Women of Privilege: 100 Years of Love & Loss in a Family of the Hudson River Valley

Carolyn Heilbrun, in Writing a Woman’s Life, states that books about the real lives of women aren’t written often enough. Women of Privilege is an attempt to fill that gap. The book describes three generations of women at Grasmere—a country estate in Rhinebeck, New York—who suffered because of the patriarchal attitudes of the men in their lives. On the surface, everything seemed enviable; but below the surface was mental illness, alcoholism, and yearning for divorce, as well as questions about sexual identity.

Written by the great-great granddaughter of Sarah Minerva Schieffelin, the book is part biography, part memoir, and part social history. Based on journals and diaries that span more than a hundred years, Women of Privilege reveals how easy it is to create a family myth, when there is money to keep up appearances. Written with skill and grace, this is an insightful exploration of how the absence of human warmth can harm a child, and of how little inherited money matters in the end.