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The Women of
Rothschild: The
Untold Story of
the World’s Most
Famous Dynasty
by Natalie Livingstone
John Murray, 4 80 pages, £2 5In 1812, Mayer
Amschel Rothschild,
founding father of the
eponymous bank, signed a document that was
to shape the experiences, opportunities and
challenges that faced his female descendants
for the following two centuries. His will set
out that the bank belonged exclusively to his
sons. His daughters and sons-in-law, and their
heirs, were not “entitled to demand sight of
business transactions”. The future of the bank
lay solely in the hands of his male heirs.
As this gloriously illuminating and
deeply absorbing book shows, however, this
did not mean that the female Rothschilds
had no role in the development of the
business or the trajectory of the family.
Indeed, the Rothschild women found
loopholes that allowed them to play crucial
roles in steering the family’s political and
economic engagements.
Some women acted as business advisors
to their husbands, while others took up
“feminine” duties, including hosting parties
and dinners, with such skill that they created
opportunities to advance their causes. “Theirs
is not a story of outright conflict and conten-
tion,” Natalie Livingstone explains, “but of
delicate and sometimes difficult negotiations- between creativity and conformity, defiance
and compromise, between family responsibil-
ity and the fulfilment of personal potential.”
In so doing, generations of Rothschild women
claimed a front-row seat during a period of
political and social change in Britain.
Livingstone makes lively use of the Roth-
schild women’s letters and diaries to demon-
strate their business acuity (in 1831, Hannah
writes to her husband Nathan from Paris,
offering informed projections about the state
of the market), but that is far from the sole
focus of the book. Love, family and friendship - as well as broader political commitments
- are threaded throughout, as generations of
Leading ladies
SARAH CROOK enjoys an introduction to the women of the Rothschild family that reveals
how they overcame patriarchal ideas and anti-Semitic attitudes to help secure the family’s future
WOMENattitudes. Livingstone details the female family
members’ interest in Jewish emancipation –
and the toll taken by the failure of successive
bills that sought it – as well as the fight for
(male) family members to take their elected
seats as members of parliament.
The women’s remarkable talents, and the
sheer range of issues with which they were
involved – from emancipation to education,
from politics to jazz, from the flea to femi-
nism – has given Livingstone a wealth of
fascinating material to work with. She has
used it to write a warm and expansive book
that never loses sight of the delightfully
human people at the heart of her story. The
Rothschild women have finally been rightful-
ly placed at the centre of the dynasty.Sarah Crook is a lecturer at Swansea University
specialising in women’s historyRothschild women navigated the sometimes
onerous expectations imposed on them by
society, spouses and, sometimes, one another.
The Rothschild women demonstrated
a humour and lightness of touch that
transcends the ages. Charlotte (1819–84)
described her young, pampered niece as “gay
as a lark, plump as a partridge, and as ruddy
as a little red-breast”. Livingstone also offers
insights into the letters and diaries as projects
in themselves. Writing in 1858, the young
Constance (1843–1931) described how a
potential suitor “did the greatest absurdities
running after me and looking up under my
petticoats” – only to later cross out “up under
my petticoats” and insert “at my feet”.
Of course, Constance and the other Roth-
schild women were not just navigating the wa-
ters of the patriarchy; they were also a Jewish
family in a society replete with anti-SemiticThe Rothschild
women found loopholes
that let them play
crucial roles in steering
the family’s political
engagements
Enchanting bride
The marriage portrait of
Charlotte de Rothschild,- Sarah Crook praises the
Rothschild women’s “humour
and lightness of touch”,
which shines through in their
surviving diaries and letters
BRIDGEMAN