The Rothschild family is well known and, of course, at the centre of many conspiracy theories. In The Women of Rothschild the author Natalie Livingstone concentrates on telling the story of the family by concentrating on the wives, sisters, daughters and mothers of the men who ran the banking business. The culture of the family was to exclude the women from the day to day business of the bank but this book ably illustrates the way that the women helped, and occasionally hindered, the money making.
The book starts with the beginnings of the family in the Frankfurt ghetto when the Jews were regularly the subject of pograms and other attacks. As the bank grew in influence and the family in wealth it moved into mainstream Europe and branched out into Britain. There was persecution under the Nazis and always a hesitation in including the family in high society because of their faith – schisms occurred within when family members chose to marry non-Jewish people.
In each generation the author concentrates on only a few women and she has obviously chosen these because they are different from each other and show the reader the various ways in which women served the family but also developed a life of their own outside of the bank. Once the bank was well established the Rothschild women were among the wealthiest in Europe. This book has one of the most complicated family trees I have ever been faced with which reflects the different family units which grew up across Europe.
Women in the family lobbied politically, especially in Britain, for rights for Jews who were excluded from many public rights such as entering university or standing for parliament – they were often betrayed by people they had trusted to bring in changes. They were close to royalty, especially Queen Victoria, as well as prominent figures of the time. They started charities, commissioned works of art and patronised creative people. In more recent times women from the family were involved in professional tennis, helped to break code at Bletchley Park and worked as a sculptor.
These were women who had privilege, wealth and opportunity but who were regularly disadvantaged by the times in which they lived and their racial heritage. Some of them were successful but others found it harder. They were, however, often at the forefront of society and culture and the book shows clearly how that also had a positive effect on the banking business. This was a very interesting book and I enjoyed learning about these women.
Anne Is Reading 