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Early Life (with Citation Notes)

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's father was Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, the senator of Rhode Island. Her early education was dictated by a Quaker governess, who taught in the topics of American history, English grammar, arithmetic, and the German language.(3-5)

Abby had five brothers (Ned, Stuart, Richard, and Winthrop) and two sisters (Elsie and Lucy).)(4)

Owing to her father's status as a senator, and one of the "Big Four" major Republicans at the time, who dictated many senatorial duties, Rockefeller was exposed to the social circles of influential politicians at a young age. Amongst the many influential figures that she met at a young age through her father are: Senators Allison, Hale, Frye, General Burnside, William McKinley, Mary Lee (the daughter of General Robert E. Lee), and Elizabeth Custer (the widow of George Armstrong Custer).(5-7)

Her more formal education began at Miss Abbott's school in Providence, Rhode Island. There she was exposed to a multitude of literature including Shakespeare and Chaucer.(8)

At the age of 19, Abby greatly enjoyed her coming-out party, sparking a lifelong love of social events. Even in her older years, she wrote to her son confessing that she would have a party everyday if she could. Following her coming-out party, Abby attracted the attention of many local youth who were interested in asking for her hand in marriage as is documented in great detail in her engagement books.(9-12)

Abby's father Nelson Aldrich was a tremendous influence in stoking the interest of his children in the realm of art and literature. The senior Aldrich himself was a collector of art and in 1894 sent Abby along with her sister Lucy and their local friends on a trip to Europe. This trip was followed by subsequent trips with other family members that always featured stops at prominent galleries in London, Paris, Munich, Florence, and Antwerp.(13-14)

She had a particular fondness for hats which is detailed at length in her personal correspondences. (47-48)

Abby Rockefeller in 1900.

Marriage to John D. Rockefeller Jr. (With Citation Notes)

In the Spring of 1985, Abby began to go on walks with John D. Rockefeller on Sunday afternoons. Abby and John met at a dance during his sophomore year at Brown University. Abby and John's relationship progressed further when in the summer of 1896 found their families on the same cruise ship from Hamburg to the North Cape. It is notable that this trip is where they began to forgo the formalities of the courtship process and started to call each other by their first names. As John reached the end of his college education, his involvement with Abby and her family increased and they had many outings together including: going to church, bicycling, picnicking, and attending the opera amongst many other activities. In late August of 1901, John and Abby were engaged and on October 9, 1901 they were wed at the Aldrich family home on Warwick Neck.(17-21, 24-25)

Following her marriage to Rockefeller, Abby assumed managerial roles of the many Rockefeller family residences. Their six children were born between the years from 1903 to 1915. One daughter and five sons. (34-37,38)

Death and Legacy (With Citation Notes)

Abby Rockefeller suffered a heart attack and died on April 5, 1948, at the family home at 740 Park Avenue in New York City, at the age of 73.(471-472)

She was cremated and her ashes were spread on June 20, 1948 at a private burial place in Pocantico, New York.(471-472)

A memorial service was held for her on May 23, 1948 at the Riverside Church.(471-472)

Her will was filed for probate on April 22, 1948. Her gross estate was appraised at $1,156,269. She bequeathed four major works to the MoMA: Lady With a Parasol and Seated Woman, both by George Seurat. Street at Saintes-Maries and Corridor at Saint-Remy by Van Gogh. She left her Oriental miniatures to the Fogg Museum. Her residuary estate of $850,848, minus estate taxes of $250,000 was given to the Museum of Modern Art.(471-472)

A number of dedications were made to her after her death. One was the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Print Room at the MoMA, which was opened on May 15, 1949 with her gift of sixteen hundred prints. The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center was opened in 1957 in Colonial Williamsburg to house her collection of folk art that had largely been exhibited in Williamsburg previously.(471-472)

