RI Women’s History Series: Meet Alva Vanderbilt Belmont
Post by: Judi Zimmer
Incongruous though it sounds, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont (1853–1933) was both a prominent multi-millionaire socialite and a major supporter of women’s suffrage in the United States. Her summer ‘cottage’ in Newport, Marble House, stands today as does the ‘cottage’ she renovated after her second marriage to Oliver Belmont.
As a young married woman, she was obsessed with achieving a prominent place in New York society but in 1908, after she attended a lecture by suffragist Ida Husted Harper, she became interested in women’s suffrage.
In 1909, she founded the Political Equity League in New York City to support politicians who favored giving women the vote. She paid bail for striking picketers during the 1909–1910 shirtwaist makers strike and funded a suffrage rally at New York City’s Hippodrome.
She joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1909 and in 1912,as president of the Political Equity League, she led its division in New York City’s 1912 Women’s Vote parade.
At time when the suffrage movement was supported largely by white, middle-class women, some of Belmont’s efforts focused on African-American women and she gave them a ‘Negro branch’ in the Political Equity League.
In 1913, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU), led originally by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, separated from NAWSA. Belmont merged her Political Equity League with the CU. In 1914, she convened a Conference of Great Women at her Newport home, Marble House.
In 1916, along with Alice Paul, she established the National Woman’s Party and organized the first picket line supporting women’s suffrage in front of The White House in January of 1917.
The house that she purchased for the NWP in Washington DC still stands and in 2016, President Barack Obama designated it as the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument. Belmont died in Paris and at the time was still president of the NWP. At her funeral in New York City, all of her pallbearers were women.
About Judi Zimmer
Our monthly Rhode Island Women’s History Column is written by Judi Zimmer. Contact the RIDWC at RIDWomensCaucus [at] gmail [dot] com if you have suggestions for future columns about notable Rhode Island women, past and present.
The Rhode Island Democratic Women’s Caucus seeks to impact government and political processes in order to ensure equality in power, influence, and economic status for those who identify as and with women. We will do this by (a) recruiting and supporting candidates in all levels of government and (b) advocating for Democratic principles consistent with the Democration Party platform.
