Career
His father carefully oversaw his business training, starting him out at age 19 as a clerk in a New York banking house. After joining the executive of the Staten Island Railway, he was made its president in 1862 then three years later was appointed vice-president of the Hudson River railway.
In 1869, he was made vice-president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, becoming its president in 1877. He took over for his father as president of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, the Canada Southern Railway, and the Michigan Central Railroad at the time of the Commodore's death.
He actively expanded the family's railroad empire, and added millions to the gargantuan Vanderbilt family fortune. At his retirement in 1883, his elder sons assumed the head positions in the family railroad empire, and they inherited his massive fortune when he died. It was in his sons' time that the Vanderbilt family demanded social recognition, and obtained it with the efforts of his daughter-in-law Alva, from the older families of New York City high society, centered on the Astor family, whom the Vanderbilts had by then far outstripped in wealth. After Alva's social conquests, the Vanderbilts were recognized as one of the leading families of American high society in the Gilded Age.
He and his wife had eight children: four sons and four daughters.
Vanderbilt was an active philanthropist, giving extensively to a number of philanthropic causes including the YMCA, funding to help establish the Metropolitan Opera and an endowment for the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. In 1880, he provided the money for Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee to construct the Wesley Hall building for use as the Biblical Department and library and included 160 dormitory rooms for students and professors, lecture halls, as well as a cafeteria. The building was destroyed by fire in 1932 and his son Frederick made another donation to help cover the insurance shortfall and allow a new building to be constructed.
Vanderbilt was an avid art enthusiast; his collection included some of the most valuable works of the Old Masters, and over his lifetime Vanderbilt acquired more than 200 paintings, which he housed in his lavish and palatial Fifth Avenue mansion.
Despite his great wealth he never considered himself happy with it — shortly before his death he said: "The care of $200 million is too great a load for any back or brain to bear. It is enough to kill anyone. There is no pleasure in it."
Read more about this topic: William Henry Vanderbilt
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
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“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)