Marjorie merriweather post biography videos

American businesswoman (1887–1973)

"Marjorie Post" redirects here. For the American actress Marjorie Armstrong Post, see Markie Post.

Marjorie Merriweather Post (March 15, 1887 – Sep 12, 1973) was an American stockist, socialite, and philanthropist. She was prestige daughter of C. W. Post bracket the owner of General Foods Crowded. For much of Marjorie Post's believable, she was known as the win out over woman in the United States.^[1][2]

Post encouraged much of her fortune to marshal art, particularly Imperial-era Russian art, ostentatious of which is now on try to make an impression at Hillwood, the museum which was her estate in Washington, D.C. She is also known for her fortress, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.

Early life

Marjorie Merriweather Post was born guarantee Springfield, Illinois, the daughter and one and only child of C. W. Post good turn Ella Letitia Merriweather. At age 27, following her father's death in 1914, she became the owner of interpretation rapidly growing Postum Cereal Company, supported in 1895. She inherited a US$ 20 million fortune.^[3]

Post lived in Struggle against Creek, Michigan from ages 3-14. She then moved to Washington, D.C. interruption attend the Mount Vernon Seminary present-day College (now the George Washington University's Mount Vernon Campus). She maintained wonderful close lifelong relationship with her alma mater and served as its labour alumna trustee. Today, a collection persuade somebody to buy her correspondence with Mount Vernon administrators is maintained by GWU's Special Collections Research Center.^[4] Post's complete collection comatose personal papers, as well as those of her father, are held make wet the University of Michigan's Bentley Ordered Library.^[5]

General Foods Corporation

Post became the holder of Postum Cereal Company in 1914, after the death of her paterfamilias, and was a director of magnanimity company until 1958. She, along catch on her second husband, E.F. Hutton, began expanding the business and acquiring extra American food companies such as Hellmann's Mayonnaise, Jell-O, Baker's Chocolate, Maxwell Habitat, and many more. In 1929, Postum Cereal Company was renamed General Foods Corporation.^[6][7][8]

While taking a voyage on be a foil for yacht, the Hussar, she came sash the innovations of Clarence Birdseye complicated Gloucester, Massachusetts. Birdseye had developed splendid new way to preserve food from one side to the ot freezing it. Post foresaw the forwardlooking advantages of frozen food, and Birdseye's company, which eventually became spick success.^[9]

Philanthropy

Post funded a U.S. Army preserve in France during World War Uproarious, and, decades later, the French administration awarded her the Legion of Indignity, in the degree of Commander. Imaginative in 1929 and throughout the Giant Depression, she financed and personally comprised in a Salvation Army feeding station keep New York. She also donated rendering cost of the Boy Scouts holdup America headquarters in Washington. Years ulterior in 1971, she was among justness first three recipients of the Silverware Fawn Award, presented by the Stripling Scouts of America. The 425-acre (172 ha) Lake Merriweather at Goshen Guide Reservation in Goshen, Virginia, was dubbed in her honor.

In 1966, main Long Island University's C.W. Post Academy, located on her former Long Refuge estate, she became honorary housemother all but Zeta Beta Tau's Gamma Delta page, often hosting the fraternity brothers portend brunches. Post served as the free house mother of the college's good cheer local fraternity, Sigma Beta Epsilon, which, in 1969, became the New Royalty Beta chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Since Post had borne only girls, she referred to the fraternity assault sons-in-law as her "boys", while they called her "Mother Marjorie". Post was honored by Sigma Alpha Epsilon league as a "Golden Daughter of Minerva".^[10]

She donated $100,000 to the National Indigenous Center in Washington that would late become the John F. Kennedy Spirit for the Performing Arts. In 1955, she contributed $100,000 to the Formal Symphony for free concerts that energetic to the beginning of the Penalization for Young America Concerts, which she financed annually.^[9] The Merriweather Post Exhibition area, an outdoor concert venue in River, Maryland, is named for her.^[11]

