Alva Belmont
Encyclopedia
Alva Erskine Belmont née Alva Erskine Smith, also called Alva Vanderbilt from 1875 to 1896, was a prominent multi-millionaire American
socialite and a major figure in the women's suffrage
movement. Known for having an aristocratic manner that antagonized many people, she was also noted for her energy, intelligence, strong
opinions, and willingness to challenge convention. She was married first to William Kissam Vanderbilt
, with whom she had three children, and secondly to Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont
.
to Murray Forbes Smith, a commission merchant; and Phoebe Desha, daughter of Robert Desha
, a former US Representative and General
in the War of 1812
. Her paternal grand-parents, George and Delia Smith, Scottish immigrants who lived in Dumfries, Virginia
, were relations of the Suter family, who had owned the Georgetown Tavern where George Washington laid plans for the new capital city of the United States.
Belmont was the youngest of four children, though her two sisters, Alice and Elenor, both died as children before she was born. The only sibling that she ever knew was her older brother, Murray Forbes Smith, Jr. He died in 1857 and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery
in Mobile.
As a child, Belmont summered with her parents in Newport
, Rhode Island
and accompanied them on European vacations. In 1857 the Smiths moved to New York City, where they briefly settled in Madison Square
. When Murray went to Liverpool
, England
, to conduct his business, her mother, Phoebe Smith, moved to Paris where Alva attended a private boarding school in Neuilly-sur-Seine
. After the Civil War, the Smith family returned to New York, where her mother died in 1869.
's daughters, Smith's childhood best friend, Consuelo Yznaga, introduced her to William Kissam Vanderbilt
, grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt
. On 20 April 1875, William and Alva were married at Calvary Church
in New York City.
The couple would have three children. Consuelo Vanderbilt
was born on 2 March 1877, followed by William Kissam Vanderbilt II
on 2 March 1878, and Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
on 6 July 1884. Alva would maneuver Consuelo into marrying Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough
on 6 November 1895. The marriage would be annulled much later, at the Duke's request and Consuelo's assent, on 19 August 1926. The annulment was fully supported by Alva, who testified that she had forced Consuelo into the marriage. By this time Consuelo and her mother enjoyed a closer, easier relationship. Consuelo went on to marry Jacques Balsan
, a French aeronautics pioneer. William Kissam II would become president of the New York Central Railroad Company on his father's death in 1920. Harold Stirling graduated from Harvard Law School
in 1910, then joined his father at the New York Central Railroad Company. He remained the only active representative of the Vanderbilt family in the New York Central Railroad after his brother's death, serving as a director and member of the executive committee until 1954.
As a young newlywed, Vanderbilt worked from 1877 to 1881 with architect Richard Morris Hunt
to create a French Renaissance
style chateau for her family at 660 Fifth Avenue in New York City
. A contemporary of Vanderbilt's was quoted as saying that "she loved nothing better than to be knee deep in mortar." In 1878 Hunt began work on their Queen Anne
style retreat on Long Island, Idlehour. It would be added to almost continuously until 1889. In 1891, Hunt was again hired to design the Neoclassical
style Marble House
in Newport, Rhode Island, as Vanderbilt's 39th birthday present and summer "cottage" retreat.
Unable to get an opera box at the Academy of Music
, whose directors were loath to admit members of newly wealthy families into their circle, she was among those people instrumental in founding the Metropolitan Opera Association, based at the Metropolitan Opera House
. The Metropolitan Opera long outlasted the Academy.
Marble House, Vanderbilt's Newport cottage, would be built next door to Astor's much simpler Beechwood
estate. Marble House set the pace for Newport's subsequent transformation from a quiet summer colony of wooden houses to the legendary resort of opulent stone palaces.
Alva Vanderbilt shocked society in March 1895 when she divorced her husband, at a time when divorce was rare among the elite, and received a large financial settlement said to be in excess of $10 million, in addition to several of the estates including Marble House in Newport. The grounds for divorce were allegations of William's adultery, though some believed that William hired a woman to pretend to be his mistress so that Alva would divorce him.
