William H. Leavitt

William Homer Leavitt (April 23, 1868 – August 8, 1951) was an American portrait painter who married the daughter of politician William Jennings Bryan. For a time, Leavitt was a sought-after society portraitist, until he departed for Paris to pursue his art. He was subsequently divorced by his wife, and his two children were raised by their politician grandfather. Leavitt's two children became the subject of a heated custody battle chronicled in the newspapers of the day.

William Homer Leavitt was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, to Aaron Littlefield Leavitt and his wife Sarah (Clark) Leavitt. The family subsequently removed in 1880 to Newport, Rhode Island, where William Homer Leavitt, having studied art in Paris, returned and set himself up as a society portrait painter. He was much in demand, and among the many well-known figures he painted was United States General Joseph Wheeler, who after the portrait session lent Leavitt his black horse, Alabama. The horse bucked and threw Leavitt onto Newport's Bellevue Avenue. Initially Leavitt was not expected to recover, although he did later make a full recovery.

Two years later Leavitt's career had taken off, causing The New York Times to note that "artist Leavitt has won distinction in his work and has a host of friends in intellectual circles." That same year, 1903, Leavitt went west to Lincoln, Nebraska, to paint the portrait of attorney and Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. The portrait sessions were repeatedly interrupted by demands on Bryan, and the 32-year-old artist and the politician's 18-year-old daughter Ruth Bryan struck up a friendship. On September 17, 1903, the couple announced their plans to marry the next month, meaning the politician's daughter would leave her freshly started career at the University of Nebraska. In announcing the marriage, The New York Times noted that "Preparations [Were] Under Way to Make It an Elaborate Society Event."

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