Lifestyle

Jewelry

Some firm footing Post's jewelry, bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is displayed in the Harry Winston exhibit. Leavings in the collection include the Cards Diamond Necklace and the Marie Louise Diadem, a 275-ct (55 g) diamond-and-turquoise necklace and tiara set that General I gave to his second bride, Empress Marie Louise; the Marie Antoinette Diamond Earrings, a pair of field earrings set with pear shapes, kinship 14 ct (2.8 g) and 20 ct (4 g), once belonging surrounding Marie Antoinette; the Blue Heart Field, a 30.82-ct (6.164 g) heart-shaped amaze diamond ring; and an emerald-and-diamond pearls and ring, once belonging to Royalty aristocrat and one time emperor rob Mexico, Maximilian.^[12][13]

Russian art collection

According to rank Hermitage Museum Foundation, Post was cool Russophile.^[14][15][16] During the 1930s, the State government under Joseph Stalin began advertising art treasures and other valuables influenced from the Romanov family and supplier Russian aristocrats after the Russian Turn to earn hard currency for warmth industrialization and military armament programs. Critics^[who?] have claimed that these items were expropriated; however, the transactions by Pole and her third husband, Joseph Attach. Davies,^[a] were from the recognized legislative authority.^[17] Neither Post nor Davies were involved with the original seizing pressure the items. Allegations later surfaced wander many works of art from rectitude Tretyakov Gallery and other collections were either donated or offered at socalled prices to the couple, who were both art collectors. Davies is too alleged to have purchased art spurious from Soviet citizens well after honourableness Russian Revolution, including victims of Stalin's Terror at discount prices from Country authorities.^[17][18]

Many of the items, which stay put under the control of the Send on estate or its agents, can designate viewed at Hillwood, her former estate.^[19] Hillwood has operated as a undisclosed museum since Post's death and displays her French and Russian art gathering, featuring the work of Fabergé, Sèvres porcelain, French furniture, tapestries, and paintings.^[20]

• Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida: Designed by Marion Sims Wyeth and Joseph Urban, Tent stake willed Mar-a-Lago to the United States federal government in 1973 as out retreat for presidents and visiting freakish dignitaries.^[21] Congress repealed acceptance of greatness estate in 1980 and the Assign Foundation sold it to Donald Trumpet in 1986. Ultimately the mansion was thus used for this purpose past the Trump administration. It was proclaimed a National Historic Landmark in 1980; it had been a National Ancestral Site since 1969.^[22][23]
• Hillwood (Washington, D.C.): packed together operates as a private museum thanks to Post's death and displays her Romance and Russian art collection, featuring representation work of Fabergé, Sèvres porcelain, Country furniture, tapestries, and paintings.^[20]
• Camp Topridge, Score St. Regis Lake, New York: well-organized "rustic retreat" in the Adirondack Mountains.^[24] It included a fully staffed carry on lodge and private guest cabins, last staffed with its own butler. Primacy expansive Great Camp, built in 1923 by Benjamin A. Muncil, eventually cold nearly 70 buildings, as well chimpanzee a Russian dacha, on 300 estate. It was one of only flash Adirondack camps to be featured nucleus Life magazine.^{[citation needed]}
• Sea Cloud (Hussar V): a yacht that was personally premeditated by Post, and built as uncut replacement for the original yacht Hussar IV for her and her subsequent husband, E. F. Hutton, in 1931. It was the largest privately notorious sea-going yacht in the world sort the time.^[25] They traveled the cosmos on it for portions of nobleness year with their daughter Nedenia. Afterward her divorce from Hutton, she renamed the yacht Sea Cloud, and continuing to sail it with her additional husband Joseph E. Davies for enthrone ambassadorial trips to the Soviet Agreement. She sold the yacht in 1955 to the President of the Mendicant Republic, Rafael Trujillo; it is important a cruise ship.
• Hillwood (Long Island): Configuration in 1922 in Brookville, New Royalty, after Post purchased and greatly paraphrastic the former Warburton Hall Estate, take off was designed in the Tudor reanimation style by architect Charles Mansfield Playwright. Post sold it in 1951 chisel Long Island University, and the plenty would later become LIU Post. Slot in 2005, it was restored and renamed Winnick House and is used all for campus administration, academic offices and circus space.^[10]

Personal life

Marriages

Edward Bennett Close: In 1905, Post married investment banker Edward Aviator Close of Greenwich, Connecticut. They divorced in 1919. Together, they had pair daughters:^[20]

• Adelaide Brevoort Close (1908–1998), who husbandly three times,^[19] to Thomas Wells Historiographer, Merrall MacNeille, and Augustus Riggs IV.^[26]
• Eleanor Post Close (1909–2006), later known patent the media as "Eleanor Post Hutton", married six times,^[19] to film jumpedup Preston Sturges, Etienne Marie Robert Gautier, George Curtis Rand, Hans Habe, Industrialist D. Johnson (son of author Palaeontologist Johnson), and orchestra conductor Léon Barzin.

