one man — John Jacob Astor. Astor was born on July 17, 1763 in modern-day Germany. As a teenager, Astor moved to England and worked on building musical instruments.
After the American Revolution, Astor emigrated to America and soon saw an opportunity in the fur trade. This industry has roots stretching back to the early days of Europeans settling in the Americas. Fashion trends led to high demands for beaver furs, making the trade quite lucrative and extensive, including traders of both European and Native American origins.
“He saw the huge markups that beaver fur could get — you know, 600 percent, 700 percent, 800 percent markups,” said broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper, who wrote Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune with historian Katherine Howe. “And John Jacob Astor went out into the wilderness and started trading with Indigenous populations.”
In the 1780s, Astor began purchasing hides from Native Americans and selling them to eager buyers in London and elsewhere. Eventually, he was able to purchase a small fur shop in New York City. He saw great success, especially as trade relations increased between the U.S., Britain, and Canada.
Eventually, he became focused on New York City real estate, purchasing about 70 acres worth of real estate in Manhattan. He also diversified his business ventures, even exploring the opium trade in China and elsewhere at one point, likely helping to fuel a 19th-century opioid crisis.
Believed to be America’s first multimillionaire, Astor eventually accumulated an estimated net worth of about $20 million. With more money than he could ever spend in a lifetime, he focused his attention on purchasing more and more real estate in New York. He would later express regret on his deathbed that he hadn’t bought more real estate in his lifetime.
In 1848, Astor died at age 84, the richest man in the United States at the time. The bulk of his fortune passed on to his second son, William Backhouse Astor (as his first son was believed to be mentally unstable).
Public DomainA portrait of William Backhouse Astor.
As the inheritor of a great fortune and family name, William Backhouse Astor worked hard to advance his family’s social and economic standing.
Under his father’s guidance, Astor had picked up the ins and outs of the business. Upon his father’s death, William Backhouse Astor followed in his footsteps and invested heavily in New York real estate. He ultimately built over 700 stores and dwellings. However, his practices weren’t always ethical.
“The Astors were slumlords, there’s no doubt about it,” Anderson Cooper said in an interview with CBS News. “They would rent out the land to a sub-landlord. And that sub-landlord’s business was to build whatever building they wanted on that land. But within 20 years or so, the lease would be up and anything built on that land would revert to the Astor family. So, there was no incentive for any sub-landlord to keep up a building.”
In 1875, William Backhouse Astor died at 83, leaving behind seven children.
Becoming An Influential American Family During The Gilded Age
One of the most prominent members of the Astor family following William Backhouse Astor was his son John Jacob Astor III. Born in 1822, Astor went on to attend both Columbia College and Harvard Law School.
During the American Civil War, John Jacob Astor III served as a volunteer aide-de-camp to the Union’s Major Gen. George B. McClellan — a service that Astor would speak proudly of for the rest of his life.
John Jacob Astor III also took a more active interest in philanthropy than his father and grandfather. He made a number of donations to institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He only had one son and heir, William Waldorf Astor, with his wife Charlotte Augusta Gibbes.
Another prominent child of William Backhouse Astor was William Backhouse Astor Jr., who wed New York socialite Caroline Webster Schermerhorn. The couple married in 1853. Eventually, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor became known as the Mrs. Astor. She was in charge of Gilded Age New York’s “Four Hundred,” a list of prominent and influential figures in the city.
Wikimedia CommonsA portrait of Caroline Astor, a prominent socialite in Gilded Age New York City.
As the leader of New York’s social scene, Mrs. Astor had the final word regarding what was in and out. She set standards for fashion, decor, food, and art. She even divided high society into two sections, old money families called “nobs” and new money families called “swells.”
The Astor Family Divides Across The Atlantic
Archive PL/Alamy Stock PhotoWilliam Waldorf Astor, a member of the Astor family who moved to Britain.
When John Jacob Astor III’s son, William Waldorf Astor, became a young adult, he attended Columbia Law School and briefly practiced law while helping his father manage the family’s estate.
William Waldorf Astor initially had political ambitions, and he spent some time in the New York state legislature and as the U.S. minister to Italy. But after two unsuccessful runs for U.S. Congress, he tired of life as a politician, especially the public scrutiny that came along with it.
After his father’s death in 1890, Astor inherited the family business and suddenly became the second richest man in the United States, opening him up to even more public scrutiny. Meanwhile, William Waldorf Astor had also become embroiled in a feud with Caroline Astor, the Mrs. Astor, because he felt that his wife, Mary, was more deserving of that title.
Astor desperately wanted to detach himself and his family from the politics and drama of the Astor family in the United States, so he decided to move them to England. Soon after that, in a bizarre incident in 1892, William Waldorf Astor tried to fake his own death by instructing his staff to tell American journalists that he had succumbed to pneumonia.
He did this to escape from public scrutiny and trick reporters whom he despised — and he purportedly also wanted to see how he’d be memorialized. When his scheme was exposed, Astor was widely mocked.
Despite this, Astor was able to carve out a successful life for himself in England. While there, he purchased several newspapers and invested in real estate. Astor also made several generous donations to charities across England, and he eventually became the 1st Viscount Astor of Hever Castle.