Alva married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont
, a man five years her junior, on 11 January 1896. Oliver had been a friend of the Vanderbilts since the late 1880s and had accompanied them on at least one long voyage aboard their yacht the Alva. He was the son of August Belmont
, a successful Jewish banker. After their marriage Alva began extensive renovations to Oliver's sixty-room Newport mansion, Belcourt
, and had another mansion, Brookholt, built in Hempstead, Long Island
. Oliver died suddenly in 1908, upon which Alva took on the new cause of the women's suffrage movement after hearing a lecture by Ida Husted Harper
.
and United States. In 1909, she founded the Political Equality League to get votes for suffrage-supporting New York State politicians, and wrote articles for newspapers. She gave strong support to labor in the 1909-1910 New York shirtwaist makers strike. She paid the bail of picketers who had been arrested and funded a large rally in the city's Hippodrome
, which she addressed along with Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association
(NAWSA). In 1909 she joined this organization and was named an alternate delegate from New York to the International Women's Suffrage Association meeting in London. There Belmont observed the commitment of Emmeline Pankhurst
and her followers, who would influence the depth and the form of her own personal commitment to the cause. On her return to the United States, she paid for office space on Fifth Avenue that allowed the relocation of NAWSA offices to New York, and she funded its National Press Bureau. At the same time, she formed her own Political Equality League to seek broad support for suffrage in neighborhoods throughout the city, and, as its president, led its division of the 1912 Women's Votes Parade.
By this time, organized suffrage activity was centered on educated, middle-class white women, who were often reluctant to accept immigrants, blacks, and the working class into their ranks. Belmont's Political Equality League only partially broke with this tradition. She established its first "suffrage settlement house" in Harlem
, and she included black women and immigrants in weekend retreats at Beacon Towers, her Châteauesque
style castle in Sands Point, New York
. However, she also contributed to the Southern Woman Suffrage Conference, which refused to admit blacks.
The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU), organized by Alice Paul
and Crystal Eastman
, separated from the NAWSA in 1913. Belmont then merged the Political Equality League into the CU. Now committed to securing the passage of the 19th Amendment
, she convened a "Conference of Great Women" at Marble House in the summer of 1914. Belmont's daughter Consuelo, who promoted suffrage and prison reform in England, addressed the gathering, which was followed by the CU's first national meeting. Belmont served on the executive committee of the CU from 1914 to 1916.
In 1915 Belmont chaired the women voters' convention at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition
. The following year, she and Paul established the National Woman's Party
from the membership of the CU and organized the first picketing ever to take place before the White House
, in January 1917. She was elected president of the National Woman's Party, an office she held until her death. The National Woman's Party continued to lobby for new initiatives from the Washington, D.C.
headquarters that Belmont had purchased in 1929 for the group, now the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum
.
in The Bronx
, New York.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
socialite and a major figure in the women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
movement. Known for having an aristocratic manner that antagonized many people, she was also noted for her energy, intelligence, strong
opinions, and willingness to challenge convention. She was married first to William Kissam Vanderbilt
William Kissam Vanderbilt
William Kissam Vanderbilt was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. He managed railroads and was a horse breeder.-Biography:...
, with whom she had three children, and secondly to Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont
Oliver Belmont
Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont was an American socialite and United States Representative from New York.- Biography :...
.
Early life
She was born on 17 January 1853 as Alva Erskine Smith in Mobile, AlabamaMobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
to Murray Forbes Smith, a commission merchant; and Phoebe Desha, daughter of Robert Desha
Robert Desha
Robert Desha was an American politician who represented Tennessee's 5th Congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He was the brother of U.S. Representative and Kentucky governor Joseph Desha.-Biography:...
, a former US Representative and General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
in the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
. Her paternal grand-parents, George and Delia Smith, Scottish immigrants who lived in Dumfries, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, were relations of the Suter family, who had owned the Georgetown Tavern where George Washington laid plans for the new capital city of the United States.
