A Well-Behaved Woman is a work of historical fiction about the life of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, née Smith. Alva lived during the Gilded Age, or the period in the United States from the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s to the late 1890s. During this period, American society was undergoing rapid industrialization and its attendant social changes. Many “old money” families who had been in the United States from the time it was a British colony found their fortunes eroded by financial upheavals and the Civil War. Alva came from one such “old money” family in the American South. The Smiths owned cotton plantations that used enslaved labor, and like many old Southern families, they were left with relatively little after Emancipation and Reconstruction dismantled the economy, which was based on enslavement. Similarly, the European titled aristocracy watched their fortunes dwindle in the face of rapid industrialization and many wars and revolutions.

These old-money families found their status in society challenged by “new money” families that had made fortunes in the burgeoning industries of coal, steel, railroads, steamships, and related enterprises. Often, strategic alliances were made between these two sets of elites: Old and new money families intermarried to provide each other with, respectively, money and status. In this world of social jockeying, marriages were a crucial means of ensuring the family dynasties’ futures.

However, these changes were not without tension. Old money families often resented having to share their status and position with nouveau riche upstarts. The question of societal belonging was not just one of friendship or community; access to elite communities was essential for business deals. This elite society was highly mobile and based in New York, Paris, and London. They often spent the summers (or “summered”) in Newport, Rhode Island, a seaside town where some of the most impressive Vanderbilt homes, such as the Renaissance-Revival-style mansion The Breakers, were built.

Today, the Vanderbilts are recognized as one of the wealthiest families in American history. Their name can be found on universities, museums, institutions, and grand estates, like the Biltmore in North Carolina. However, in the Gilded Age, they were viewed as a nouveau riche family who had earned their money via unsavory practices, and they were shut out from elite New York society. The patriarch of the family, Commodore Vanderbilt, was a “self-made” man who began life on a farm in Staten Island. He became one of the wealthiest men in American history through his shipping concerns, namely steamboats and railroads, and related industries. The New York elites considered him a “war profiteer” for the high prices he had charged the Union Army, particularly for steamboats, during the war, although modern historians like T.J. Stiles, author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (2009), have cast doubt on the veracity of these widely-believed claims. Vanderbilt was also, more credibly, accused of stock manipulation and financial fraud. The Commodore’s grandson William’s marriage to Alva Smith, from an old-money family, was intended to help the Vanderbilt family gain access to high society despite these issues.

Concomitant with these economic changes came broader societal changes as well. There was a growing demand for women’s rights, and a key demand from women’s rights activists was for the right to vote, known as suffrage. Some wealthy women, including Alva and her daughter Consuelo, were champions of this movement. In 1920, women got the right to vote after nearly 80 years of campaigning.