Alva Erskine Smith Van-Derbilt Belmont
Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt Belmont was a prominent American socialite and women's suffrage leader, born on January 12, 1853, in Mobile, Alabama. She was the daughter of Murray Forbes Smith, a cotton planter, and Phoebe Ann Smith, and after the Civil War, her family relocated to France for her education. In 1875, she married William Kissam Vanderbilt, a member of the famed Vanderbilt family, but their marriage ended in divorce in 1895. Following her second marriage to Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont in 1896, she devoted herself to the women’s suffrage movement, significantly using her wealth and influence to support various initiatives.
Belmont became an active participant in the suffrage movement, establishing her New York home as a hub for feminist gatherings and contributing to organizations like the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She was deeply involved in public speaking, writing articles for notable publications, and collaborating with suffragists in Europe. Belmont's leadership in the National Woman's Party, where she served as president until her death in 1933, highlighted her commitment to advancing women's rights. She passed away in Paris and was later buried in New York City, leaving behind a legacy intertwined with the history of women's suffrage in the United States.
Subject Terms
Alva Erskine Smith Van-Derbilt Belmont
- Alva Belmont
- Born: January 17, 1853
- Died: January 26. 1933
Woman’s suffrage leader, was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second daughter and third of five children of Murray Forbes Smith, a cotton planter and commission merchant who was originally from Virginia, and Phoebe Ann (Desha) Smith, the daughter of Robert Desha, a politican who had served in the Tennessee state legislature and in the United States Congress. After the Civil War the Smith family moved to France, where Alva Smith was enrolled in a series of private schools. In 1870 Phoebe Smith and her three daughters went to the United States, living in New York City.
On April 20, 1875 Alva Smith became the wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt in an Episcopal ceremony that was the social event of the season. Her husband was the grandson of the legendery Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the family fortune. The new Mrs. Vanderbilt set out on a campaign to persuade New York society, headed by Mrs. William As-tor, to accept the “newly moneyed” Vanderbilts. To achieve that objective they built a chateau on New York’s Fifth Avenue, a mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, and entertained lavishly.
The Vanderbilt’s marriage ended in divorce in March 1895; they had three children, Consuelo born in 1877, William Kissam in 1878, and Harold Stirlent in 1884. On January 11, 1896 she married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, son of August Belmont, a wealthy banker, in a civil ceremony conducted by Mayor William L. Strong of New York. After her husband died in 1908, Belmont turned her attention to women’s suffrage, committing the rest of her life and a large part of her personal fortune to the movement. Her homes in New York and Newport became meeting places for feminists. She rented an entire floor of a Fifth Avenue office building as organizational headquarters for the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1909, financed the activities of the national women’s press bureau, and founded and was first president of the Political Equality League. Belmont became an active public speaker and wrote numerous articles on the women’s movement that were published in Harper’s Bazaar, Forum, The Ladies’ Home Journal, and Collier’s. Her worked her to Europe, where she met the British militant suffragist, Christobel Pankhurst, and she arranged the latter’s lecture tour of America in 1914.
Shortly after its formation in 1913, Belmont joined the Congressional Union, a group whose aim was a suffrage amendment. She was a member of both its executive board and that of its successor, The National Woman’s Party in 1917, and she purchased a mansion in Washington, D.C., for its organizational headquarters. In addition, she made contributions to the Southern Woman Suffrage Conference, supported the Women’s Trade Union League, and supplied funds that kept Max Eastman’s radical magazine, The Masses, from closing. The National Women’s Party selected her as their president in 1921, an office she held until her death. Belmont also represented them at the International Woman Suffrage Alliance Convention held in Paris in 1926, and in 1930 she lobbied at the Hague Conference on the Codification of International Law for women’s rights.
During the last years of her life she lived abroad, primarily in France. Alva Belmont died in Paris at the age of eighty having suffered a paralytic stroke several months before. Her body was returned to the the United States, and she was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York City.
There is no full-length biograhy of Alva Belmont. Her life and career must be pieced together from scattered sources. The best modern account appears in Notable American Women (1977). For additional information see W. Andrews, The Vanderbilt Legend (1941); and C. V. Balson (a relative), The Glitter and the Gold (1952). Material on her suffrage activities can be found in I. H. Harper, ed., History of Woman Suffrage vols. 5 and 6 (1922; reprinted 1969); I. H. Irwin, The Story of the Woman’s Party (1921); E. Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States (rev. ed. 1975); and A. S. Kraditor Ideas of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement 1890-1920 (1965). Obituaries appeared in The New York Times, January 26 and 27, 1933.