Drawing on “a treasure trove of family records”, this biography of the women of a prominent Hudson Valley, New York family is “riveting and moving.” (Miriam Cohen, Evalyn Clark Professor of History, Vassar College)

Carolyn Heilbrun, in Writing a Woman’s Life, said there are far too few books about the real lives of women. Women of Privilege helps to fill that gap.

Susan Gillotti provides us an insight into her ancestors’ heretofore secret lives, culled from their private diaries, letters and journals. Up to now, these intimate narratives have been the private thoughts of four generations of women who inhabited Grasmere, one of the great houses of The Hudson River Valley, where they lived among the Delanos, the Vanderbilts and the Roosevelts.

On the surface, their lives seemed ideal, but beneath that facade, there were mental illness, alcoholism, yearning for divorce and questions of sexual identity.

Written by Susan Gillotti, the great-great-granddaughter of Sarah Minerva Schieffelin, this fascinating and revealing book is part biography, part memoir and part social history. “A riveting read—one cannot stop until the final outcome of these powerful, but flawed, lives is revealed.” —Peter H. Brink, former senior vice president, Programs, National Trust for Historic Preservation

“Susan Gillotti weaves . . . the stories of her mother and grandmothers, bravely, sometimes desperately, trying to claim their independence from social straight jackets, and succeeding.” —Georgina Forbes, artist

© 2013 Chicago Review Press (Ebook): 9780897337274

Release date

Ebook: 1 March 2013