Women Of Means

Glimpse Behind the Façade of Rich and Famous Women If you liked The Last Castle and Lean In, you’ll love Women of Means. The Grass Isn't Greener on the Other Side. Heiresses have always been viewed with eyes of envy. They were the ones for whom the cornucopia had been upended, showering them with unimaginable wealth and opportunity. However, through intimate historical biographies, Women of Means shows us that oftentimes the weaving sisters saved their most heart-wrenching tapestries for the destinies of wealthy women. Happily Never After. From the author of Behind Every Great Man, we now have Women of Means, vignettes of the women who were slated from birth―or marriage―to great privilege, only to endure lives which were the stuff Russian tragic heroines are made of. They are the nonfictional Richard Corys―those not slated for happily ever after. Women of Means is bound to be a non-fiction best seller, full of the best biographies of all time. Some of the women whose silver spoons rusted include: • Almira Carnarvon, the real-life counterpart to Lady Cora of Downton Abbey • Liliane Bettencourt, whose chemist father created L’Oreal... and was a Nazi collaborator • Peggy Guggenheim, who had an insatiable appetite for modern art and men • Nica Rothschild, who traded her gilded life to become the Baroness of Bebop • Jocelyn Wildenstein, who became a cosmetology-enhanced cat-woman • Ruth Madoff, the dethroned queen of Manhattan • Patty Hearst, who trod the path from heiress... to terrorist

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 In the Victorian era, marrying socially ambitious heiresses was almost de rigueur for the titled and entitled rich but pound-poor English lords. Resourceful blue bloods offered an exchange of their pedigrees for the wealth of heiresses. #2 Almina’s marriage to Alfred was not sexual, and she was constantly obsessed with the color of her baby’s skin. She eventually had a son with Lord Carnarvon, who accepted Henry George as his son and heir. #3 Almina’s philanthropic efforts proved to be her finest hour during World War I. She transformed Highclere into a hospital and convalescence home, and played the role of Florence Nightingale. The Carnarvons undertook the financial end of the expedition, and when Carter discovered the tomb, he named it King Tut. #4 Almina’s life was a series of misadventures and financial disasters. She had never been concerned with money, and she thought it was in bad taste to ask for payment. She began an affair with her husband’s undertaker, and when she was 70, she took a 30-year-younger lover.

Born on a plantation in North Carolina, the young and beautiful Frances Emily Steele left home at age eighteen to seek her fortune across the sea. She pursued her life and loves from Edinburgh to Dublin to London. Adventures carried her from a life of privilege in Edinburgh, to the poverty of rural Ireland during the potato famine, and on to the halls of British power. Fanny dared to break free from the repression of Victorian womanhood to become a politically powerful figure who helped to topple a head of state during the Great Hunger. Her companions ranged from aristocrats to rural vigilantes; her enemies from Tories to common villains. Following in the footsteps of Mary Wollstonecroft, Madam de Staël, and George Sand, Fanny pursued her destiny of self-fulfillment and the furthering of women's rights.

A chronicle of five centuries of outstanding women who left their mark on the Ocean State. Rhode Island proudly claims a long list of remarkable women throughout history, from pioneering education reformers and suffragettes to trailblazing athletes and authors. In the mid-1800s, Sarah Helen Whitman became a prominent female poet and nearly married Edgar Allan Poe. In 1922, Isabelle Ahearn O’Neil became the first woman to hold office in the Rhode Island legislature. In the 1940s, Wilma Briggs became the first woman in the state to play on a local high school boys’ baseball team and went on to join the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Join authors Frank L. Grzyb and Russell J. DeSimone in this captivating and insightful account that spans five centuries of women who made history in the smallest state in the nation.

In this groundbreaking book, Monica Chojnacka argues that the women of early modern Venice occupied a more socially powerful space than traditionally believed. Rather than focusing exclusively on the women of noble or wealthy merchant families, Chojnacka explores the lives of women—unmarried, married, or widowed—who worked for a living and helped keep the city running through their labor, services, and products. Among Chojnacka's surprising findings is the degree to which these working women exercised control over their own lives. Many headed households and even owned their own homes; when necessary, they also took in and supported other women of their families. Some were self-employed, while others had jobs outside the home. They often moved freely about the city to conduct business, and they took legal action in the courts on their own behalf. On a daily basis, Venetian women worked, traveled, and contested obstacles in ways that made the city their own.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita made landfall less than four weeks apart in 2005. Months later, much of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast remained in tatters. As the region faded from national headlines, its residents faced a dire future. Emmanuel David chronicles how one activist group confronted the crisis. Founded by a few elite white women in New Orleans, Women of the Storm quickly formed a broad coalition that sought to represent Louisiana's diverse population. From its early lobbying of Congress through its response to the 2010 BP oil spill, David shows how members' actions were shaped by gender, race, class, and geography. Drawing on in-depth interviews, ethnographic observation, and archival research, David tells a compelling story of collective action and personal transformation that expands our understanding of the aftermath of an historic American catastrophe.