#492 How Mamie Fish Partied Her Way to Gilded Age Power

It was official.

The Prince del Drago was coming to Newport.

In the summer of 1902, it seemed like all of Rhode Island was buzzing with anticipation after hearing rumors that an exotic nobleman was headed to their fair city.

Could a prince really be on his way to visit them? Then again, it must be true.

After all, Mamie Fish, the supreme arbiter of society, had sent out party invitations to anyone who was anyone in Newport, corralling the toniest of the ton, the very highest of high society, together to welcome him.

For the wealthiest families in Newport, the prince's impending arrival signified more than just fun and festivities.

It was the dawn of a new century.

125 years after the country's founding, perhaps Americans were now finely sophisticated enough to be considered equal to Europeans.

Princes would mingle with their daughters, never mind that their American grandfathers had fought against princes and kings.

Let bygones be bygones.

Though some American families had amassed riches beyond riches at this point, there was still one thing money couldn't buy, a title.

And for that, these eligible American bachelorettes were paired up with European noblemen, who found that U.S. dollars went a long way in restoring their dilapidated estates.

The highest goal of many wealthy American families was to marry their daughters not merely into nobility, but into royalty.

And who could possibly be a better matrimonial target than an actual prince sent to be en route to Newport from Corsica? This was no dour English duke.

Ladies did not want to end up in a humorless, perpetually damp castle like Consuelo Vanderbilt, who had married the Duke of Marlborough and claimed that she spent her days staring longingly at a frigid lake on her estate where a butler had committed suicide.

This man might even have a castle in a sunny climate with a fun, suicide-free lake.

The possibilities! A word of caution, though.

According to Henry Harry Lair, a close friend of the hostess, the prince could be inclined to be wild.

Furthermore, he could not have too much to drink, because anything goes to his head, and then he is apt to behave rather badly.

However, amid this corseted, constrained, and utterly prim and polite society, that too might have seemed alluring.

And so, the lucky few invited to Mrs. Fish's dinner were positively aflutter.

They discussed their curtsies, unmarried women primped desperately, patting their faces with powder and pinching their subtly rouged cheeks.

They were ready to fall in love with whoever arrived.

They only hoped that he would love them back.

There was a palpable sense of excitement in the air, ladies already bobbing under curtsies, eyelashes fluttering down appealingly, as the wealthy Chicagoan, Joseph Leiter, walked into the room with the prince in hand.