Lives in trust

The histories of great American dynastic fortunes, such as those of the Rockefellers, DuPonts, and Guggenheims, have been told repeatedly as family stories. They have been tales of the passions, jealousies, distinguished achievements, and eccentricities among generations of parents and children, brothers and sisters. The essays in this book, developed from the perspectives of contemporary anthropology and cultural studies, establish a different field of vision for understanding private concentrations of great wealth and their legacies in the late twentieth-century United States. Over time, a family becomes dynastic by growing into an organization with a massive store of wealth rather than kinship at its center. A dynasty then takes on a set of values and a mystique that depends on a diverse range of experts, institutions, mass media, and ordinary middle-class people to empower it. The mature dynasty is as much the sum of complex interests in the culture and production of wealth as it is the story of the prominent family at its origins. This volume examines the full range of interests in the perpetuation of a dynasty and provides a clearer picture of the long-term cultural legacies of such capitalist clans. Ultimately, Marcus and Hall address the question of what makes diversely involved and situated descendants adhere to their ancestral code of family authority, and their answers are fully informed by an understanding of the more complex organization of dynastic culture and wealth. A family story in itself cannot encompass the workings of a mature fortune, because the power and roles of descendants are so often subordinated to the institutional legacies and myths of celebrity that engulf them. The research for this book includes ethnographic studies of old family fortunes in Gulf Coast Texas as well as archival work and actual experience within high-culture philanthropic institutions created by dynastic fortunes. The Getty and Rockefeller legacies are given special, detailed attention in light of the broad cultural perspective of dynasties and old wealth that the authors establish.