Dollar princesses, also called dollar duchesses, were rich American women in the late 1800s and early 1900s who married into European families with titles. They gave their money to gain respect and social status. These women were often the daughters of wealthy business people whose families wanted to improve their social status. The term was sometimes used in Denmark to describe any wealthy woman who married into a titled family.

A book titled Titled Americans (1915) reported that 454 marriages occurred between American women and European aristocrats during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Most of these aristocrats were from Britain. The Library of Congress mentioned that American heiresses married more than a third of the members of the House of Lords. Between 1870 and 1914, 102 British aristocrats, including six dukes, married American women.

Women called dollar princesses

• Jeanette "Jennie" Jerome, the daughter of financier Leonard Jerome, married Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, in 1874. They were the parents of Sir Winston Churchill.
• María Francisca de la Consolación "Consuelo" Yznaga, the daughter of diplomat Don Antonio Modesto Yznaga y del Valle, married George Montagu, Viscount Mandeville (who later became the 8th Duke of Manchester), in 1876. She inspired Edith Wharton’s book The Buccaneers.
• Mary "Minnie" Fiske Stevens, the daughter of hotelier Paran Stevens, married General Sir Arthur Paget, the eldest son of Lord Alfred Paget and a grandson of the 1st Marquess of Anglesey, in 1878.
• Frances Ellen Work, the daughter of stockbroker Franklin H. Work, married Hon. James Roche (who later became the 3rd Baron Fermoy), the second son of the 1st Baron Fermoy, in 1880. They were the great-grandparents of Diana, Princess of Wales.
• Mary Leiter, the daughter of retail magnate Levi Leiter, married Hon. George Curzon (who later became the 1st Baron Curzon of Kedleston and ultimately the 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston), the eldest son of the 4th Baron Scarsdale, in 1895. When her husband became Viceroy of India in 1899, she became Vicereine of India, making her the highest-ranking American-born woman in the history of the British Empire.
• Consuelo Vanderbilt, the daughter of William Kissam Vanderbilt, married Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, in 1895.
• Nancy Langhorne, the daughter of railroad industrialist Chiswell Langhorne, married Waldorf Astor (who later became the 2nd Viscount Astor), the eldest son of William Waldorf Astor and a great-great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, in 1897.
• Mary Goelet, the daughter of real estate developer Ogden Goelet, married Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe, in 1903.
• Alberta Sturges, the daughter of businessman William Sturges and stepdaughter of wholesale grocer Francis Howard Leggett, married George Montagu (who later became the 9th Earl of Sandwich), the only son of Rear-Admiral Hon. Victor Montagu and a grandson of the 7th Earl of Sandwich, in 1905.
• Margaretta Drexel, the daughter of banker Anthony Joseph Drexel, married Guy Finch-Hatton, Viscount Maidstone (who later became the 14th Earl of Winchilsea and 9th Earl of Nottingham), in 1910.
• In the early 1920s, Princess Anastasia of Greece and Denmark, a wealthy widow born Nonnie May Stewart in Zanesville, Ohio, who had married the youngest brother of the King of the Hellenes, was described as battling the American dollar princess stereotype.
• A 1928 news report suggested that an unnamed American dollar princess might be last in the running to marry Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria.
• Eli Marie Thaulow, better known as Else Frölich (the Norwegian-Danish silent film actress), married Danish opera singer Louis de la Cruz Frölich on 9 June 1903. The Danish press called her a "dollarprinsesse," which was inaccurate because she came from a highly accomplished and noted Norwegian family and had no need to marry up.

In fiction

The phrase often appears as a common theme in stories, such as in Georgina Norway's Tregarthen (1896). In Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor (1892), Sherlock Holmes investigates the mystery of an American heiress who marries the fictional "Lord Saint Simon" and then disappears after their wedding. Edith Wharton's novel The Buccaneers (1938) is set in a similar social setting. In Downton Abbey, Cora Crawley (née Levinson), created by Julian Fellowes, is portrayed as a wealthy American heiress who marries the Earl of Grantham. Her family's money helps save Downton Abbey from financial trouble. In The Gilded Age, also by Fellowes, Gladys Russell, the daughter of robber baron George Russell, is forced by her mother to marry the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke needs money to keep his estate running.