Marjorie Merriweather Post

• Born: March 15, 1887
• Birthplace: Springfield, Illinois
• Died: September 12, 1973
• Place of death: Washington, D.C.

American businesswoman and philanthropist

An heiress, socialite, and pioneer businesswoman, Post helped transform her father’s cereal company into General Foods Corporation, the leading frozen and prepared food company in the United States. She donated millions of dollars to various philanthropic causes, built luxurious estates that became landmarks, and bequeathed her unique art treasures to a public museum.

Sources of wealth: Inheritance; manufacturing; sale of products

Bequeathal of wealth: Children; relatives; educational institution; charity

Early Life

Marjorie Merriweather Post was born on March 15, 1887, in Springfield, Illinois. She was the only child of C. W. Post, a salesman, and Ella Letitia Merriweather. In 1891, the family moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where Charles was treated for a severe digestive ailment at the sanatorium managed by doctor John H. Kellogg, a facility that was famous for its dietary cures. Charles invented Postum, a coffee substitute made of bran, wheat berries, and molasses. In 1895, he launched the successful Postum Cereal Company, which manufactured Grape-Nuts, America’s most popular cereal. By 1909, he had made a $5 million fortune.

After attending public schools in Battle Creek, Marjorie attended the Mount Vernon Seminary in Washington, D.C., from 1901 to 1904. Outside the classroom, her father prepared her to inherit his company. She toured factories, attended board meetings, traveled to Europe, and learned marketing techniques.

First Ventures

In 1905, Post married her first husband, wealthy lawyer Edward Bennett Close. They settled in Greenwich, Connecticut, and had two children, Adelaide, born in 1908, and Eleanor, born in 1909. Post attended classes in art and architecture at a local private school. When Post’s mother Ella died in 1912, Post inherited her mother’s Postum stock. When her sick father committed suicide in 1914, the twenty-seven-year-old Post became the sole heir of the cereal company, worth $20 million, which was a huge fortune at the time. During World War I, Post made her first major philanthropic contribution. In 1917, she funded a Red Cross army hospital in Savenay, France, at a cost of $75,000.

Close became the cereal company’s director, and the couple eventually purchased the five-story Beaux-Arts Burden Mansion on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Post decorated her first showplace home with the advice of art dealer Joseph Duveen, who had helped develop the Old Masters collections of John D. Rockefeller, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. At Duveen’s suggestion, Post enrolled in courses about porcelain, furniture, and tapestries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She developed her lifelong love of collecting unique objects and furnishings. Post acquired exquisite pieces, including Sèvres porcelains, paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, Louis XVI furniture, Peter Paul Rubens’s Adoration of the Magi, Gobelin tapestries that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had given to Prince Henry of Prussia, and Beauvais tapestries designed by François Boucher.

Mature Wealth

Close and Post divorced in 1919, and Post married Wall Street financier E. F. Hutton in 1920. Their daughter, Nedenia Marjorie Hutton, born in 1923, later became the actor Dina Merrill. As Postum’s chairman of the board of directors, Hutton made the firm a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1922. Postum also acquired other food manufacturers, including Maxwell House Coffee, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, Jell-O, and Log Cabin Syrup. However, it was Post who realized the potential market for prepared foods and persuaded Postum to purchase Clarence Birdseye’s frozen food brand. Subsequently, in 1929, Postum became the powerful General Foods Corporation, the largest food firm in the country.

During the 1920’s, Post built famous homes, including the Hillwood mansion on 176 acres in Long Island; the 115-room Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida; and a 207-acre Adirondacks camp called Hutridge (later renamed Topridge). Post also designed a fourteen-story apartment building, with a fifty-four-room penthouse, in New York City. She owned the world’s largest private sailing yacht, Hussar V, later called the Sea Cloud.

To furnish her homes, she became an avid collector. Some of her treasures included a Louis XV jewelry coffer inset with Sèvres porcelain plaques, a Louis XVI commode by Jean-Henri Riesener, a unique rolltop desk by Abraham and David Roentgen, and eighteenth century French decorative furniture and gold boxes. While ostentatiously spending money, Post was also devoted to charity work. During the Depression, she funded Salvation Army and church soup kitchens in New York City. She also supported Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies.