Magnolia Cemetery (Mobile, Alabama)
Magnolia Cemetery is a city cemetery located in Mobile, Alabama, United States. The cemetery is situated on and was established in 1836. From that time onward it served as Mobile's primary burial site during the 19th century. It is the final resting place for many of Mobile's 19th and early 20th...
in Mobile.
As a child, Belmont summered with her parents in Newport
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
and accompanied them on European vacations. In 1857 the Smiths moved to New York City, where they briefly settled in Madison Square
Madison Square
Madison Square is formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for James Madison, fourth President of the United States and the principal author of the United States Constitution.The focus of the square is...
. When Murray went to Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, to conduct his business, her mother, Phoebe Smith, moved to Paris where Alva attended a private boarding school in Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
. After the Civil War, the Smith family returned to New York, where her mother died in 1869.
First marriage
At a party for one of William Henry VanderbiltWilliam Henry Vanderbilt
William Henry Vanderbilt I was an American businessman and a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.-Childhood:William Vanderbilt was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1821...
's daughters, Smith's childhood best friend, Consuelo Yznaga, introduced her to William Kissam Vanderbilt
William Kissam Vanderbilt
William Kissam Vanderbilt was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. He managed railroads and was a horse breeder.-Biography:...
, grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
. On 20 April 1875, William and Alva were married at Calvary Church
Calvary Church (Manhattan)
Calvary Church is an Episcopal church located at 273 Park Avenue South on the corner of East 21st Street in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on the border of the Flatiron District. It was designed by James Renwick, Jr., the architect who designed St. Patrick's Cathedral...
in New York City.
The couple would have three children. Consuelo Vanderbilt
Consuelo Vanderbilt
Consuelo Balsan , was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family...
was born on 2 March 1877, followed by William Kissam Vanderbilt II
William Kissam Vanderbilt II
William Kissam Vanderbilt II was a motor racing enthusiast and yachtsman and a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family.-Biography:...
on 2 March 1878, and Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
Harold Stirling Vanderbilt was an American railroad executive, a champion yachtsman, a champion bridge player and a member of the Vanderbilt family.-Background:...
on 6 July 1884. Alva would maneuver Consuelo into marrying Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough
Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough
Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough KG, PC , styled Earl of Sunderland until 1883 and Marquess of Blandford between 1883 and 1892, was a British soldier and Conservative politician...
on 6 November 1895. The marriage would be annulled much later, at the Duke's request and Consuelo's assent, on 19 August 1926. The annulment was fully supported by Alva, who testified that she had forced Consuelo into the marriage. By this time Consuelo and her mother enjoyed a closer, easier relationship. Consuelo went on to marry Jacques Balsan
Jacques Balsan
Louis Jacques Balsan was a French aviator and industrialist, born at Châteauroux in 1868, who was the second husband of society beauty Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough...
, a French aeronautics pioneer. William Kissam II would become president of the New York Central Railroad Company on his father's death in 1920. Harold Stirling graduated from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
in 1910, then joined his father at the New York Central Railroad Company. He remained the only active representative of the Vanderbilt family in the New York Central Railroad after his brother's death, serving as a director and member of the executive committee until 1954.
Buildings
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture...
to create a French Renaissance
French Renaissance
French Renaissance is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century...
style chateau for her family at 660 Fifth Avenue in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. A contemporary of Vanderbilt's was quoted as saying that "she loved nothing better than to be knee deep in mortar." In 1878 Hunt began work on their Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
style retreat on Long Island, Idlehour. It would be added to almost continuously until 1889. In 1891, Hunt was again hired to design the Neoclassical
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
style Marble House
Marble House
Marble House is one of the Gilded Age mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, now open to the public as a museum. It was designed by the architect Richard Morris Hunt, and said to be inspired by the Petit Trianon at Versailles . Grounds were designed by noted landscape architect Ernest W...
in Newport, Rhode Island, as Vanderbilt's 39th birthday present and summer "cottage" retreat.
