MORGAN, Anne Tracy Morgan's War (c) By Polly Guerin

Dear Anne Tracy Morgan: Your name is synonymous with power and financial advantage but you were destined to become a woman determined to succeed beyond the boundaries of the social upper crust set. Born to privilege in 1873, you were the youngest of four children of John Pierpont Morgan, who had made an immense fortune in banking and whose bank (now JPMorgan Chase & Co.) is still a global financial services firm. Anne grew up in a wealthy household with servants and received a private education with most summers spent traveling abroad. She would discover, however, philanthropic ways to use her wealth that very few privileged women of her time would have considered. She became a dynamic leader in Anne Morgan’s War rallying up American women volunteers for relief work in France during and after World War I.
BROADENING VIEWS
As a youthful debutante Anne enjoyed the finer things in life but her life took an important departure in her 20s when she came under the influence of women from New York’s intellectual circles. In this arena of enlightenment Anne worked to address women’s social issues and focused attention on plight and needs of working women. She served as a volunteer factory inspector and established a clubroom in the Brooklyn Navy Yard so that workers could receive nutritious meals. In 1903, she became part owner of the Villa Trianon near Versailles, France, along with decorator/socialite Elsie de Wolfe and theatrical/literary agent Elisabeth Marbury. The Villa Trianon, abandoned by the French royal family after the Revolution of 1848 was the ideal setting to separate her from her domineering father and pursue her own interests.
ANNE MORGAN’S WAR
At the start of World War I, Anne was in France and she saw the terrible effects of war and was horrified by the carnage and wartime destruction. With an innate character of philanthropy Anne wanted to help the victims. She returned to the United States to collect food and clothing and relief packages to assist the devastated regions. She financed the work with her inheritance and with contributions from other Americans. Anne even persuaded Henry Ford to donate Model T ambulances. Setting such an example Anne was the leader and inspiration, and hundreds of American women left comfortable lives at home to volunteer in the devastated regions of France.
RALLYING VOLUNTEERS
Anne Morgan rallied potential volunteers and donors on speaking tours across the United States, and employed the power of documentary photography and silent film to foster a humanitarian response to the plight of French refugees. With haunting views of ruined French towns, decimated agricultural fields and livestock, public buildings, railways, bridges, schools and factories, portraits of refugees and pictures of American volunteers at work---these images tell a little known, but important story of American volunteerism during World War I. THE WOMEN’S ENCAMPMENT
Anne financed the Chemin des Dames, an encampment for women in the courtyard of the ruined seventeenth-century Chateau de Blerancourt, which served as the base of operations for the American Committee for Devastated France which she created with her friend, Anne Murray Dike. Anne Morgan with her commanding presence and social prominence took the lead in fund raising, while her colleague Anne Murray Dike, trained as a physician, organized activities in the field. The group established headquarters in Blerancourt, less than forty miles from the front living in barracks and working long hours. The American Committee provided vital services to revitalize life in a region considered by many to be beyond redemption. After the war, Anne donated the property to the town of Blerancourt, and founded a museum documenting the history of French-American cooperation.
REGOGNITION AND HONOR
When the Second World War again brought devastation to northeastern France, including Anne Morgan’s beloved Blerancourt, she took action again and formed the American Friends of France and the Comite Americain de Secours Civil, its French counterpart. Her generosity and benevolence did not go unnoticed. In 1932, Anne Morgan became the first American woman to become a commander of the French Legion of honor and the first woman to be honored with a marble plaque in the Court of Honor at the Hotel des Invalides, near Napoleon’s tomb in Paris. ANNE MORGAN’S WAR; REBUILDING DEVASTATED FRANCE 1917-1924 is on view at The Morgan Library & Museum 225 Madison Ave. through November 21, 2010. www.themorgan.org.

WOLFE, CATHARINE LORILLARD A Great Philanthropist By Polly Guerin

Portrait of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1876)
by Alexandre Cabanel

Dear Catharine: It is said that more women have backed the founding of museums then men and this truism certainly applies to you, a woman determined to succeed in promoting the role that museums could play in presenting art to the public. Your largesse as a great American philanthropist and art collector is legendary. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated in 1870 by a group of businessmen, you were the only woman among the 106 founders. Although you gave large amounts of money to other institutions your most significant gifts were two bequests to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, leaving your large collection of 140 paintings to the museum, along with an endowment for its maintenance.
THE WOLFE FUND
The bequest of Lorillard’s art collection gave the Metropolitan its first significant representation of the kinds of paintings that appealed to the general public. The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Wing displayed popular paintings including, Rosa Bonheur’s painting, “The Horse Fair” (1853). Other star attractions included Ludwig Knaus’s “Holy Family,” and Jules Breton’s “Procession of Pardon in Brittany.” The large crowds flocked to see “Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children, Georgette and Paul” painted by Auguste Renoir (1878), acquired by the Museum in 1907. INTEREST IN LIVING ARTISTS
While she was seriously expanding her own collection, Lorillard had a particular interest in living artists. A life-long supporter of Grace church, she also left a substantial bequest to be used for some form of “women’s work”. In 1896, a club bearing Catharine Lorillard Wolfe’s name was established by the Rector William Reed Huntington in New York, and Mrs. Newell, wife of the Rector of the Episcopal Church in Paris. The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club was founded with the mission to promote and advance the artwork of women. Today the mission is the same. Annual juried exhibitions to honor talented women artists are held at the National Arts Club in New York City.
CULTIVATING ARTISTIC INTEREST
From early life Catharine cultivated a fine and discriminating taste for art. Wolfe’s father John David Wolfe was a real-estate developer, who had given labor and money for the advancement of the New York Historical Society, and was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History, and its first president. Her mother Dorothea Anne Lorillard was partial inheritor of the Lorillard fortune and Catharine, who had inherited her father’s noble qualities, would continue their philanthropic activities. Catharine was an only child (1828-1887) and her fine mind was broadened by extensive travel in many countries.
EXTENSIVE BENEFICIARIES
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe was an outstanding supporter and always had a large number of beneficiaries including the Newsboy’s Lodging House and Industrial School (an outgrowth of Charles Loring Brace’s movement to help care of New York’s homeless children; she financed archaeological missions, including one that unearthed Nippur and she was also involved with the American Museum of Natural History, which her father had helped to found. She gave large amounts of money to institutions such as Grace Episcopal Church and Union College and her generosity attesting to her great philanthropy continued throughout her lifetime.
A LIFE WELL LIVED WITH ART AS ITS CORE, PHILANTHROPY, COMPASSION FOR LIVING ARTISTS, THE CATHARINE LORILLARD WOLFE ART CLUB CONTINUES THE TRADITION. WWW.CLWAC.ORG.