Consuelo & Alva: Love, Power And Suffrage In The Gilded Age

When Consuelo Vanderbilt's grandfather died, he was the richest man in America. But Consuelo's mother, a force of nature called Alva Erskine Smith, was determined to reach the top of New York society and set her sights on marriage between her daughter and a cold-hearted English aristocrat. It didn't matter that Consuelo loved someone else - as Alva once told her daughter: "I don't ask you to think, I do the thinking, you do as you are told."

This is the remarkable story of how Consuelo sought to escaper her unhappy marriage by throwing herself into the social and political issues of the day - an involvement which became a passion that transformed her from a glittering socialite into a prominent suffragette.