From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe chronicle the lives of the Astors and explore what the Astor name has come to mean in America, offering a window onto the making of America itself.