At the dawn of the 20th century, few Americans were as wealthy, visible or widely discussed as John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV. Nicknamed “Jack Ass” by the press, Astor was far more than a society fixture: he was a businessman, real estate developer, investor, inventor, novelist and a lieutenant colonel who served during the Spanish-American War. He also belonged to the Astor dynasty, one of the richest families in U.S. history.
Astor’s place in history was sealed in April 1912, when he boarded the RMS Titanic for a transatlantic crossing. At the time, he ranked among the three wealthiest people in the world. Only industrial giants John D. Rockefeller, whose fortune was nearing the $1 billion mark, and Andrew Carnegie, who had sold his steel empire to J.P. Morgan for $480 million a decade earlier, were richer. Astor’s net worth was estimated at $85 million. Adjusted for basic inflation, that sum equals roughly $2.3 billion today. But inflation alone does not fully capture the scale of Gilded Age wealth. In 1912, Astor’s fortune amounted to more than 0.2% of the entire U.S. Gross Domestic Product. By that measure, a comparable share of today’s American economy would be worth an astonishing $60 billion.
On April 15, 1912, Astor was among the 1,517 people who died after the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic. Considered in modern terms, the loss of someone with that level of fame and fortune in such a disaster would be almost unimaginable.
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Early Life and Family Wealth
John Jacob Astor IV was born on July 13, 1864, the youngest of five children and the only son of William Backhouse Astor Jr., a businessman, collector and racehorse owner and breeder. His mother, Caroline Webster “Lina” Schermerhorn, was a prominent New York socialite.
The family fortune traced back to Astor’s great-grandfather, John Jacob Astor I, who earned his first major wealth in the fur trade, selling Canadian furs to affluent women in New York City. He later invested heavily in New York real estate, especially in what is now Manhattan.
When John Jacob Astor I died in 1848, he left behind an estate valued at $20 million—an extraordinary sum for the era. Adjusted to modern terms, that fortune has been estimated at the equivalent of $121 billion, making him one of the richest people in history and among the wealthiest Americans ever.
Born into immense privilege, John Jacob Astor IV was educated at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and later attended Harvard University. In 1891, he married socialite Ava Lowle Willing. The couple had two children: William Vincent, born in 1891, and Ava Alice, born in 1902.
Astor and Ava divorced in 1909. Divorce was a pretty big scandal in those days, and making that scandal worse was the fact that “Jack” planned to remarry almost right away to a much, much younger woman. When he was 47 years old, Jack married his second wife, 18-year-old socialite Madeleine Talmage Force. Madeleine was two years younger than Jack’s son, Vincent. The couple was married in the ballroom of his mother’s family’s home in Newport, Rhode Island.
Not A Lazy Trust Fund Baby
Jack Astor wasn’t just a middle-aged trust fund playboy who traveled the world with his teenage wife. He was a published author. In 1894, he published the science fiction novel “A Journey in Other Worlds” about life in the year 2000 on Saturn and Jupiter.
He was also an inventor who held a number of patents, including a bicycle brake, a “vibratory disintegrator” that was used to produce gas from peat moss, and a pneumatic road improver.
He even helped in the development of a turbine engine.
These side hobbies were impressive, but they didn’t enhance his fortune. Jack did that with real estate holdings. Like his great-grandfather before him, Jack Astor made millions in real estate.
In 1897, he built the Astoria Hotel, then the world’s most luxurious hotel, next to his cousin Willy’s Waldorf Hotel. The two properties eventually became known as the Waldorf-Astoria and were coincidentally the headquarters for American inquiries into the sinking of the Titanic.
A Fateful Voyage
The controversy over the divorce and the 29-year age difference between Jack and Madeleine drove the couple to embark on an extended honeymoon in Egypt and Europe to give the gossip back home time to calm down.
Among his few American friends at the time was Margaret Brown, who would later be known as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (famously portrayed by Kathy Bates in the 1996 “Titanic” movie).
Molly went to Egypt and France with the Astors and, coincidentally, was called back to the U.S. at the same time as the Astors decided to go home.
