Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
| Abby Aldrich Rockefeller | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Abigail Greene Aldrich October 26, 1874 Providence, Rhode Island |
| Died | April 5, 1948 (aged 73) New York City |
| Occupation | Philanthropist |
| Spouse(s) |
John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (m. 1901—1948; her death) |
| Children | |
| Parent(s) |
Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich Abigail Pearce Truman Chapman |
| Relatives |
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Abigail Greene "Abby" Aldrich Rockefeller (October 26, 1874 – April 5, 1948) was an American socialite and philanthropist. Through her marriage to financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr., she was a prominent member of the Rockefeller family. Referred to as the "woman in the family", she was known for being the driving force behind the establishment of the Museum of Modern Art, on 53rd Street in New York, in November 1929.
Abby was born in Providence, Rhode Island to Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich and Abigail Pearce Truman Chapman, a distant descendant of the fourth signer of the Mayflower Compact. She was a sister of Congressman Richard Steere Aldrich and banker/financier Winthrop Williams Aldrich.
Her early education came at the hands of Quaker governesses. In 1891, she enrolled at the Miss Abbott's School for Young Ladies in Providence, Rhode Island. While there she studied English composition and literature, French, German, art history and ancient history, gymnastics, and dancing. She graduated in 1893 and made her debut in November 1893. On June 30, 1894, she sailed for Liverpool, beginning a lifetime of extensive European and later Asian travel. The aesthetic education she gained from abroad, initially fostered by her father, helped to inform her future discernment as an art collector. This initial four-month sojourn included the countries of England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France.
In the fall of 1894 she met her future husband, John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (1874—1960), the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (1839—1937) and schoolteacher Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman (1839—1915), at a friend's house in Providence. They went through a protracted engagement, during which they were invited for a trip to Cuba in 1900, on President William McKinley Jr.'s yacht. They finally married on October 9, 1901, in the major society wedding of the Gilded Age, in front of around a thousand of the elite personages of the time, at her father's summer home in Warwick Neck, Kent County, Rhode Island.
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