Edith Cummings
Encyclopedia
Chicago's Big Four (debutantes)
Chicago's Big Four were a quartet of debutantes in the Chicago social scene during World War I, described as "the four most attractive and socially desirable young women in Chicago."-Background:...
debutantes in Chicago, at the end of the First World War. She became nationally famous following her 1923 victory in the U.S. Women's Amateur. On August 25, 1924, she became the first golfer and first female athlete to appear on the cover of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine.
Her father was David M. Cummings, a wealthy Chicago socialite, who sent her to boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
at the Westover School
Westover School
The Westover School, often referred to simply as "Westover," is an independent college-preparatory day and boarding school for girls. Located in Middlebury, Connecticut, USA, the school offers grades 9-12...
in Middlebury
Middlebury, Connecticut
Middlebury is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 6,451 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water....
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. Cummings was in the class of 1917. Though the school had been founded only in 1909, it attracted many young socialites. Cummings' classmates included fellow Chicago socialite Ginevra King
Ginevra King
Ginevra King was an American socialite, a Chicago, Illinois, debutante and the inspirational muse for several characters in the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald.-Early life:...
, future philanthropist Katharine Ordway, Isabel Rockefeller
Isabel Rockefeller Lincoln
Isabel Rockefeller Lincoln was born in Ardsley-on-the-Hudson, New York on 23 June 1902. Her father, Percy Avery Rockefeller, was one of the richest financiers and industrialists of his time. Percy was the son of William Rockefeller, who made a fortune from the Standard Oil Co...
(of the Rockefeller family
Rockefeller family
The Rockefeller family , the Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller , is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German origin that made one of the world's largest private fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th...
, a granddaughter of William Rockefeller
William Rockefeller
William Avery Rockefeller, Jr. , American financier, was a co-founder with his older brother John D. Rockefeller of the prominent United States Rockefeller family. He was the son of William Avery Rockefeller, Sr. and Eliza Rockefeller.-Youth, education:Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York,...
), and Prescott Bush
Prescott Bush
Prescott Sheldon Bush was a Wall Street executive banker and a United States Senator, representing Connecticut from 1952 until January 1963. He was the father of George H. W. Bush and the grandfather of George W...
's sisters Mary and Margaret (aunts to U.S. President George H.W. Bush and great aunts to George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
).
In 1915, Cummings met a young student at Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
named F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
, who had fallen in love with her friend Ginevra and would later immortalize them both.
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
Following her graduation in 1917, Cummings pursued tournament golf where she would earn the nickname "the Fairway Flapper
Flapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
". In 1921, she competed in the British Ladies Amateur along with other famous female golfers such as Alexa Stirling
Alexa Stirling
Alexa Stirling Fraser was a North American amateur golf champion.Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Alexa Stirling was coached in golf from a young age at the Atlanta Athletic Club's East Lake Golf Club course by Stewart Maiden, the club's professional, who had learned his golf at Carnoustie, Scotland...
and Marion Hollins. The next year Cummings entered the U.S. Women's Amateur, where she was in match play against Glenna Collett, then an 18-year-old out of 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...
, who would become known as one of the greatest female golfers of the 1920s. Cummings lost on the final hole. She returned to the tournament the next year. This time, she won, earning her the cover photo on Time magazine, in addition to profiles in Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
, Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...
, and many newspapers. She also won the Women's Western Amateur
Women's Western Amateur
The Women's Western Amateur is an amateur golf tournament for women. It is organized by the Women's Western Golf Association, which also organized the Women's Western Open from 1930 to 1967. It is one of the oldest women's amateur tournaments in the United States, having been played since 1901...
in 1924
Her literary fame, however, would endure because in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
, the character of Jordan Baker was modeled directly after Cummings, just as the character Daisy Buchanan was modeled after Cummings' friend King. Buchanan and Baker were socialites and friends. Baker "wore all her dresses like sports clothes -- there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings," Fitzgerald wrote. In The Great Gatsby, Baker is the love interest of the novel's narrator Nick Carraway. In Gatsby, Baker cheats at golf, although there is no evidence that Fitzgerald drew this detail from Cummings.
Cummings never won another tournament, but remained a well-known figure. In 1934 she married a wealthy businessman named Curtis B. Munson. Munson was later selected by Franklin Roosevelt to investigate the sympathies of Japanese-Americans living in the United States just before the U.S. entered World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He found very little hostility among the Japanese-American community, but despite the warnings of his Munson Report
Munson Report
The Report on Japanese on the West Coast of the United States, often called the Munson Report, was a 29-page report written in 1940 by Curtis B. Munson, a Detroit businessman commissioned as a special representative of the State Department, on the sympathies and loyalties of Japanese Americans...
, Roosevelt pursued a policy of Japanese American internment
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
.
Cummings and Munson largely faded from the spotlight later in life, except for forays into philanthropy. Cummings remained a committed golfer into her 80's. She was enthusiastic about all outdoor activities, especially hunting and fishing. She and her husband traveled extensively throughout their marriage until her husband’s death in 1979. In his honor, she made a significant contribution to the Decatur House
Decatur House
Decatur House is a historic home in Washington, D.C., named after its first owner and occupant Stephen Decatur. The house is located northwest of Lafayette Square, at the southwest corner of Jackson Place and H Street, near the White House...
renovation in Washington, DC.
Today the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation funds a number of conservation programs. She has an award named after her, the Edith Cummings Munson Golf Award
Edith Cummings Munson Golf Award
The Edith Cummings Munson Golf Award is an annual award inspired by Edith Cummings Munson that is given to one of the top collegiate female golfers who excels in academics. The award is presented by the National Golf Coaches Association . The award goes to the student-athlete who is both a NGCA...
, given annually to one of the top female collegiate golfers who excels in academics. The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation donates $5,000 to the general scholarship fund of the winner's school.