Built to serve as the summer home of American socialite and businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the Breakers is a 70-room mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. The home was constructed in the 1890s at a cost of more than $12 million and is deemed the archetype of the Gilded Age, during which socially ambitious Americans sought to imitate the European aristocracy. Today, it is Rhode Island’s most visited attraction. Why did Vanderbilt insist that wood not be used in the Breakers’ construction? Discuss