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Mary Rockefeller. Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller (June 17, 1907 – April 21, 1999) was the first wife of Nelson A. Rockefeller, the 49th governor of New York and the 41st vice president of the United States. She served as the first lady of New York from 1959 until the Rockefellers' divorce in March 1962. After their divorce, Nelson ...
Apr 17, 1997 · Mary Billings French was born on May 1, 1910 to John French and Mary Montagu Billings French, daughter of Frederick Billings. In 1954, she assumed ownership of the Billings estate in Woodstock, Vermont, including the family mansion and 80 acres of surrounding grounds. Mary and Laurance Rockefeller were married in 1934, and together had four ...
Laurance Rockefeller, Mary Rockefeller, and Govenor Dean Daviss at the opening ceremony of the Woodstock Inn in 1969 . Billings Family Archives. Community Scale Conservation. Laurance held a deep affection for Woodstock, not only as his wife, Mary French Rockefeller's beloved home but as a community that shaped their lives. Despite the high ...
The Rockefeller family (/ ˈ r ɒ k ə f ɛ l ər / ROCK-ə-fell-ər) is an American industrial, political, and banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the American petroleum industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by brothers John D. Rockefeller and William A. Rockefeller Jr., primarily through Standard Oil (the predecessor of ...
- Early Life
- Marriage to John D. Rockefeller Jr.
- Death
- Patronage of Modern Art and Contributions to The Museum of Modern Art
- Patronage of Folk Art and Contributions to Abby Aldrich Museum of Folk Art
- Philanthropy
- See Also
- Further Reading
- External Links
Abigail Greene Aldrich was born in Providence, Rhode Island, as the fourth child to Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrichand Abigail Pearce Truman Chapman. The majority of her childhood was divided between Providence and Warwick Neck (in Rhode Island), and Washington, D.C. Owing to her father's prominence as a congressman, Rockefeller was introduced at a...
In late 1894, she met John Davison Rockefeller Jr., the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and schoolteacher Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman, at a friend's house in Providence. Their long courtship is documented in her engagement books, which were used to formally detail her meetings with potential suitors. In early 18...
Abby Rockefeller suffered a heart attack and died on April 5, 1948, at the Rockefeller family home at 740 Park Avenue in New York City, at the age of 73. She was cremated and her ashes were spread at a private burial place in Pocantico, New York. A memorial service was held for her at the Riverside Church. Her will was filed for probate on April 22...
Patron of Modern Art
Abby Rockefeller began collecting paintings, watercolors, and drawings by a number of contemporary American artists in 1925, as well as a number of European modernists: Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. She became a prominent patron of modern art. In 1928, she employed Donald Deskey to create a series of furnished rooms, done in the art deco style, for the Rockefeller home. These rooms were dubbed the Topside Gallery, and...
Co-Founder of Museum of Modern Art
Lillie P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan, and Rockefeller joined to conceptualize what is now known as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Quickly, they gathered the support of other prominent figures including: Anson Goodyear, Murray Crane, and Paul J. Sachs. The founding board consisted of seven members, with Goodyear as the president. The first quarters for the museum were rented at 730 Fifth Avenue in New York and Alfred H. Barr Jr.was appointed as the museum's first director. Since...
Patron of Folk Art
In 1929, Rockefeller became an early customer of the Downtown Gallery, run by art dealer, Edith Halpert. Halpert was selling 19th-century pictures and weathervanes that had been gathered from New England. The timing was perfect for Rockefeller because she and her husband has just began contributing to restoration works at what is now known as Colonial Williamsburg.Her years of collecting spanned from the late 1920s to 1942. Her collection included: paintings, weathervanes, shop signs, pottery...
Early Exhibitions of the Collection
In 1930 and 1931, the Newark Museum exhibited a collection of American folk art. Approximately 10 percent of these items were attributed to the same anonymous donor, in actuality the donor was Abby Rockefeller. In 1932, Rockefeller's collection was again loaned anonymously, this time to the Museum of Modern Art for an exhibition titled American Folk Art: The Art of the Common Man in America. Of the 175 objects on display, 174 of the objects belonged to Rockefeller, with the remaining single o...
Development of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum
In 1934, Rockefeller began to lend parts of her collection for permanent display in the Ludwell-Paradis House in Colonial Williamsburg. The exhibits were installed mostly under the guidance of Edith Halpert and opened to the public in 1935, remaining open until January 1956.Other pieces were hung in Colonial Williamsburg in neighboring exhibition buildings or operating taverns, blending in with the existing decor. In 1939, fifty-four pieces of the folk art collection were donated to the Museu...
Young Women's Christian Association
John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s wedding gift to Abby was a sum of money, which she promptly donated to the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) of Providence in Rhode Island. Later, she was active in the YWCA of New York. From 1918 to 1936 she held active service in the YWCA, though upon her retirement from leadership roles, she was considered an honorary member. She was a member of the YWCA's National Board, and served as the vice-president and chairman of numerous committees. Notably, in 19...
Good Fellowship Council
Via the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, the Good Fellowship Council was formed, inviting all people of the local neighborhood to join. The meetings aimed to open discussion on neighborhood problems including: traffic lights, sanitation, schools, and child welfare. Originally the club was organized for women, but later allowed men to join as well. Abby Rockefeller served as the chairman of the Good Fellowship Council and led monthly meetings while visiting a range of community sub-clubs. The meet...
Bayway Community Cottage
In October 1920, Rockefeller desired to create a demonstration structure for the employees of the Bayway Refinery of Standard Oil, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The structure was meant to be an example of a worker's home, though soon the purpose of the cottage extended to one of community learning. The cottage hosted cooking classes, a Mothers' Club, and a baby clinic. In 1926, the cottage was expanded to include a club-room, larger kitchen, larger baby clinic, gymnasium, and office for social wo...
Chase, Mary Ellen (January 1, 1966). Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. New York: Avon Books. OCLC 14866465.Fosdick, Raymond B. John D. Rockefeller Jr., A Portrait. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988.Kert, Bernice (January 1, 2003). Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: the woman in the family. New York: Random House Trade Paperback. ISBN 0812970446. OCLC 53837143."Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: Patron of the modern". Archived from the original on October 14, 2007. Retrieved January 30, 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. Frederick Billings’ granddaughter, Mary French, grew up spending summers on the estate. In 1934 she married Laurance Spelman Rockefeller, one of the five sons of John D. Rockefeller Jr. Together they cherished the Woodstock estate, and sustained it through the twentieth century.
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Apr 10, 2023 · Julia Billings and her daughters, Mary, Elizabeth, and Laura . Billings Family Archives. As Mary French Rockefeller began conversations with her husband Laurance about donating her family home to the National Park Service in the 1990s, initially she wanted to highlight the contributions of the women in her family to the legacy of their estate.
