More than a statue: Cooper explores the Vanderbilt legacy

Published September 30, 2021 10:16 AM

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Media Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — After years of avoiding it personally, CNN’s Anderson Cooper explores in a book the complicated legacy of the Vanderbilt family — what he calls America’s version of “The Crown.” He’s the great-great-great grandson of 19th Century industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was the Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates of the day through his steamship and railroad businesses. He left behind a fortune, now dissipated. The death of Cooper’s mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, and birth of his own son caused the journalist to look back at what that fortune meant to generations of heirs. He wants his son to know what they were like as people — for better or worse.

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