11. One Dollar Princess Became Vicereine of India
Parents can’t be faulted for wanting the best for their children. Who can blame a doting mother and father for seeing their precious baby girl as a princess, and then conspiring to help her really become one? Enter Mary Leiter, who was born in Chicago to Mary and Levi Leiter, the super-wealthy founder of the Field and Leiter business. She entered the society in Washington, DC and was privately tutored by a professor from Columbia University. Her education and extensive traveling at an early age primed her with the poise and grace that would endear her to Baron George Curzon, Viceroy of India.
Keep in mind that an American cannot be born into nobility unless their British parents have American citizenship. Mary, however, was able to marry into it. Her father’s wealth not only paid for an enormous dowry to George Curzon but may have also helped him climb through the ranks and become the viceroy (a viceroy essentially controls in proxy for the king; India was a colony of the British Empire and was ruled by the British crown). As his wife, Mary became the vicereine, the highest title that a woman could hold in the entire British Empire. Not bad for daddy’s little princess.