Peacock, Virginia Tatnal. Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century. K. B. Lippincott Company. 1901.
Theodosia Burr was, as has been said of the daughter of another eminent statesman with whom Aaron Burr was closely identified, “the soul of her father’s soul.” If we would know the better part of a man who was one of the most remarkable characters of his age, we must know Theodosia, through whom, perhaps, […]
One of those extraordinary women which the world from time to time produces, who rise to eminence solely through the force of their own personality, was born in America as the nineteenth century was rounding out its first quarter. Known all her life throughout the entire country, she was one of the most conspicuous figures
Into a world in which so many are born strangers, some later to know it in part and others destined to remain forever out of touch with life, and lonely-spectators rather than a part of it, Octavia Walton came as unto her own. Every atom of her being was in absolute accord with the universe.
The women who, both at home and abroad, are regarded as the leaders of American society in these last days of the century are or have been, almost without exception, at some time in their career identified with New York. Though there is no city in the United States that fills the central position which
Among the members of the graduating class at Mary Institute, St. Louis, in the year 1873, was a young girl who, in addition to the bright mind and intellectual ambition she had already manifested, was endowed with so extraordinary a physical beauty and so lovable a character that much of the brilliancy of her life
In the vicinity of one of Richmond’s fashionable schools there was often seen on winter afternoons, in the late sixties, a group of young girls, who possessed far more than the usual attractiveness that belongs ever to health and youth. Two, at least, Lizzie Cabell and Mary Triplett, were singularly beautiful. The third, a tall,
For the second time within the century an American woman has risen to viceregal honors. Mary Caton, the granddaughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and the widow of Robert Patterson, of Baltimore, through her marriage, in 1825, to the Marquis of Wellesley, who was at the time Viceroy of Ireland, went to reign a queen
Mary Victoria Leiter, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston Read More »
To the student of social history few careers surpass in interest that of Margaret O’Neill. Born of humble parentage, she ran the gamut of social possibilities, exercising more influence over the political destinies of her country than any other American woman has ever done. Unlike other great belles who owe their fame to the universal
Marcia Burns! What memories the quaint Scotch lassie’s name calls up! The city of Washington disappears and its site spreads before us in flourishing farm lands and orchards. Scattered farm houses raise their chimneys amid primeval oaks and elms, and from the low doorway of the humblest emerges the winsome form of Marcia Burns. Six
There was a name in America a little more than a generation ago that possessed a power amounting almost to enchantment, the name of Kate Chase, a woman who holds a unique place in both the political and social history of this century. The story of her life, between the high lights of its early
In the year 1868 the city of St. Louis erected a monument to the memory of one of her most distinguished citizens, Thomas Hart Benton. Of the forty thousand people who thronged the park on that May afternoon set aside for its unveiling, but one was of the great man’s blood, the daughter most closely
Emily Marshall (Mrs. William Foster Otis). From portrait painted by Chester Harding in 1830; owned by her daughter, Mrs. Samuel Eliot, of Boston, by whose permission it is here reproduced for the first time in colors. Marcia Burns (Mrs. John Peter Van Ness). From miniature by James Peale, painted in 1797; owned by the Corcoran
Of the men who have filled the Presidential chair of the United States, about none as about James Buchanan has romance hung that halo which in his case tends but to throw into bolder relief the substantial side of his character. Men of more dash, of more picturesque individuality have filled that high office than
The loveliness of Virginia women has been a theme of song and verse. Among the Richmond belles of sixty years ago none were more justly celebrated than that trio known as the Richmond Graces, Sally Chevalier, Fanny Taylor, and Sally Watson. Close companions from early childhood, their unusual beauty as they grew to womanhood brought
Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century provides 19 biographies of some of the leading ladies in the 18th and 19th century who resided in the US. These 19 biographies portray ladies who were considered by the author to be women of preeminent beauty, dazzling wit, and powerful magnetism.
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Boston claims as her own the greatest American man of the nineteenth century, and even with more justice, the most beautiful woman born in America within the same period. “Emily Marshall as completely filled the ideal of the lovely and feminine, as did Webster the ideal of the intellectual and the masculine,” Quincy, a native
Every Philadelphia girl who has hoped to be a belle during this last quarter of the century, and even many who have been without social aspirations, have been brought up on traditions of Emilie Schaumburg. Yet so eminent was the place she held in the old city whose standard of belleship had been fixed far
The city into which Baltimore Town was legislated on the last day of the year 1796 already fostered within its limits the germ of the dual life, social and commercial, to which it has owed its subsequent eminence. Not infrequently, in the days of its inception, the same roof sheltered drawing-room and warehouse, the earlier
Among the belles of the early century loom the forms of those gracious women whose names are interwoven with those of the most historic figures of their age, the Caton sisters of Baltimore. Granddaughters of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one of the most illustrious Americans of the period, they became through marriage identified with the
During the four years that Franklin Pierce presided over the nation so many beautiful women came prominently before the public at the capital that his was called the “beauty administration.” Many were the wives and daughters of men in high official position, but the fame of none exceeded that of the daughter of James Madison
