Partner
Frances Perkins
Queer Places:
Arden House, Harriman, NY 10926
Barnard College (Seven Sisters), 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Wheatley Rd, Glen Head, NY 11545
235 Middle Neck Rd, Port Washington, NY 11050
Saint Johns Episcopal Church Cemetery
Arden, Orange County, New York, USA
Mary
Harriman Rumsey (November 17, 1881 – December 18, 1934) was the founder of
The Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements, later known as
the Junior League of the City of New York of the
Association of Junior Leagues International Inc. During a period between
1922 and 1934, she lived and shared an intimate relationship with
United States Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins.[12][13]
Mary is credited with assisting Perkins with the enactment of the Social
Security Act.
In 2015 Rumsey was posthumously inducted into the
National Women's Hall of Fame.[1]
Mary Harriman Rumsey was born on November 17, 1881, the oldest of six
children of railroad industrialist
E.H. Harriman (1848–1909) and his wife,
Mary Averell.[2]
Her siblings were Henry Neilson Harriman (1883–1888), Cornelia Harriman
(1884–1966), who married
Robert Livingston Gerry (1877–1957),[3][4]
Carol Averell Harriman (1889–1948), who married R. Penn Smith in 1917, and after
his death in 1929, she married W. Plunket Stewart, a racing stable owner in
1930,[5][6]
William Averell Harriman (1891–1986), who in 1955 became the
Governor of New York and United States Diplomat and who married Kitty
Lanier Lawrence,[7]
then
Marie Norton Whitney (1903–1970), and lastly to
Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill Hayward (1920–1997), and
Edward Roland Noel Harriman (1895–1978), who married
Gladys Fries (1896–1983).
Mary attended
Barnard College, where she specialized in sociology and was a member of
Kappa Kappa Gamma.
Inspired by a lecture on the
settlement movement, Mary, along with several friends, began volunteering
at the College Settlement on Rivington Street in New York City's
Lower East Side, a large immigrant enclave. Through her work at the
College Settlement, Mary became convinced that there was more she could do to
help others. Subsequently, Mary and a group of 80 debutantes established the
Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements in 1901, while she was
still a student at Barnard College. The purpose of the Junior League would be
to unite interested debutantes in joining the Settlement Movement in New York
City.
Realizing their lack of experience in dealing with the issues that faced
people seeking help at the settlement house, Mary and League leaders brought
together experts on the Settlement Movement to provide lectures and
instruction to Junior League members. With better preparation came greater
engagement leading to increased interest in membership by women notable in New
York society; members would come to include
Eleanor Roosevelt,
Dorothy Whitney Straight and
Ruth
Draper.
As word of the work of the young Junior League women in New York spread,
women throughout the country and beyond formed Junior Leagues in their
communities. In time, Leagues would expand their efforts beyond settlement
house work to respond to the social, health and educational issues of their
respective communities. In 1921, approximately 30 Leagues banded together to
form the Association of Junior Leagues of America to provide support to one
another. With the creation of the Association, it was Mary who insisted that
although it was important for all Leagues to learn from one another and share
best practices, each League was ultimately beholden to its respective
community and should thus function to serve that community's needs.
As the 20th century progressed, more Junior Leagues were formed throughout
the United States, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Now known as the
Association of Junior Leagues International Inc. (AJLI), the organization
encompasses 292 member Leagues, with over 160,000 members committed to
continuing the legacy established by its founder.
In 1933, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Mary to chair the Consumer Advisory Board
(CAB) of the
National Recovery Administration (NRA), the first government consumer
rights group.[2]
Despite her inexperience, Mary's work with farming cooperatives and belief
in the power of cooperation would come to be her greatest asset. Mary would
promote the formation of consumer groups across the nation and encourage these
groups to report their grievances to her office.
Mary Rumsey's legacy to New Deal reforms would be continued by her younger
brother,
W. Averell Harriman. Averell was encouraged by his older sister to leave
his finance job and join her and their friends, the Roosevelts, to advance the
goals of the New Deal. Averell joined the NRA, marking the beginning of his
political career.
In 1910, Mary married sculptor and polo player
Charles Cary Rumsey (1879–1922), shortly after the death of her father on
September 9, 1909. Rumsey had been working at Arden House, creating one of the
principal fireplace surrounds, as well as other decorative sculpture. By all
accounts, the two had a happy marriage.[8]
Together they had a daughter and two sons.
- Charles Harriman Rumsey (1911–2007)
- Mary Averell Rumsey (b. 1913), who made her debut in 1932 at a party
with over 1,100 guests.[9]
- Bronson Harriman Rumsey (1917–1939), who died when the plane he was
riding in, along with Daniel S. Roosevelt (1917–1939) (the son of
Hall Roosevelt and nephew of
Eleanor Roosevelt), hit a mountain slope near
Guadalupe Victoria, Puebla,
Mexico.[10]
Charles was killed in a car accident in 1922.[11]
Mary died in 1934 as a result of a horse riding accident which occurred while
on a hunt near Middleburg, Virginia.[14]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Harriman_Rumsey