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The Vanderbilt family is a significant international family with Dutch origins, who were highly...

The Vanderbilt family is a significant international family with Dutch origins, who were highly prominent during the 1800s due to the family patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt, the tenth wealthiest person in history, who created railroad and shipping empires. His descendants went on to build great Fifth Avenue mansions, Newport, Rhode Island summer cottages, the famous Biltmore House and various other exclusive homes. The family members were the leaders of the high society scene and the Gilded Age, until the early 1900s, when the ten great Fifth Avenue mansions were torn down and fellow Vanderbilt homes were sold as museums and the like. The family suffered from a major downfall in prominence by the mid-1900s, known as the Fall of the House of Vanderbilt. Despite the family's downfall and major loss of fortunes, the Vanderbilts remain the seventh wealthiest family in history. Branches of the family are found on the United States East Coast as well as in the United Kingdom. A current famous descendant in the family is journalist Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt and great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. The prominence of the family began with Cornelius Vanderbilt