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In the 1800s when the USA was growing into the powerhouse it is today, a lot of families
were getting rich.
This was called the gilded age.
Some made a fortune from things like the gold rush, while others just had great ideas.
Thanks to a guy called Levi Strauss we got blue jeans, something he invented during the
Gold Rush for people who needed sturdier work pants.
He amassed great wealth thanks to his nifty invention.
Prior to this some of the wealthiest people were plantation owners, merchants, statesmen,
and then came the bankers, real estate moguls, and those working in the oil and railroad
industries.
In the 20th century others made fortunes, too, or should we say fickle fortunes.
Some families managed to retain their wealth, while others lost it all, or most of it.
Those are the people we’ll talk about today.
The Pulitzers We’ll start with a name we think many of
you will be familiar with.
The reason you might have heard the name is because there is an award called the Pulitzer
Prize.
This is given to people who have created something great, either in literature, journalism, music,
and more.
But do you know why we have this prize at all?
Well, that’s because a kind man called Joseph Pulitzer gave Columbia University a bunch
of money to start a journalism school in 1892.
This was the world’s first journalism school.
Joseph had amassed quite a fortune in the newspaper business and wanted a country full
of great reporters.
He got depressed, sick, and died, but in 1917 his name lived on when the first Pulitzer
prize as we know it today was awarded.
But that’s not why we are here today.
What we want to know is what happened to all his cash?
The answer is his grandson Peter Pulitzer invested a lot of that fortune in an 800-acre
citrus farm, but that didn’t go well because the trees got sick from something called citrus
canker.
This is a bacterial disease that destroys the trees.
We are told this would have ruined him, but the husband of his ex-wife bailed him out.
That saved the citrus operation, so while Joseph didn’t exactly lose it all, he would
have without a little help from friends.
The Strohs This family we doubt you’ve heard of, unless
you’re a big beer fan.
The story goes that a young Bernhard Stroh had learned how to make beer in his native
Germany, but during the German revolution he went to the USA with 150 bucks in his pocket
and a recipe to make a decent beer.
At age 28 in 1850 he started a brewery in Detroit and his son, Bernhard Stroh Jr., took
over after him.
Prohibition obviously wasn’t good for these beer makers, and they branched out into non-alcoholic
beer and ice cream.
When that ended the beer company just went from strength to strength and its said by
1978 the Stroh’s were pumping out 6.4 million US beer barrels to thirsty Americans.
According to Forbes magazine in the 1980s the Stroh’s were rolling in dough with a
fortune of $700 million.
Then came the decline.
Apparently the new generation got into serious debt after some shaky acquisitions.
Then came some other mighty brewing companies such as Miller and Coors and the Strohs got
left behind.
In 1999 after brewing beer for 149 years the company was done and was taken over by other
brewers.
That 700 million fortune was gone.
The then company president, John Stroh III said in a statement, “Emotionally, it was
an extremely difficult one to make, knowing that it would impact our loyal employees,
and recognizing that it would mean the end of our family's centuries old brewing tradition
that had become, in essence, an important part of our identity.”
The Hartfords So far we haven’t had anyone who lost their
fortune from living what you might call a playboy lifestyle, but with the Hartfords
we do.
Before we get to the big spending kid of the family, we’ll tell you how these people
got their money.
A man called George Huntington Hartford had taken over a business called The Great Atlantic
& Pacific Tea Company.
When he was head of that he branched out into grocery stores and supermarkets under the
name A and P. This became massive, a name as big as McDonald’s is today.
In fact, you might hear it being called the Walmart before there was a Walmart.
In the 60s it was the biggest retailer of any kind in the USA and in the 70s was at
least the biggest chain of grocery stores.
Everyone went to A and P. At its peak it had 15,709 stores in the USA and as you can imagine
it made the Hartford family very, very rich.
They were ranked as one of the wealthiest families in the USA for a while.
So, what could go possibly go wrong?
Well, it was basically competition from more modern stores starting in the 50s.
They tried to keep up, but kept failing.
Over the decades it closed 100s of its stores, got hurt badly by the Great Recession in the
2000s and finally filed for bankruptcy in 2015.
And like that, it was gone.
But there was still cash around, because we are talking about extreme wealth here.
Now we can talk about the playboy.
His name was Huntington Hartford and according to various reports he squandered his massive
inheritance.
He hung out with the stars, bought fast cars, big houses, lots of art works, and we are
told he lost it all.
That was the end of the Hartford fortune.
The Kluges This story begins with something called Metromedia,
which was a media behemoth.
It was taken over by German-American entrepreneur John Kluge in the 1950s and he expanded it
and made a lot of money.
In the 80s he sold it to 20th Century Fox film studio and at one point Forbes had him
as the richest man in America.
The billionaire later turned to philanthropy and did things like invest $60 million to
build the John W. Kluge Center.
In fact, he donated millions all over the place.
So again, what could possibly go wrong.
Well, it seems Mr. Kluge was never settled in his relationships and he got married four
times.
Now we don’t exactly know where all his cash went, but we do know that one person
who got quite a lot of it lost it all.
Her name Patricia Kluge, one of those wives.
After her divorce she got her hands on a 200-acre estate and $1 million per year in the divorce
settlement.
She bought a vineyard and tried to expand it, which got in her lots of debt.
There was then a real estate crash that ruined her and she declared bankruptcy.
As for her vineyard, it was bought by the man who is now President of the United States,
Donald Trump.
The Vanderbilts We will finish with one of the most well-known
of wealthy families in the USA.
Their story starts with a man called Cornelius Vanderbilt, the son of American-Dutch parents.
As a young boy he worked on his father’s ferry in New York Harbor.
He was only 11.
At age 16 he wanted to do his own ferry business and he borrowed a bit of cash to start his
own operation taking people between Staten Island and Manhattan.
You just couldn’t hold this boy back and he was well known for his entrepreneurship.
At 19 he married his first cousin and got busy at home as well as at work.
What we mean by that is he had 13 kids.
He eventually branched out into regional steamboat lines and ocean-going steamships and after
that built a railroad empire and all kinds of other business.
At the time of his death in 1877 he had amassed $100 million.
According to an inflation calculator today that would be two billion, three hundred eighty-two
million, three hundred nineteen thousand, six hundred thirty-five dollars.
Quite a bit of cash.
And you know what, he left 95 percent of that to one son called Billy because he believed
this son was capable of running his empire.
Billy did just that and more, doubling the family’s wealth in his lifetime.
But it seems this family just ran out of steam when it came to making cash, and over the
years the fortune dried up.
Some of the Vanderbilts over the years would do well, but none remained ultra-wealthy and
that’s why some people talk about the “Fall of the House of Vanderbilt.”
Is it really that good anyway to be born rich?
In a book about the family the author wrote that one of the grandsons of the great Cornelius
once said, “Inherited wealth is a real handicap to happiness.”
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Do you agree with that statement?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video Why Winning The Lottery Is The Worst Thing
That Can Happen To You.
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