Alva Belmont
Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, née Alva Erskine Smith ( born January 17, 1853 in Mobile, Alabama; † January 26, 1933 in Auger Ville- la -Rivière in Paris) was an American women's rights activist and president of the National Woman 's Party; and high society lady of the " Four Hundred " in the New York society ( Belle Epoque ).
Life
Alva was the youngest daughter of four children of the cotton manufacturers Murray Forbes Smith ( † 1876) and his wife Phoebe Desha († 1869), daughter of General and Congressman Robert Desha ( 1791-1849 ). Shortly after the birth of Alva her parents moved to Newport, Rhode Iceland and from 1857 to New York City. During the American Civil War Alva lived with her mother in France, where she studied on a girls' school in Neuilly -sur -Seine. Early 1870s Alva returned with her parents to the United States back and was introduced shortly afterwards in the society. At a ball Alva Vanderbilt family learned through her childhood friend María Consuelo Yznaga del Valle (1858-1909), later Duchess of Manchester, know her future husband. On April 20, 1875 Alva Smith married in New York City the rich railroad magnate William Kissam Vanderbilt ( 1849-1920 ), second son of William Henry Vanderbilt and Maria Louisa Kissam his wife. From the joint connecting three children: Consuelo (1877-1964), later Duchess of Marlborough, William Kissam (1878-1944) and Harold Stirling ( 1884-1970 ).
After her marriage was Alva Vanderbilt determined the social status of the Vanderbilt family to annul, by trying to impress the former Grand Dame of New York society, Mrs. Caroline Astor (1830-1908). Between 1877 and 1881 her husband was by the renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt, a town house in the French Renaissance style for his family on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. build. Seven years later, Richard Morris Hunt with the construction of Marble House in Newport, Rhode Iceland, commissioned in the neoclassical style. The house was used as a summer residence of the Vanderbilt family.
In the winter season 1881 held Vanderbilt a masked ball in their townhouse on Fifth Avenue and invited all the families of the " Four Hundred " the rank and had a (among them were: Livingstone Armstrong, Rothschild, manager, Belmonts, Morgans and Goulds ), so also Mrs. Astor with their daughters. On March 26, 1883 Alva Vanderbilt was held legendary costume ball. Allegedly, should the cost of the glittering party at around U.S. $ 250,000, who by today's standards about $ 3 million amount. The banquets, balls, garden parties, dinners, dances and costume balls of the American plutocracy were famous and filled the society columns of the newspapers. But all desire goal was participation in the social life of the English aristocracy. Thus, Alva's daughter Consuelo, later Duchess of Marlborough, and her childhood friend Mary Victoria Head (1870-1906), later Baroness Curzon of Kedleston, introduced in 1894 in London society.
In March 1895 Alva Vanderbilt filed for divorce, which meant a scandal in society. The reason was that her husband several years maintained a secret love affair with the Spanish dancer La Belle Otéro ( 1868-1965 ). As compensation they received 10 million U.S. dollars and the Marble House awarded. William Kissam Vanderbilt married in 1903 his second wife Ann Rutherford Sands Harriman.
On January 11, 1896 Alva Vanderbilt married in Newport, Rhode Iceland banker Oliver Hazard Belmont ( 1858-1908 ), eldest son of German - Jewish banker and politician August Belmont and Caroline Slidell Perry. The marriage, which by all accounts was happy, remained childless. Together with her second husband, Alva Belmont was a generous patron of the arts and donated large sums to hospitals. After the death of Oliver Belmont in 1908, she traveled for several months through Europe.
Upon her return to New York, Alva Belmont engaged with Anna Howard Shaw, Lucy Burns and Alice Paul, and a number of other women 1912-1920 the successful struggle for women's suffrage in the United States. In July 1914, at a time when not even had the right to vote in the women, she organized with Molly Brown, an international women's rights conference in Newport, Rhode Iceland, which was frequented by numerous women's and human rights activists. She organized events and also financed the National American Woman Suffrage Association ( NAWSA ). The 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which guaranteed women the right to vote, it was decided in 1920 by the U.S. Congress. Even after that remained Alva Belmont woman politically active until the mid- 1920s.
In the late 1920s Alva Belmont moved to France. Here they bought a townhouse in Paris and the Loire Château d' Auger Ville, built by King Charles VII for his mistress Agnès Sorel, in Auger Ville- la -Rivière. In the summer of 1932, she suffered a stroke while driving and was subsequently paralyzed on one side. On January 26, 1933, she died from the effects of bronchitis disease and was buried next to her second husband, Oliver Belmont in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.