After Post and Hutton divorced in 1935, Post joined the board of directors of the General Foods Corporation. In December, 1935, Post married attorney Joe Davies, who had chaired the Federal Trade Commission from 1915 to 1916. President Roosevelt appointed Davies ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1936. While in the Soviet Union, the couple was able to acquire Russian imperial art treasures at discount or nominal prices. Post’s collection of Fabergé jewelry, Russian Orthodox icons, porcelain, gold chalices, jeweled ornaments, and other items would become the most comprehensive collection of its kind outside Russia.

In 1955, Davies and Post divorced. Davies kept their Washington, D.C., home, so Post bought a twenty-five-acre Washington estate, Hillwood, which she intended to become a museum. Hillwood would house her Russian imperial art collection, as well as her famous collection of eighteenth century French decorative art and furnishings.

In 1958, Post married Pittsburgh businessman Herbert Arthur May. That year she also retired from the General Foods board of directors. In the early 1960’s, Post donated $100,000 to help build the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Post and May were divorced in 1964. Through the years, Post was a major benefactor of the National Symphony Orchestra. In 1967, at her eightieth birthday celebration at Constitution Hall, the symphony performed in her honor.

In 1971, Post’s health began to deteriorate, and she started to suffer from a series of strokes. By August, 1972, she had severe memory loss and was soon confined to a wheelchair. She died of cardiac failure on September 12, 1973.

In her will, Post left $117 million to her family, with the remaining assets divided among her daughters. The will provided endowments of $100,000 each to the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University, the National Symphony, the American Red Cross, and Mount Vernon College. Smaller amounts were bequeathed to various relatives, business associates, servants, and others. Post also left trust funds to maintain Hillwood and Mar-a-Lago. Hillwood eventually became a significant public art collector’s museum called Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardens. She donated Mar-a-Lago to the United States federal government to use as a diplomatic and presidential retreat.

Legacy

With a net worth of $250 million (or $1 billion in 2008 dollars), Marjorie Merriweather Post was the wealthiest woman in America. An independent thinker with a sharp business sense, she helped create the powerful General Foods Corporation and was one of the first women to be a director of a major company.

Considered America’s version of royalty, Post was like an empress living the American dream of wealth with luxurious homes, expensive jewelry, unique furniture, extravagant parties, and powerful friends. At the same time, Post was a dedicated philanthropist. She donated millions of dollars to charities, such as the Boy Scouts of America, the National Symphony, C. W. Post Campus at Long Island University, and soup kitchens in New York City. Many of her lavish homes have become landmarks, and she left estates to benefit the government and to serve as public museums.

Bibliography

Major, Nettie Leitch. C. W. Post: The Hour and the Man, a Biography with Genealogical Supplement. Washington, D.C.: Press of Judd & Detweiler, 1963. Also published online, this biography of Post’s father includes a chapter about Post. With illustrations and index.

Odom, Anne, and Liana Paredes Arend. A Taste for Splendor: Russian Imperial and European Treasures from the Hillwood Museum. Alexandria, Va.: Art Services International, 1998. Written by museum staff, this work showcases 250 art objects from Post’s Hillwood estate. Includes numerous color plates and black-and-white illustrations, bibliography, and index.

Post, Marjorie Merriweather, and Marvin C. Ross. Russian Porcelains; The Gardner, Iusupov, Batenin . . . and Kuznetsov Factories. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968. Coauthored by Post, this history of Russian porcelain factories describes Post’s Hillwood collection. Includes bibliography and numerous full-color and monochrome plates.

Stuart, Nancy Rubin. American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post. Lincoln, Neb.: IUniverse, 2004. This readable biography describes Post’s business acumen, philanthropy, extravagance, and beauty. With illustrations, bibliography, and index.

Trump, Donald J. Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Chapter 29 tells the history of Post’s Mar-a-Lago estate and how Trump restored it. Illustrations and index.

Wright, William. Heiress: The Rich Life of Marjorie Merriweather Post. Washington, D.C.: New Republic Books, 1978. A detailed biography based on family scrapbooks, diaries, letters, and recollections of events. Includes index and family photographs spanning a century.