logo
episode-header-image
Jul 2025
35m 45s

‘Dollar princesses’ or influential heire...

English Heritage
About this episode
In the late 19th and early 20th century, glamorous, exciting and often very wealthy American women mingled with the British aristocracy and set the gossip pages alight with rumours of engagements. But alongside this fascination, anti-American sentiment and xenophobia saw them dismissed them as mere ‘dollar princesses’ trading cash for coronets.   This label ... Show More
Up next
Jul 30
More than a missionary: The radical social work of Kamal Chunchie
This week, join host Amy Matthews and Howard Spencer, English Heritage senior historian for blue plaques, Judith Garfield MBE, executive director of Eastside Community Heritage, and Sumita Mukherjee, historian at the University of Bristol, as they celebrate the unveiling of Londo ... Show More
46m 53s
Jul 23
Coastline Special 4: Where the sacred meets the sea
What it is about our cliffs, beaches, islands and headlands that makes them so perfect for pilgrimage, prayer and retreat? In the fourth of our special series on Britain’s coastline, join Amy and English Heritage curators Susan Harrison and Jeremy Ashbee for a spiritual seaside j ... Show More
37m 49s
Jul 15
From Mob Rules to the Modern Match: A History of Football
To celebrate the men's football World Cup this year, join host Amy Matthews as we dribble through the surprisingly long history of the beautiful game. Historian Will Wyeth and curator Peter Moore unpack a fascinating cabinet of curiosities, from a Victorian leather football disco ... Show More
48m 18s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2023
Dollar Princesses
In the late 1800s, American industrialists were raking in cash and living like princes, but they had no way, other than their mansions, servants and yachts, of making it clear that they were better than everyone else. Meanwhile, across the pond, the British aristocracy had come o ... Show More
30m 26s
Feb 2023
The Dollar Princesses
<p>For much of the history we're discussed on this podcast, marriages were the best way to advance one's social position. In the Gilded Age, a special subset of advantageous marriages emerged: in which wealthy American heiresses paid generous dowries to marry into the European no ... Show More
24m 18s
Jun 2024
Royals Romancing Actresses 1660s – 1950s
Royals were the worlds first celebrities. Their wealth and power made them stand out from the mud-caked peasantry. People wanted to know them, or at least know all about them. As actors and eventually actresses started treading the boards and becoming famous for their theatrical ... Show More
26m 58s
Sep 2024
British Brides for American Tobacco: A Tudor Trade
<p>In 1621 the Virginia Company of London put out a call for young, handsome and honestly educated women to become wives for the planters in its new colony in Jamestown. Hopeful husbands were supposed to pay for their English brides in best leaf tobacco. But who were the women wh ... Show More
34m 47s
Jan 2022
Women of the Rothschild dynasty
Historian Natalie Livingstone chronicles the unexplored lives of the women who shaped the famous Rothschild banking dynasty. She speaks to Elinor Evans about how – though often excluded in a patriarchal society – they forged their own paths, from influential hostesses to pioneeri ... Show More
37m 22s
Jul 2023
Dido Elizabeth Belle and Sarah Forbes Bonetta
While we couldn't confirm that Queen Charlotte was a woman of color, we can tell you about two women who were and who lived aristocratic lives in Georgian and Victorian England: Dido Elizabeth Belle and Sarah Forbes Bonetta. There is a Little Ears warning for the beginning of the ... Show More
1h 27m
Aug 2025
The Mitford Sisters
Rarely out of the papers during their lifetimes, and still figures of fascination in modern media, the six Mitford sisters have become notorious. From a shared, if eccentric childhood, the sisters grew into very different women. As adults, they inhabited diverse worlds, from the ... Show More
52m 34s
Aug 2022
ARCHETYPES. Don't believe the type.
Introducing Archetypes, a refreshing and dynamic new podcast where Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex dives into the labels that try to hold women back. During these intimate and candid conversations with guests from around the world we discover how these archetypes impact our everyda ... Show More
1m 31s
Mar 2024
Brushes & Thrones: Women Artists of the Tudor Court
<p>Today I am joined by art historian, Melanie V. Taylor to discuss two women who have been hidden in the shadows of history - Levina Teerlinc and Susannah Horenbout.</p> <p><a href="https://melanievtaylor.co.uk/2017/09/17/amy-robsart-1532-1560-possibly/">Amy Robsart portrai</a>t ... Show More
50m 40s
Jan 2023
The Portrait of Dido Belle
<p>Dido Elizabeth Belle is one of the most unusual women in the Georgian era: a woman who inherited wealth, who was raised as a lady by her powerful aunt and uncle, who also happened to be the daughter of an enslaved woman.</p> <p><a href="https://www.readingandwalkingwith.com/re ... Show More
38m 2s