Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family

Title

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family

Authors

Bernice Kert

Files

Description

Bernice Kert. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: the woman in the family

The author of Hemingway's Women , which offered new insights into the sources of that famously macho writer's creativity, once again illuminates the impact of a powerful female on American culture and society. Daughter of influential U.S. Senator Nelson Aldrich and wife of industrialist John D. Rockefeller Jr., Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874-1948) tactfully managed to fulfill her own interests and abilities while also satisfying the demands of a difficult husband who adored her and resented anything (including their children) that diverted her attention from him. A pioneering art collector, she was the driving force behind the founding of Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art and encouraged a new appreciation of American folk art through her gifts to Colonial Williamsburg, the 18th-century Virginia town restored with her husband's money. She also nudged the notoriously conservative Rockefeller family towards broader-based philanthropy and raised her six children--Babs, John 3rd, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop and David--with a commitment to public service that the siblings still honor. In this elegantly written, carefully researched and psychologically astute biography, Abby Rockefeller emerges as a loveable and intelligent woman who wielded her great privilege to a variety of socially beneficial ends.-- Publishers Weekly review

ISBN

039456975X

Publication Date

1993

Publisher

Random House

City

New York

Keywords

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, biography, Museum of Modern Art, art patrons

Comments

The Rockefeller University Library 3rd Floor Special Collections CT 275 R6821 K39 1993

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family

Share

COinS