Astor, Brooke (30 March 1902–13 August 2007), philanthropist and socialite, was born Roberta Brooke Russell in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the only child of John Henry Russell, Jr., a major general in the U.S. Marine Corps, and Mabel Cecile Hornby Howard. Her father, who ultimately became commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, rose in professional responsibility while serving in several important assignments after his daughter’s birth, beginning with his command of the battleship USS ...
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Astor, Brooke (1902-2007), philanthropist and socialite
Valerie Paley
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Barnett, Jackson (01 January 1856?–29 May 1934), wealthy American Indian
Tanis C. Thorne
Barnett, Jackson (01 January 1856?–29 May 1934), wealthy American Indian, was born in the Creek Nation, Indian Territory, the son of Siah Barnett, an African-Creek farmer, and Thlesothle, a Creek woman. During his childhood the Civil War violently split the Creek people, and the countryside was ravaged. Siah Barnett fled to Kansas with the Loyal Creeks. Thlesothle died in a refugee camp near Fort Gibson as the war ended. Given into the care of maternal relatives, the orphaned Jackson spent much of his youth and early adulthood transporting people and goods across the Arkansas River at John Leecher's ferry above Muskogee. While working as a ranch hand, Barnett fell from a horse and sustained a head injury. In the 1880s or early 1890s, Barnett relocated westward to the central Creek Nation, where he built a small cabin and established himself in a network of paternal kin. A shy man with a beaming smile, Barnett formed no romantic relationships with women. He spoke both English and Creek, but he had no schooling and led an obscure life as an unskilled laborer....
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Brown, Margaret Tobin (18 July 1867–26 October 1932), social rights activist, philanthropist, actress, and Titanic survivor
Kristen Iversen
Brown, Margaret Tobin (18 July 1867–26 October 1932), social rights activist, philanthropist, actress, and Titanic survivor, social rights activist, philanthropist, actress, and Titanic survivor, popularly known as Molly Brown, was born Margaret Tobin in Hannibal, Missouri, the daughter of Irish immigrants. The real life of Margaret Tobin Brown has little to do with the myth of Molly Brown, a story created in the 1930s and 1940s that culminated in the 1960 Broadway hit ...
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Brown, Margaret Tobin (18 July 1867–26 October 1932)
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Margaret Tobin Brown. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-94037).
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Caldwell, Mary Gwendolin Byrd (1863-1909), philanthropist and socialite
Patricia Fox-Sheinwold
Caldwell, Mary Gwendolin Byrd (21 October 1863–05 October 1909), philanthropist and socialite, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of William Shakespeare Caldwell, a plant operator, and Mary Eliza Breckenridge. Soon after the death of Caldwell’s mother, her father, who had made a fortune constructing and operating gas plants in the Midwest, moved the family to New York City where, shortly before his death in 1874, he converted to Roman Catholicism and enrolled his two daughters in the Academy of the Sacred Heart, their primary source of education. Under the terms of his will, Caldwell and her sister, Mary Elizabeth, were made wards of Catholic friends and, on their twenty-first birthdays, were to donate a third of their vast inheritance to the Catholic church....
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Duke, Doris (1912-1993), heiress and philanthropist
Stacey Hamilton
Duke, Doris (22 November 1912–28 October 1993), heiress and philanthropist, was born in New York City, the daughter of James Buchanan “Buck” Duke, a tobacco and real estate tycoon and philanthropist, and his second wife, Nanaline Lee Holt Inman, a widow. Buck Duke, the founder and president of the American Tobacco Company, the maker of Lucky Strike cigarettes, spoiled and protected Doris (his fear of kidnapping and germ infection led him to build her a private Pullman car, the ...
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Kennedy, Rose Fitzgerald (22 July 1890–23 January 1995), philanthropist and political matriarch
Barbara L. Ciccarelli
Kennedy, Rose Fitzgerald (22 July 1890–23 January 1995), philanthropist and political matriarch, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of John Francis Fitzgerald, a politician, and Mary Josephine Hannon. In 1904 the Fitzgeralds moved from Boston’s immigrant North End to a fifteen-room house in the Boston suburb of Dorchester. While her mother nurtured her commitment to family and the Catholic church, her father introduced her to politics. Kennedy graduated with honors from Dorchester High School in May 1906, the same year her father, “Honey Fitz,” was elected mayor. Because she was only fifteen, her parents prohibited her from attending Wellesley College. Instead, she enrolled at Sacred Heart Convent in Boston and the New England Conservatory of Music, where she became a skilled pianist. From 1908 to 1909 she attended Blumenthal Academy, a German convent finishing school in Valls, the Netherlands, attaining fluency in German and French. She completed her higher education at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in Purchase, New York, and graduated in 1910....
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McCormick, Edith Rockefeller (1872-1932), philanthropist, socialite, and patron of the arts and psychiatry
Thomas Winter
McCormick, Edith Rockefeller (31 August 1872–25 August 1932), philanthropist, socialite, and patron of the arts and psychiatry, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., an industrialist, and Laura Celestia Spelman. She spent her youth in Cleveland and New York City, where the family moved in 1880. In addition to attending the Rye Female Seminary, Edith received private tutoring and learned to play the cello. Unusually gifted and endowed with a strong scholarly inclination, she had mastered three foreign languages by the time she was ten years old....
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Post, Marjorie Merriweather (1887-1973), business owner, entertainer, and philanthropist
Sally Clarke
Post, Marjorie Merriweather (15 March 1887–12 September 1973), business owner, entertainer, and philanthropist, was born in Springfield, Illinois, the daughter of Charles William Post, founder of Postum Cereal Company, and Ella Letitia Merriweather. After several of Charles Post’s entrepreneurial ventures failed, his family entered him in a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1891. The sanitarium’s doctor, ...
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Schott, Marge (1928-2004)
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Marge Schott owner of the Cincinnati Reds, does the wave during a game at Riverfront Stadium 1 September 1995. Photograph by Tom Uhlman. Associated Press
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Schott, Marge (1928-2004), baseball team owner, philanthropist, and eccentric
Henry Franklin Tribe
Schott, Marge (18 August 1928–02 March 2004), baseball team owner, philanthropist, and eccentric, was born Margaret Unnewehr in Cincinnati, Ohio, the second child of five daughters born to Edward and Charlotte Unnewehr. The family business, the Cincinnati Veneer Company, provided the means for the Unnewehrs to live in Clifton, an upper-middle-class section of the city. Something of a tomboy, Margaret (called Marge) was enrolled in the private Sacred Heart Academy where she spent much of her energy playing sports, especially field hockey. Marge attended the University of Cincinnati for three years but left school to work for her father's business. In 1952 she married Charles Schott, a member of one of Cincinnati's wealthiest families. Together they purchased an estate in the upscale Indian Hill community where Marge would live for the rest of her life. The couple had no children....