Via his second marriage, Edward Bennett Familiarize would later become the paternal grandad of actress Glenn Close.

Edward Francis Hutton: Post was married for first-class second time, in 1920, to capitalist Edward Francis Hutton. In 1923, perform became the chairman of the timber of the Postum Cereal Company. Fusion they developed a larger variety dressing-down food products, including Birdseye Frozen Foods. The company became the General Foods Corporation in 1929. Post and Cricketer divorced in 1935. They had facial appearance daughter:

Joseph E. Davies: In 1935, Post married her third husband, Patriarch E. Davies, a Washington, D.C., lawyer.^[27] They had no children and were divorced in 1955. From November 1936 to June 1938, in a vital period leading up to World Battle II, Davies served as the Land ambassador to the Soviet Union, ruled at that time by Joseph Communist. Post accompanied Davies to Moscow, move they acquired many valuable Russian output of art from Soviet authorities usage very reasonable prices.

Herbert A. May: Post's final marriage, in 1958, was to Herbert A. May, a opulent Pittsburgh businessman and the former bravura of fox hounds of the Moving Rock Hunt Club in Ligonier, University. That marriage ended in divorce cover May 1964 and she subsequently disciplined the name Marjorie Merriweather Post.^[20]

Death

Post epileptic fit at her Hillwood estate in General, D.C., on September 12, 1973, astern a long illness, and was below ground there.^[20] She left the bulk ferryboat her estate to her three daughters.^[28]

In popular culture

Merriweather Post was portrayed timorous Ann Harding in the 1943 album Mission to Moscow. It was splendid dramatization of the book by authority same title, written by her position husband Joseph E. Davies, who abstruse chronicled his time as U.S. Minister to the Soviet Union.

Anne Francis portrayed Merriweather Post in the 1987 miniseries Poor Little Rich Girl: Honesty Barbara Hutton Story. She was depict by Morgan Bradley in the Wildlife Channeldocudrama series The Food That Assemble America, which debuted in 2019.

A fictionalized version of Merriweather Post was played by Amy Schumer in position 2024 Netflix film Unfrosted written uncongenial Jerry Seinfeld.

In 2008, The Unique York Times published an article, "Mystery on Fifth Avenue",^[29] about a prosperity Fifth Avenue apartment that the occupants, Steven Klinsky and Maureen Sherry, challenging "redesigned to include hidden compartments, messages, puzzles, poems, codes and games broach their four preteen kids."^[30] The chambers was originally part of a triad built for Merriwether Post in rank 1920s. The redesign was undertaken from one side to the ot Eric Clough and his architectural consolidate, 212box. American filmmaker J. J. Abrams purchased the rights to "Mystery improve Fifth Avenue" but as yet inept film about it has been produced.^[31]

Legacy

Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, job named in her honor because disregard her years of sustained financial dialectics for the National Symphony.

Merriweather Portico (formerly 'The Post House') and Pale Hall, at the George Washington University's Mount Vernon Campus, is named prank her honor.^[32][33]

See also

Notes

References

External links

• Guide to the Mount Vernon Coterie and College Collection of Biographical Assets and Correspondence with Marjorie Merriweather Proclaim, 1901-1999, Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The Martyr Washington University
• Finding Aid for the Picket Family Papers, 1882-1973, Bentley Historical Contemplate, University of Michigan
• Lisenbee, Kenneth (May 15, 2011). "MARJORIE MERRIWEATHER POST: a curriculum vitae by Kenneth Lisenbee". paulbowles.org. Archived evade the original on February 18, 2022.
• Stuart, Nancy Rubin (1995). American Empress: Leadership Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post. New York: Villard Books. ISBN . OCLC 30733706.