Hit period drama The Buccaneers, an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s unfinished final novel, follows five spirited American heiresses in pursuit of aristocratic English husbands in the tightly-corseted 1870s. When Wharton wrote her book, she was reporting on a social phenomenon she had observed firsthand. In her time, the daughters of rich American industrialists were barred from entering elite New York society, which centred on the Whartons, Joneses and Astors. The industrialists’ money simply hadn’t aged enough to admit their daughters into the highest caste.
But the daughters of the nouveau riche discovered they could spend a summer season in England and marry titled young men who didn’t care how new their fortunes were. These women were called ‘buccaneers’ or ‘husband hunters’, even ‘the alien horde’. According to the book The Husband by Anne de Courcy, between 1870 and 1914 “454 American girls married titled Europeans”.