A number prominent figures paid homage to Rockefeller after her death including a tribute in the New York Times. Most notably, was a contribution by artist Henri Matisse to the design of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center. At eighty-four years old, the then bed ridden Matisse, was asked to design a stained glass window for the museum. On May 11, 1954, he regretfully refused the commission because his deteriorating health would prevent him from visiting and studying the location. After Alfred Rockefeller sent him a series of photographs of the location, on August 23, Matisse changed his mind and began to work on the project in earnest. On November 1, he wrote that he had happily completed the work, and he died two days later.(476-477)

Philanthropy

YWCA

John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave Abby a wedding gift of a not insignificant amount of money to spend at her discretion. Abby gave it to the Young Women's Christian Association of Providence in Rhode Island. (26, 106) She would rather be very intimately connected with the YWCA of New York.)

She was a member of the YWCA's National Board, as the vice-president and chairman of several committees, including the World Service Council. She was very interested in the Inter-racial Council.(107)

During 1918 to 1936 she held active service in the YWCA, when she retired from office on the National Board, though she continued as an honorary member.(107)

From 1918, Rockefeller was the chairman of the Housing Committee of the War Work Council of the YWCA. The committee was organized in WWI to provided, (via government cooperation) better living conditions for women working in various industries. She worked very closely with the architect who designed a house in Charleston South Carolina for women working in a naval uniform factory. She was concerned with every detail of the architectural plan and contributed heavily.(110)

Rockefeller controlled a lot of decisions involved with the Grace Doge Hotel, which was built and operated by the YWCA in October 1921 in Washington for business and professional women, as well as transients(110-111). Rockefeller appointed its director, studied its financial reports, and judged its advertisements. She carefully monitored the ambiance of the hotel and had an inscrutable finger on the pulse of the needs of the female residents of the hotel. She even allowed smoking in the hotel to the chagrin of various Temperance agencies She even received monthly reports from each of the departments of the hotel(112).

Rockefeller was particularly against racial prejudice and saw art as a way to teach people to forgo their prejudices.(78) She objected to racial discrimination in wages, status, and living quarters in the management of the Grace Doge Hotel(112)

Contributions to Veterans

Rockefeller provided benches and radio-phonographs to army recreation halls (95)

It was Rockefeller's idea to create the new Veterans' Center at the Museum of Modern Art.(98) The War Veterans' Art Center had the goal of rebuilding, through practicing/teaching art, the minds of disabled men and encouraging personal expression is a means of combating trauma. (143-144). Stephen Clark was her co-sponsor. Kenneth Chorley was chairman of the committee. Victor D'Amico was the supervisor of activities.(144). The center served 1485 veterans in its years of being open.(146). The program ended in June 1948, in the effort to rejoin veteran artists with all artist at the new People's Art Center at the museum (147)

Rockefeller was very concerned with adhering to ration requirements during World War II. (90)

Good Fellowship Council

Via the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, a Good Fellowship Council was formed that invited persons of all nationalities within the neighborhood to join. It started as an organization for women but then allowed men to join as well.(114)

Within this group many smaller groups were created including: Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Irish, Lenox Hill Hungarian Club, Neighborhood Civic Club of the Czechs, the Italian Welfare Club, the United Community House on East 63rd Street.(114)

She was the chairman of the club and led monthly meetings and visited the diverse range of community sub-clubs. The meetings were attended by 300 to 400 people and held open discussions on neighborhood problems.(114-115)

This included getting traffic lights, improving sanitation, housing, schools, the welfare of children, and other matters of neighborhood interest (115)

The meetings also had many guest speakers including: the President of the American Federation of Labor, doctors specializing in child care, authorities who were experts in immigration law, and architects who provided tips for the management of shops. Dr. Lorado Taft of Chicago, Dr. George Vincent, President Mary Woolley of Mt. Holyoke College. There were a number of musical performances given by locals in native or traditional languages and forms of dress.(115)

