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The Eighteen Year Old Bride Who Gave Up the Astor Fortune After the Titanic: Madeleine Astor

Velvet Society

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At 18, Madeleine Force married the richest man in America, a 47-year-old divorced Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, and the country called it wicked. Ministers refused to perform the ceremony. Seven months later she was five months pregnant in Lifeboat No. 4 as the Titanic went down with her husband aboard. His will left her the income of a $5 million trust and a Fifth Avenue mansion on one condition: that she never remarry. At 23, she gave every dollar of it back.

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In this video, we talk about the whole life of Madeleine Talmage Force Astor, including her scandalous teenage marriage into the Astor fortune, the clergy who refused to marry a divorced man, the honeymoon on the Nile with Molly Brown, the sinking of the Titanic told from her own lifeboat, the birth of the posthumous "Titanic baby" John Jacob Astor VI, the widow's clause that priced her freedom, her decision to forfeit the entire Astor fortune for an ordinary marriage, the violent third marriage to boxer Enzo Fiermonte, and her lonely death in Palm Beach at 46.

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DISCLAIMER:
This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional.

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12 Comments

@jenniferflanagan9558 1 month ago

I love a good long story. The narrator‘s voice is beautiful, but the repeating of the same thing just in different words really gets old about halfway through and you can fast forward it and you won’t miss a thing because she’s gonna say it again and again, and again, feel like the store is not going anywhere. The point about women’s and ability to control money should be made. I understand that but it’s made so many times in this video that I had to fast forward.

@gretchengetsinger7938 2 weeks ago

Very interesting but reiterative. Says the same thing in many different ways, over and over to the point where I'm so bored I could scream.

@marieharris2674 3 weeks ago

Admiration is never cheap!

@TeddyandMeow 3 days ago

Shame on her first husband. She was so young and his young child needs a father even a stop father. He was a selfish man to write such a will.

@anngoodmandesigns 1 month ago

Yes, I would have kept it because of my son. He had a right to be raised in the Astor society. Burt, were private affairs off the table?? DC

@sarahhearn-vonfoerster7401 10 days ago

These artificial voice-overs could be much briefer...and should be. Constant repetition is boring.

@Jopan471 13 days ago

Too much repetition

@graciemuldoon 1 month ago

cincinnati ohio

@chrislowens6337 4 days ago

You repeat yourself way too much and made this much longer than it had to be

@merryarttoonesakamarysusan559 1 month ago

ai nonsense

@juderickman8275 1 month ago

Interminable

@edwardkarlson8192 2 weeks ago

Heavy woman slant as usual from a series about all the women that history got wrong, martyrs in an age oppressed by men that built it all and did not spread it equally for the women that married up to them. My, my, how wrong for it to not go all their way. We look back at the inequality of it all.