Society
Determined to bring the Vanderbilt family the social status that she felt they deserved, Vanderbilt christened the Fifth Avenue chateau with a masquerade ball for 1200 guests, costing a reported $3 million. An oft-repeated story tells that Vanderbilt felt she had been snubbed by Caroline Astor, queen of "The 400" elite of New York society, so she purposely neglected to send an invitation to Astor's popular daughter, Carrie. Supposedly, this forced Astor to come calling, in order to secure an invitation to the ball for her daughter. This story is probably apocryphal, but Astor did in fact pay a social call on Vanderbilt and she and her daughter were guests at the ball, effectively giving the Vanderbilt family society's official acceptance (Vanderbilt and Astor were observed at the ball in animated conversation). The chief effect of the ball was to raise the bar on society entertainments in New York to heights of extravagance and expense that had not been previously seen.Unable to get an opera box at the Academy of Music
Academy of Music (Manhattan)
The Academy of Music was a New York City opera house, located at East 14th Street and Irving Place in Manhattan. The 4,000-seat hall opened on October 2, 1854. The New York Times review declared it to be an acoustical "triumph", but "In every other aspect .....
, whose directors were loath to admit members of newly wealthy families into their circle, she was among those people instrumental in founding the Metropolitan Opera Association, based at the Metropolitan Opera House
Metropolitan Opera House (39th St)
The Metropolitan Opera House was an opera house located at 1411 Broadway in New York City. Opened in 1883 and demolished in 1967, it was the first home of the Metropolitan Opera Company.-History:...
. The Metropolitan Opera long outlasted the Academy.
Marble House, Vanderbilt's Newport cottage, would be built next door to Astor's much simpler Beechwood
Beechwood (mansion)
Beechwood is a Gilded Age estate located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island.-History:Built in 1851 for New York merchant Daniel Parrish by architects Andrew Jackson Downing and Calvert Vaux, it later became the summer estate of the Astor family, before moving in, Mrs Astor hired Architect...
estate. Marble House set the pace for Newport's subsequent transformation from a quiet summer colony of wooden houses to the legendary resort of opulent stone palaces.
Second marriage
Alva married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont
Oliver Belmont
Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont was an American socialite and United States Representative from New York.- Biography :...
, a man five years her junior, on 11 January 1896. Oliver had been a friend of the Vanderbilts since the late 1880s and had accompanied them on at least one long voyage aboard their yacht the Alva. He was the son of August Belmont
August Belmont
August Belmont, Sr. was an American politician.-Early life:August Belmont was born in Alzey, Hesse, on December 8, 1813--some sources say 1816--to Simon and Frederika Elsass Schönberg, a Jewish family. After his mother's death, when he was seven, he lived with his uncle and grandmother in Frankfurt...
, a successful Jewish banker. After their marriage Alva began extensive renovations to Oliver's sixty-room Newport mansion, Belcourt
Belcourt Castle
Belcourt Castle is the former summer cottage of Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. Begun in 1891 and completed in 1894, it was intended to be used for only six to eight weeks of the year...
, and had another mansion, Brookholt, built in Hempstead, Long Island
Hempstead (village), New York
Hempstead is a village located in the town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 53,891 at the 2010 census.Hofstra University is located on the border between Hempstead and Uniondale.-Foundation:...
. Oliver died suddenly in 1908, upon which Alva took on the new cause of the women's suffrage movement after hearing a lecture by Ida Husted Harper
Ida Husted Harper
Ida Husted Harper was a prominent figure in the United States women's suffrage movement. She was an American author and journalist who wrote primarily to document the movement and show support of its ideals....
.
Women's suffrage
Drawn further into the suffrage movement by Anna Shaw, Belmont donated large sums to the movement, both in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and United States. In 1909, she founded the Political Equality League to get votes for suffrage-supporting New York State politicians, and wrote articles for newspapers. She gave strong support to labor in the 1909-1910 New York shirtwaist makers strike. She paid the bail of picketers who had been arrested and funded a large rally in the city's Hippodrome
New York Hippodrome
The Hippodrome Theatre, also called the New York Hippodrome, was a theatre in New York City from 1905 to 1939, located on Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan. It was called the world's largest theatre by its builders and had a seating capacity of...