Bayway Community Cottage

She championed the creation of a "model workman's home" in October 1920. Originally meant as a model, the Bayway community soon rallied over the house as a center of community learning. The cottage hosted cooking classes, women of Bayway wanted a Mothers' Club, the need of a baby clinic was raised. Rockefeller herself attended meetings of the Mother's Club and contributed her own advice and shared her personal feelings. In 1926, a Community House was built adjoining the original cottage, housing a club-room, larger kitchen, larger baby clinic, and gymnasium. There was also an office for social workers. In 1939, another addition added a bowling alley and other game rooms. In 1947, 9700 people made use of the community house in some way. (121-122)

International House

She was chairman of the first International Houses' Furnishing Committee. She strove to add American flourishes the the interior of the building and drew upon the familiar imagery of her childhood in the decorations. For nearly 25 years she was a regular visitor to the International house. Often on Christmas, her and her husband would host a party for the inhabitants of the International House. (116-117)

Racial Equality

Rockefeller created a school and community center in Williamsburg with the aim of serving the minority African American population.(150-151).

Patronage modern art and contributions of Museum of Modern Art (With Citation Notes)

Personal Collection of Modern Art

Abby Rockefeller began collecting paintings, watercolors, and drawings by a number of contemporary American artists in 1925, as well as a number of European modernists including: Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

In 1928, she employed Donald Deskey to create a series of furnished rooms, done in the art deco style, for the Rockefeller home. These rooms were dubbed the Topside Gallery, and served as a display area for Rockefeller's growing art collection. The art in the room was regularly cycled in curated exhibitions of her modern and folk art collections. Visitors to the gallery would ride an elevator to the 7th floor of the Rockefeller home, to keep the private areas sheltered for the rest of the family. The news of her interests and activities spread quickly from this period, and many subsequent collectors began to follow her lead.

Contributions to the Museum of Modern Art

Lillie P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan, and Rockefeller joined together to conceptualize what is now known as the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. Quickly they gathered the support of other prominent figures including: Anson Goodyear, Murray Crane, and Paul J. Sachs. The founding board consisted of seven members, with Goodyear as the president.(132-133). The first quarters for the museum were rented at 730 Fifth Avenue in New York. Alfred H. Barr Jr. was appointed as the museum's first director. (134)

Since her husband only gave her a relatively small allowance, she could not solely rely on him to finance the new museum. His financial support was especially limited due to his personal distaste for modern art. Thus, financing for the museum and acquisition of paintings came from Rockefeller's solicitation of the public, corporations, and prominent New York residents.

Rockefeller was elected to MoMA's Board of Trustees in October 1929 and also served as inaugural treasurer from 1929 until 1934.(134). Her other roles included terms as First Vice-President from 1934 until 1936, and First Vice-Chairman from 1941 to 1945. Her son Nelson Rockefeller was involved in the museum alongside her, starting out as chairman of the junior advisory committee and rising to president.(134)

Chief among Rockefeller's concerns at the new museum was the strength of the permanent collection. She often privately gave her own money to the museum for the purchase of new acquisitions. In 1938, she granted the museum its first purchase fund, which was handsomely increased by Nelson Rockefeller.(137) In 1938 she gave the museum its first large purchase sum, generously increased by her son Nelson.(139)

Rockefeller's legacy at the museum is preserved in the form of a number of dedications including the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Print Room, which opened in 1949, after her death. The room houses Rockefeller's gift of 1600 prints, which had been given nine years earlier.(140-141).The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden was also named in her honor. The garden was designed by architect Philip Johnson and opened in 1953.

Unused Notes/Facts

The first exhibition was held on November 7, 1929 and consisted of work done by 19th century French painters. It was seen by forty-seven thousand people in one month.(135)

In 1935, she was able to convince the trustees that a Film Library was a good idea. (137).

She was also very dedicated to the support of American artists. (139-140) An editorial after her death referred to her as "the most unconventional and effectual patron of art which America has seen." (140).

