Aileen Osborn Webb
| Aileen Osborn Webb | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1892 Garrison, New York |
| Died | August 15, 1979 |
| Occupation | Arts patron |
| Known for | Founding the American Craftsmen's Educational Council (now the American Craft Council) |
| Spouse(s) | Vanderbilt Webb |
Aileen Osborn Webb (1892–1979) was an American patron of crafts. She was a founder of the organisation now known as the American Craft Council, which gives an annual award named for her.
Aileen Osborn Webb was born in 1892 in Garrison, New York, to William Church Osborn, an art collector who later donated his art pieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and active member of the Democratic Party, and Alice Clinton Hoadley Dodge, a philanthropist, social reformer and daughter of William E. Dodge, Jr.. She was educated at Miss Chapin's School in New York City and then in Paris, where she learned to speak French.
At the age of 20, Aileen married Vanderbilt Webb, son of Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt Webb, grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt and great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. The couple got married on Saturday, September 10, 1912, in Garrison, New York. They had three boys and one girl: Derrick, William, Richard, and Barbara.
Mrs. Vanderbilt Webb had deep knowledge of art and education. The men in Aileen Osborn Webb’s family had a lot of influence on her. They set the bar extremely high with humanitarian and civil contribution; their lives were “full of good works”. Her Father, William Church Osborne, was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her paternal great-grandfather, Jonathan Sturges, her maternal great-grandfather William Earl Dodge, Sr. and her paternal grandfather, William Henry Osborn, were all superior art patrons of the Hudson River School and were associated with Frederick Edwin Church— William Osborn was a close fellow of the artist. Moreover, her father-in-law, commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, had founded Vanderbilt University. The money that the Osborn men had made allowed the Osborn women to create a philanthropic base, which future women would then form. Not only men, but also the women in Aileen Osborn’s childhood gave her a motivational model of the Gilded Age philanthropy and consistently state that her work was the biggest supporter to the country’s crafts. Alice Dodge’s philanthropic accomplishments were a big part of Aileen’s memories as a girl. Aileen’s mother was also a well-known supporter of the Bellevue School of Nursing. Her mother-in-law, Mrs. William H. Osborn, who worked as the School’s first president in 1873, inspired Alice. Alice Osborn later took her mother-in-law’s place as president of the School. Another woman who inspired Aileen was her maternal aunt, Mary Melissa Hoadley(“Aunt May”), the unmarried heir to the copper fortune who supported Aileen Osborn financially to develop her crafts domain.
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