[Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt at Home]

Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt gave her set of scrapbooks to the university after her husband’s death.This engraving from the collection shows Cornelius Vanderbilt resting at home with his wife’s nephew Harden. On the wall is a portrait of his wife, Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt, who annotated the image. Mrs. Vanderbilt’s notes show her attention to the domestic details of her husband’s life. Her scrapbooks reflect the ways nineteenth-century wives, mothers, and sisters maintained records of their male relatives’ accomplishments.