Alva Vanderbilt Belmont

Alva Erskine Belmont (née Smith; January 17, 1853 – January 26, 1933), known as Alva Vanderbilt from 1875 to 1896, was an American multi-millionaire socialite and women's suffrage activist. She was noted for her energy, intelligence, strong opinions, and willingness to challenge convention.

In 1909, she founded the Political Equality Association to get votes for suffrage-supporting New York State politicians, wrote articles for newspapers, and joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She later formed her own Political Equality Association to seek broad support for suffrage in neighborhoods throughout New York City, and, as its president, led its division of New York City's 1912 Women's Votes Parade. In 1916, she was one of the founders of the National Woman's Party (NWP) and organized the first picketing ever to take place before the White House, in January 1917. She was elected president of the NWP, an office she held until her death.

She was married twice, to socially prominent New York City millionaires William Kissam Vanderbilt, with whom she had three children, and Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont. Alva was known for her many building projects, including the Petit Chateau in New York; the Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island; the Belmont House in New York; Brookholt in Long Island; and Beacon Towers in Sands Point, New York.

On "Equal Pay Day," April 12, 2016, Belmont was honored when President Barack Obama established the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument in Washington, D.C., named for Alva Belmont and Alice Paul.

Early life

Alva Erskine Smith was born on January 17, 1853, at 201 Government Street in Mobile, Alabama, to Murray Forbes Smith, a commission merchant, and Phoebe Ann Desha. Smith was the son of George Smith and Delia Forbes of Dumfries, Virginia. Phoebe Desha was the daughter of US Representative Robert Desha and Eleanor Shelby, both originally from Sumner County, Tennessee. The Smith family were wealthy slaveholders.

Alva was one of seven children. Her sister Alice died as a child before she was born. Her brother, Murray Forbes Smith Jr. died in 1857 and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile. Four other siblings, Desha Smith, Armide Vogel Smith, Julia Florence Smith, and Mary Virginia "Jennie" Smith, survived into adulthood. Jennie first married Fernando Yznaga, the brother of Alva's childhood best friend, Consuelo Yznaga, Duchess of Manchester. Following a divorce from Fernando in 1886, Jennie remarried, to William George Tiffany.

As a child, Alva summered with her parents in Newport, Rhode Island, and accompanied them on European vacations. In 1859, the Smiths left Mobile and relocated to New York City, where they briefly settled in Madison Square. When Murray went to Liverpool, England, to conduct his business, Alva's mother, Phoebe Smith, moved to Paris, where Alva attended a private boarding school in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Following the Civil War, the Smith family returned to New York, where Phoebe died in 1871. The family had financial trouble at this point, accentuated by the expectation that the four daughters needed to marry.

Personal life

At a party for one of William Henry Vanderbilt's daughters, Smith's best friend, Consuelo Yznaga introduced her to William Kissam Vanderbilt, grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. On April 20, 1875, William and Alva were married at Calvary Church in New York City. Alva married William for money: she described it as her attempt to help her family avoid bankruptcy, but others gossiped that she did it for her own wealth and status.

The couple had three children:

Consuelo Vanderbilt (March 2, 1877 – December 6, 1964)

William Kissam Vanderbilt II (October 26, 1878 – January 8, 1944)

Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (July 6, 1884 – July 4, 1970)

Alva maneuvered Consuelo into marrying Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, on November 6, 1895. The marriage was annulled much later, at the Duke's request and with Consuelo's assent, in May 1921. The annulment was fully supported by Alva, who testified that she had forced Consuelo into the marriage. By this time, Consuelo and her mother enjoyed a closer, easier relationship. Consuelo then married Jacques Balsan, a French aeronautics pioneer. William Kissam II became president of the New York Central Railroad Company on his father's death in 1920. Harold Stirling graduated from Harvard Law School in 1910, then joined his father at the New York Central Railroad Company. He remained the only active representative of the Vanderbilt family in the New York Central Railroad after his brother's death, serving as a director and member of the executive committee until 1954.

Rise in society

Balls and dances, the Fifth Avenue chateau

Determined to bring the Vanderbilt family the social status that she felt it deserved, Vanderbilt christened the Fifth Avenue chateau–situated at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 57th through 58th Street, occupying an entire city block—in March 1883 with a costume ball for 1000 guests. "The New York World speculated that Alva's party cost [at least] more than a quarter of a million dollars, more than $5 million in today's dollars," wrote Roark et al. in 2020.

An oft-repeated story tells that Vanderbilt felt she had been snubbed by Caroline Astor, queen of "The 400" elite of New York society, so she purposely neglected to send an invitation to her housewarming ball, a dress ball of about 750 guests, to Astor's popular daughter, Carrie. Supposedly, this forced Astor to come calling, in order to secure an invitation to the ball for her daughter.

Astor did, in fact, pay a social call on Vanderbilt, and she and her daughter were guests at the ball, effectively bestowing on the Vanderbilt family society's official acceptance. Vanderbilt and Astor were observed at the ball in animated conversation. "We have no right to exclude those whom this great country has brought forward," Astor conceded, "The time has come for the Vanderbilts."

Triumphant, Alva dressed as a Venetian noble to the ball, but her sister-in-law Alice outdid her, in a costume highlighting a then brand-new invention: the electric light. Her white satin evening dress, since named the Electric Light dress, was wired for electric current, studded with glass beads in a lightning-bolt pattern, and caused a stir in the press.

The ball served as a catalyst to raise the bar on society entertainments in New York to heights of extravagance and expense that had not been previously seen.

Yachts, opera, "cottages"

Unable to get an opera box at the Academy of Music, whose directors were loath to admit members of newly wealthy families into their circle, she was among those people instrumental in 1883 in founding the Metropolitan Opera, then based at the Metropolitan Opera House. The Metropolitan Opera long outlasted the academy and continues to the present day.

In 1886, after her husband inherited $65 million from his father's estate, Alva set her sights on owning a yacht. William commissioned Harlan and Hollingsworth of Wilmington, Delaware to build the Alva at a cost of $500,000. While J.P. Morgan's yacht Corsair was 165 feet long, Mrs. Astor's Nourmahal (named after a Punjabi chateau famous at the time) measured 233 feet, and Alva's departed father-in-law's North Star was 270 feet, Alva and William's new yacht was the largest private yacht in the world at 285 feet long. The Vanderbilts subsequently toured the Caribbean and Europe on the Alva in the highest fashion.

This being done, Alva then wanted a "summer cottage" in fashionable Newport, Rhode Island. William commissioned Richard Morris Hunt again, and the elaborate Marble House was built next door to Mrs. Astor's Beechwood. In 1917 Alva commissioned Beacon Towers, which apparently was a source of inspiration to F. Scott Fitzgerald for his book The Great Gatsby. Alva's ostentatious displays of wealth helped to fuel American public interest in the lives of the rich and powerful, and, coupled with the opulent and decadent lifestyles by America's rich and their apparent disregard for the wellbeing of the working class, helped to also fuel fears that America had become a plutocracy.