Embers of Childhood: Growing Up a Whitney

By Flora Miller Biddle

Book Overview

A look into the world of the American aristocracy and privilege of early twentieth century.

Flora Miller Biddle grew up in the lap of luxury. The granddaughter of the Whitney museum founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her childhood played out in a sort of Wharton landscape as she was shielded from the woes of the world. But money itself is not the source of happiness. Recollections of the elegance of a Vanderbilt ball thrown by her great-grandparents and the yearly production of traveling from her childhood home on Long Island to their summer home in Aiken, South Carolina are measured against memoires of strict governesses with stricter rules in a regimented life separate from her parents, despite being in the same house. As Flora steps back in time to trace the origins of her family's fortune and where it stands today, she takes a discerning look at how wealth and excess shaped her life, for better and for worse.

In this wonderfully evocative memoir, Flora Miller Biddle examines, critiques, and pays homage to the people and places of her childhood that shaped her life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1948924005
• ISBN13: 9781948924009
• Release Date: June 2019
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.1"