, which she addressed along with Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The National American Woman Suffrage Association was an American women's rights organization formed in May 1890 as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association...
(NAWSA). In 1909 she joined this organization and was named an alternate delegate from New York to the International Women's Suffrage Association meeting in London. There Belmont observed the commitment of Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...
and her followers, who would influence the depth and the form of her own personal commitment to the cause. On her return to the United States, she paid for office space on Fifth Avenue that allowed the relocation of NAWSA offices to New York, and she funded its National Press Bureau. At the same time, she formed her own Political Equality League to seek broad support for suffrage in neighborhoods throughout the city, and, as its president, led its division of the 1912 Women's Votes Parade.
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, and she included black women and immigrants in weekend retreats at Beacon Towers, her Châteauesque
Châteauesque
Châteauesque is one of several terms, including Francis I style, and, in Canada, the Château Style, that refer to a revival architectural style based on the French Renaissance architecture of the monumental French country homes built in the Loire Valley from the late fifteenth century to the...
style castle in Sands Point, New York
Sands Point, New York
Sands Point is a village located at the northernmost tip of the Cow Neck Peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island in Nassau County, New York. As of the United States 2010 Census, the village population was 2,675. The Incorporated Village of Sands Point is in the Town of North...
. However, she also contributed to the Southern Woman Suffrage Conference, which refused to admit blacks.
The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU), organized by Alice Paul
Alice Paul
Alice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...
and Crystal Eastman
Crystal Eastman
Crystal Catherine Eastman was a lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. She is best remembered as a leader in the fight for women's right to vote, as a co-editor of the radical arts and politics magazine The Liberator, and as a co-founder of the Women's International League...
, separated from the NAWSA in 1913. Belmont then merged the Political Equality League into the CU. Now committed to securing the passage of the 19th Amendment
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....
, she convened a "Conference of Great Women" at Marble House in the summer of 1914. Belmont's daughter Consuelo, who promoted suffrage and prison reform in England, addressed the gathering, which was followed by the CU's first national meeting. Belmont served on the executive committee of the CU from 1914 to 1916.
In 1915 Belmont chaired the women voters' convention at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915)
The Panama-Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California between February 20 and December 4 in 1915. Its ostensible purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen in the city as an opportunity to showcase its recovery...
. The following year, she and Paul established the National Woman's Party
National Woman's Party
The National Woman's Party , was a women's organization founded by Alice Paul in 1915 that fought for women's rights during the early 20th century in the United States, particularly for the right to vote on the same terms as men...
from the membership of the CU and organized the first picketing ever to take place before the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, in January 1917. She was elected president of the National Woman's Party, an office she held until her death. The National Woman's Party continued to lobby for new initiatives from the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
headquarters that Belmont had purchased in 1929 for the group, now the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum
Sewall-Belmont House and Museum
The Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., United States, is a historic house and museum of the U.S. women's suffrage and equal-rights movements.It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974....
.
Later life and death
From the early 1920s onward, she lived in France most of the time in order to be near her daughter Consuelo. She restored the 16th century Château d'Augerville La Rivière and used it as a residence. With Paul, she formed the International Advisory Council of the National Woman's Party and the Auxiliary of American Women abroad. She suffered a stroke in the spring of 1932 that left her partially paralyzed, and she died in Paris of bronchial and heart ailments on January 26, 1933. Her funeral at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City featured all female pallbearers and a large contingent of suffragists. She is interred next to Oliver Belmont in the Woodlawn CemeteryWoodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark.A rural cemetery located in the Bronx, it opened in 1863, in what was then southern Westchester County, in an area that was annexed to New York City in 1874.The cemetery covers more...
in The Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, New York.
Quotations
- "Just pray to God. She will help you."
- "First marry for money, then marry for love."
External links
- Long Island's Rebels With a Cause from New York Newsday
- Women in Philanthropy
- 75 Suffragists