Here's a quick and dirty calculation of $1000 investment per 1989 Dividend Aristocrat starting January 2, 1990 and ending December 31, 2014 - populated using:
Dividend Aristocrat list:
http://www.suredividend.com/25-year-review-of-dividend-aristocrats-why-companies-fell-off-the-list/Return calculation (dividend reinvested) - this could have errors, I haven't backtested, but seems to be pretty accurate: longrundata.com
For firms that were acquired or no longer exist, I assume total loss of principal, even though this isn't what actually happened:
Symbol Return Ending Value
K 8.41% $7,543
PH 13.99% $26,465
BAX 11.12% $13,986
FPL/NEE 12.04% $17,179
IFF 8.95% $8,536
DOV 11.36% $14,746
EMR 10.41% $11,914
JNJ 13.58% $24,179
KO 11.26% $14,407
LOW 20.06% $96,736
MMM 11.83% $16,404
PG 12.34% $18,376
CL 14.46% $29,310
GPC 10.82% $13,052
MAS 5.46% $3,782
TMK 10.03% $10,929
CSR 0.00% $-
HI 0.00% $-
RBD 0.00% $-
WLA 0.00% $-
AMP 0.00% $-
AHP 0.00% $-
LDG 0.00% $-
WIN 0.00% $-
TXU 0.00% $-
NSI 0.00% $-
Total $26,000 $327,543
11.13%
You end up with $327.5k on a $26k investment (with Lowe's doing the heavy lifting) - I don't have the numbers for SP500/VTSAX going back to 1990, but 11.13% with assumed total principal loss on 10/26 holdings in the index would be acceptable to me
And keep in mind, total return would actually probably be much higher because you would have received cash on the companies in the list that were acquired or went private, such as CSR, HI, RBD, WLA, AMP, and TXU
Edit: My personal opinion is that buying an aristocrats fund is idiotic - if you're trusting someone else to allocate your money anyway, just go with the whole market. The funds are based on quantitative measures, with no regard for the underlying business, and if you are going to accept that risk, then at least diversify into a total market index where you get growth companies as well as dividend payers