Between the 1870s and the outbreak of WWI in 1914, hundreds of wealthy American women visited England and Europe to marry aristocrats. The earliest American heiresses married impoverished aristocrats because they were snubbed by American high society, but the later heiresses wanted titles and to mingle with European royalty. Cora was born to Isidore Levinson, a dry goods multi-millionaire from Cincinnati. She arrived in England, with her mother, in 1888, at the age of 20, and was engaged to Robert, then Viscount (pronounced vie-count) Downton by the end of her first season. It is not that remarkable that she is American. Britain still welcomes the odd American to its shores.
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Between the 1870s and the outbreak of WWI in 1914, hundreds of wealthy American women visited England and Europe to marry aristocrats. The earliest American heiresses married impoverished aristocrats because they were snubbed by American high society, but the later heiresses wanted titles and to mingle with European royalty. Cora was born to Isidore Levinson, a dry goods multi-millionaire from Cincinnati. She arrived in England, with her mother, in 1888, at the age of 20, and was engaged to Robert, then Viscount (pronounced vie-count) Downton by the end of her first season. It is not that remarkable that she is American. Britain still welcomes the odd American to its shores.