Ruth Bryan Owen
| Ruth Bryan Owen | |
|---|---|
.jpg) |
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| United States Ambassador to Denmark | |
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In office 1933–1936 |
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| President | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | Frederick W. B. Coleman |
| Succeeded by | Alvin Mansfield Owsley |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 3rd district |
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In office March 4, 1929 – March 3, 1933 |
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| Preceded by | William J. Sears |
| Succeeded by | J. Mark Wilcox |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Ruth Baird Bryan October 2, 1885 Jacksonville, Illinois |
| Died | July 26, 1954 (aged 68) Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | William Leavitt (1903–1909) (divorce) Reginald Altham Owen (1910–1928) (his death) Borge Rohde (1936–1954) (her death) |
| Profession | Politician, Author |
Ruth Baird Bryan Leavitt Owen Rohde, best remembered as Ruth Bryan Owen, (October 2, 1885 – July 26, 1954) was a politician and the first woman appointed as a United States ambassador. The daughter of attorney William Jennings Bryan and Mary E. Baird, she was a Democrat, who in 1929 was elected as Florida’s (and the South's) first woman US Representative, coming from Florida’s 4th district. Representative Owen was also the first woman to earn a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
In 1933, she became the first woman to be appointed as a U.S. ambassador, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected her as Ambassador to Denmark and Iceland.
Ruth Bryan was born on October 2, 1885 in Jacksonville, Illinois to William Jennings Bryan and his wife Mary E. Baird. Ruth's father was an attorney and three-time presidential candidate. Growing up Ruth had to move several times depending on her father's work in politics. Ruth attended public schools in Washington, D.C and the Monticello Female Academy in Gofrey, Illinois. In 1901 she began to take classes at the University of Nebraska.
In 1903 Bryan dropped out of the University of Nebraska to marry William H. Leavitt, a well-known Newport, Rhode Island portrait painter. The couple met when he was painting Bryan's father's portrait. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1909.
Bryan married Reginald Owen, a British Army officer, in 1910, and had two more children with him. Her second husband died in 1928. She spent three years in Oracabessa, Jamaica, where she oversaw the design and construction of her home, Golden Clouds. It is now operated as a luxury villa. Owen kept her home in Jamaica for more than three decades and spent many winters there, particularly in later years when she lived in Denmark and New York City. She detailed her time in Jamaica and experiences at Golden Clouds in vivid detail in her book, Caribbean Caravel.
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