In 1919, William Waldorf Astor died at the age of 71, ultimately handing down his estate to his son Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor.
The Tragic Story Of John Jacob Astor IV
Public DomainJohn Jacob Astor IV, the richest passenger on the RMS Titanic — who went down with the ship.
Back on the American side of the Astor family, John Jacob Astor IV was born to William Backhouse Astor Jr. and Caroline Astor in 1864.
As a young man, Astor attended Harvard and followed in his family members’ footsteps to become a real estate developer. He also built part of what would become the famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Public Domain John Jacob Astor IV oversaw the construction of the Astoria Hotel, which was later connected to his cousin William Waldorf Astor’s Waldorf Hotel — and became the Waldorf-Astoria.
Astor also boasted a military career, serving in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War. In his spare time, Astor dabbled in science fiction writing and inventing, patenting a bicycle brake and other devices.
However, Astor is best known for being the wealthiest passenger aboard the ill-fated RMS Titanic — and for going down with the ship. At the time he boarded the vessel, the 47-year-old was worth an estimated $87 million.
Astor boarded the ship with his pregnant wife, Madeleine Talmage Force, who was just 18 years old when they got married. The couple were first-class passengers, and when the ship struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912, Force was loaded into Lifeboat 4 while Astor stayed aboard.
Library of CongressJohn Jacob Astor IV and his much younger second wife. The couple’s age gap scandalized New York high society, especially since Astor had just recently divorced his former wife after 18 years of marriage.
Tragically, Astor would not survive the disaster, as he was refused entrance on a lifeboat until all the women around him had boarded. His body and his personal items were recovered 10 days after the disaster. Among his possessions was a gold pocket watch that sold for $1.46 million in 2024.
Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0A watch similar to the one that John Jacob Astor IV carried aboard the RMS Titanic.
Though Astor left some money for Force and his soon-to-be-born baby (who both survived), most of Astor’s estate passed on to his first son Vincent, from a previous marriage. Under Vincent Astor’s guidance, the Astors slowly moved away from their notorious reputation as slumlords. And philanthropy moved closer to the forefront of the Astor family’s business ventures.
Vincent Astor created a large housing complex in the Bronx and built a children’s playground in Harlem. He even bequeathed a house to a hospital. He also created the Vincent Astor Foundation for the purpose of “alleviating human misery” and supporting charitable and non-profit organizations.
Alongside his wife, Brooke Astor, Vincent Astor created the Vincent Astor Foundation that focused on giving back to New York City. Upon his death in 1959, he left his remaining fortune and foundation to his widow, Brooke.
Where Is The Astor Family Today?
As the head of the Astor family fortune, Brooke Astor respected her late husband’s wishes to use most of his money for charitable projects, much to the dismay of some of the other Astor family members.
“Brooke Astor focused on giving back to New York City. And she would dress up in her fur coats and her Chanel, and she would go to housing projects and homeless shelters, ’cause she wanted to see how the money she was giving would be spent. That was Brooke Astor,” Anderson Cooper explained.
Osborn Elliott, the former dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, explained Brooke Astor’s generosity during a lunch meeting with Columbia’s then-president, Michael Sovern, to New York Magazine:
“She said, ‘How much do you want?’ He was taken aback. She said, ‘We can’t give you the kind of money we give to the Bronx Zoo, or those places.’ ‘Well,’ Sovern said, ‘we could use a million dollars for scholarships.’ ‘Oh, we can do that!’ she replied. To this day, I think he’s sorry he didn’t ask for more.”
Brooke Astor lived to be 105, dying in 2007, and in the later years of her life, she suffered from dementia. Unfortunately, other Astor family members used this to their advantage, exploiting her condition to loot her fortune.
One such member was Anthony Marshall, Brooke Astor’s own son from a previous marriage. In 2009, Marshall was convicted of exploiting his mother to steal money from her $200 million fortune, spending the cash on yachts and other luxuries, and he was sentenced to one to three years in prison. However, appeals delayed Marshall from serving any time behind bars until 2013, and shortly thereafter, he was given medical parole.
Marshall’s widow inherited the remaining $14.5 million following his death in 2014. He purportedly cut his sons out of his will since they had played a role in sending him to prison, even though his actual time served was short.
The Astor family still exists across the United States and Europe. While they’re not quite as wealthy or powerful as they used to be — partly due to dispersement of the fortune and overspending by some family members — their name still carries prestige. Today, William Waldorf Astor III holds the title of 4th Viscount Astor in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, John Jacob “Johnny” Astor VIII holds the title of 3rd Baron Astor of Hever.
Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0William Waldorf Astor III, 4th Viscount Astor.
In the U.S., prominent Astors include Mary Jacqueline (Astor) Drexel, the granddaughter of John Jacob Astor IV, and her son Nicholas Astor Drexel.
Recently, the Astor family was depicted in the HBO show The Gilded Age, which explores a fictionalized account of New York’s social scene in the late 19th century. As one of the most prominent dynasties in American history, it’s little wonder why they continue to capture attention to this day.
After reading about the Astor family, dive into the story of the Five Families of the New York City Mafia. Then, read about Sarah Winchester, the heiress who built the Winchester Mystery House.