The scandal over Jack’s second marriage was still raging, but Madeleine was pregnant, and she wanted her baby to be born in the United States. So Brown and the Astors booked their passage on the luxurious new ocean liner, the RMS Titanic. The trip was supposed to take seven days because Titanic was supposed to be the fastest, most advanced boat ever produced.
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Molly and the Astors booked their trans-Atlantic trip on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic and boarded in Cherbourg, France. As the wealthiest passengers on the ship, they had first-class accommodations. Traveling with the Astors were Jack’s valet, Victor Robbins, Madeleine’s maid, Rosalie Bidois, her nurse, Caroline Endres, and the couple’s beloved dog, an Airedale named Kitty.
Iceberg
We all know what happened next. In the wee hours of April 15th, the Titanic struck an iceberg and began to sink.
Shortly after the Titanic hit the iceberg, Astor told his young wife that the damage was not serious. As the lifeboats for the first class were being manned and deployed, Astor remained unruffled. It is said that he and Madeleine were in the ship’s gym playing with the mechanical horses. Reportedly, Astor even used a pen knife to slice the lining of an extra life vest to show Madeleine the contents.
Eventually, the couple either made their way to the A Deck or were retrieved from the gym for evacuation. Madeleine, her maid, and her nurse were loaded into Lifeboat 4. Astor asked to accompany his pregnant wife, but, of course, no men were allowed to jump ship until all the women and children had been evacuated.
Below is a photo of Madeleine Astor’s actual life jacket:
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At 1:55 am, Lifeboat 4 was lowered into the Atlantic Ocean. John Jacob Astor IV was never able to escape. He was last seen by his wife and friends standing on the Starboard bridge wing, smoking a cigarette. Just 30 minutes later, the mighty Titanic disappeared beneath the surface of the ocean. Madeleine, her nurse, and her maid all survived. Jack Astor and his valet, Victor Robbins, did not.
Of the 1,517 passengers who died in the sinking of the Titanic, only 333 bodies were ever found. Jack Astor was among them. He was found on April 22nd and was identified thanks to the monogrammed initials on his jacket. A very expensive gold pocket watch was also found on his person. His son Vincent would go on to wear that watch for the rest of his life.
Four months after the Titanic sank, Madeleine Astor gave birth to Jack Astor’s second son, John Jacob “Jakey” Astor VI.
What Happened To A Massive Fortune?
To reiterate, at the time he died, Jack Astor was worth $85 million—or a GDP-relative $60 billion in today’s money. He was the wealthiest passenger on the ship and one of the richest men alive.
According to the terms of his will, $69 million (the modern equivalent of $1.9 billion) was left to his son from the previous marriage, Vincent. Vincent would grow his inheritance to over $200 million by the time of his death in February 1959. Vincent left his entire fortune, worth the equivalent of $2 billion, to the Vincent Astor Foundation and his third wife, famous socialite Brooke Astor.
His daughter Ava, also from that previous marriage, was left a $10 million trust fund (worth $270 million today).
His 19-year-old widow, Madeleine, was left the income generated from a $5 million trust fund (roughly $135 million today) PLUS an additional annual income of $500,000 (equal to $13.5 million per year today). She also got his New York City mansion at 65th and Fifth Avenue, his Newport mansion, all of the furnishings of both houses, a limousine, and five of his horses as long as she never remarried.
Interestingly, Madeleine Astor went on to get married two more times (and divorced twice) before dying in 1940 at the age of 46 at her mansion in Palm Beach.
Madeleine and Jack’s son Jakey, who was nicknamed “The Titanic Baby,” was left $3 million to be inherited when he turned 21. When Jakey turned 21 in 1933, the trust was worth $5 million (equal to $103 million in today’s dollars). When Vincent Astor died childless in 1959, Jakey felt cheated by not being made the inheritor of what had become an enormous fortune. He actually sued Vincent’s widow and ended up settling for $250,000.
Jakey would be remembered for being engaged many, many times and marrying four times. He died in 1992 at the age of 79.
