Taylor Swift tells the story of “The Last Great American Dynasty” in her Folklore it tracks about one of the richest women in America, Rebekah West Harkness.
Billboard She found out more about 20th century socialite and how it compares to the Grammy-winning singer.
Harkness acquired an enormous amount of wealth after her second marriage to William Hale Harkness.
The St. Louis-born patron of the arts has far more titles to her name than “Middle Class Divorced,” which Swift calls her in the first verse. That was how she was viewed before she married William Hale Harkness, the heir to the Standard Oil fortune. With Standard Oil as the world’s largest oil refinery, as well as the world’s first and largest multinational company in the late 1800s and early 1900s, she became one of the richest women in the United States.
Swift bought her “Vacation Home” in 2013 for $ 17 million.
The Harkness couple bought a beachfront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which the two dubbed the “Vacation Home”. In 2013, Swift became the owner of the mansion after making the purchase of $ 17 million in cash, according to Forbes. She sings her big purchase on the bridge of the song, “Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / Free of mad women, their men and bad habits / And then I bought it.”
Before Swift’s “squad” captured all the media attention, Harkess made a name for herself with her “Bi — Pack” of friends.
Harkness formed the “Bi — Pack” with her group of friends because of how fun they were to subvert high-class events, her antics included tying bowls with mineral oil, bathing, biting someone’s green pet, and cleaning a pool with Champagne Dom Pérignon, according The New York Times (“She stole her dog and dyed it lime green” and “Filled the pool with champagne and swam with the big names,” Swift sings Harkness.)
Swift’s “squad” of star friends, comprised of Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, Cara Delevingne, Hailee Steinfield, Martha Hunt, Serayah, Mariska Hargitay and Lily Aldridge, came to attention when they hit the streets together. the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, and when he hosted them all for an infamous July 4th party at the Holiday House the following year. But some called it quite a public relations stunt.
Although Harkness claimed the sexist epithet, the 30-year-old pop star deviated her frequent label from haters and other artists in a letter that referred to her pack of famous friends in the Lover track “The Man”: “How does it feel to brag about earning dollars / And getting bikes and models? / … If I came out with my dollars / I would be a ‘bi —‘ not a ‘ballet player’.
Both suffered harsh criticism in the press.
Like Swift, Harkness was no stranger to headlines and was condemned as a controversial figure multiple times in the tabloids. Swift focused a lot on this facet of her celebrity life when she adopted a darker alter ego for her. Reputation album, a cathartic body of work where he scrutinized the media for ever publicly scrutinizing his life. the Folklore the singer-songwriter plays Harkness’s reckless and exposed recklessness in the chorus of “The Last Great American Dynasty”: “And they said / There goes the last great American dynasty / Who knows, if she never appeared, what could have been / There The most shameless woman this town has ever seen is going / She had a wonderful time ruining everything. “
Swift then changes the choir’s perspective to first person by showing how much the Harkness story resonates with her, singing: “Who knows, if it never appeared, what it might have been / There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen / I had a wonderful time ruining everything. “
Harkness founded the internationally renowned professional ballet company Harkness Ballet.
With her enormous wealth and passion for the arts, Harkness sponsored the Joffrey Ballet before launching her own international touring professional ballet company in 1964 called Harkness Ballet, according to the Harkness Foundation website. It housed it at the Harkness House for Ballet Arts, a training school in Manhattan, and renovated an old movie theater near Lincoln Center, later titled Harkness Theater to host annual Harkness Ballet seasons, as well as traveling dance companies throughout the world.
He also composed music for the ballet companies he sponsored, according to the local Connecticut newspaper. The day.
The $ 250,000 “chalice of life” that Harkness bought from his friend, Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, finally became his urn.
In Swift’s latest song, he teases Harkness for “losing at card game bets to Dalí,” the famous surrealist artist. Whether such a card game occurred between the two, there is a historic transaction he made: Harkness purchased his 1965 “Goblet of Life,” a container decorated with gold butterflies, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, for $ 250,000. , The day reported with The New York Times noting the price tag. The chalice finally became his urn when he died on June 17, 1982 at age 67 of cancer.
Watch the video for the lyrics to “The Last Great American Dynasty,” with the Holiday House, below.
