William Kissam Vanderbilt (December 12, 1849 – July 22, 1920) was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family and a horse breeder.
The second son of William Henry Vanderbilt, from whom he inherited $55 million, he was for a time active in the management of the family railroads, though not much after 1903. His sons, William Kissam Vanderbilt II (1878–1944) and Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (1884–1970), were the last to be active in the railr...
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William Kissam Vanderbilt (December 12, 1849 – July 22, 1920) was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family and a horse breeder.
The second son of William Henry Vanderbilt, from whom he inherited $55 million, he was for a time active in the management of the family railroads, though not much after 1903. His sons, William Kissam Vanderbilt II (1878–1944) and Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (1884–1970), were the last to be active in the railroads, the latter losing a proxy battle for the New York Central Railroad in the 1950s.
Vanderbilt's first wife was Alva Erskine Smith (1853–1933), whom he married on April 20, 1875. Born in 1853 to a slave-owning Alabama family, she was the mother of his children and was instrumental in forcing their daughter Consuelo (1877–1964) to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895. Not long after this, the Vanderbilts divorced and Alva married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont.
In 1903, Vanderbilt married Anne Harriman, daughter of banker Oliver Harriman....
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