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NEW YORK, 1875.
Alva Smith, her Southern family destitute after the Civil War, marries into one of America's great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts.
Ignored by New York's old-money circles but determined to win their respect, she designs and builds mansions, hosts grand balls, and arranges for her daughter to marry a duke - and in the process changes New York society for ever.