In 1946, she presented roughly 60 valuable Lautrec lithographs. In the last weeks of her life she was looking forward to exploring the recent printmaking of an American artist, which she planned to add to the museum collection.(141).

Her funds were put towards the acquisition of Picasso's Minotauromachy, which she did not like: "Let's label this: Purchased with a Fund for prints which Mrs. Rockefeller doesn't like." (142).

Patronage folk art and contributions to Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museum of Folk Art (With Citation Notes)

Rockefeller Collecting American Folk Art

Development of the Rockefeller Folk Art Collection

Rockefeller was an early customer at Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery in 1929, which sold American folk art.(25) Halpert was selling 19th century pictures and weathervanes gathered from around New England, just as the Rockefellers were restoring Williamsburg.(32) Her collection over the next ten years included: paintings, weathervanes, shop signs, pottery, quilts, and other decorative household accessories.(32). She was particularly attached to children's portraits and student art such as calligraphy, memorials, and theorems(32-33).

She was such an ardent collector that she personally persuaded another dedicated collector, Robert Laurent, to part with Girl Seated on Bench. She had seen the painting in his Brooklyn home and for a long time he would not allow it to be sold, until persuaded by Edith Halpert.(35).

A portion of Rockefeller's collection was obtained via Elie Nadelman, who lost her fortune to the Great Depression. The contents of her museum at Riverdale-on-Hudson were bought by Abby Rockefeller, Henry Francis du Pont, the Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brummer Galleries.(16)

Rockefeller's collection of American Folk Art began in the late 1920s. The original pieces of Rockefeller's folk art collection were largely from New England and Pennsylvania. In 1934, Cahill was sent to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia to obtain pieces of southern folk art. Rockefeller discontinued her pursuit of collecting folk art in 1942. At the time of the museums opening, the nucleus of the collection was considered to be 424 pieces large.(13) Cahill was sent to the south because Rockefeller realized that her collection was mainly composed of Northern pieces. On this trip Cahill found what was thought to be her most important acquisition, The Old Plantation, a watercolor found in Orangeburg, South Carolina. (37).

Rockefeller did not employ the use of many dealers in growing her collection. Instead she sent Cahill to many different states (particularly in the south) where he discovered the art in their places of origin, often in people's sitting rooms, attics, and carpenter's shops.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's collection grew with the help of several curators that were known to the Rockefeller family including: Holger Cahill and Edith Gregor Halpert.(5)

The First Exhibitions of the Folk Collection

Approximately 10 percent of the Newark exhibition of folk art sculpture was attributed to an anonymous donor, Abby Rockefeller. She had an aesthetic interest in folk art.(32)

In 1930 and 1931, Rockefeller's small, initial collection of American folk art was exhibited at the Newark Museum, anonymously. Henry Cahill, was a staff worker at the museum, later writing the catalog for the Museum of Modern Art exhibition of the objects that was held the following year in 1932(10)

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's initial collection of American folk art was made available to the public via an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The 175 objects displayed were loaned anonymously to the museum for the exhibition which was titled "American Folk Art: The Art of the Common Man in America."(5) 174 of the objects were loaned by Rockefeller, with 1 item loaned by Cahill, himself. (35-36)

The exhibition later became the first traveling exhibition of American folk art, visiting six American cities in the span of 1932 to 1934.(10)

The objects exhibited were primarily from New England and Pennsylvania and represented a diverse array of artistic categories including: oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, paintings on velvet, paintings on glass, wood sculptures, metal sculptures, and chalkware.

The majority of the original objects displayed in the first exhibition were donated to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in 1939.(5)

The First Loans of the Folk Collection

Rockefeller began to lend parts of her collection for permanent display in the Ludwell-Paradise House in Colonial Williamsburg in 1934, with the exhibits opening in 1935. In 1939 Rockefeller donated fifty-four pieces of folk art to the Museum of Modern Art. These exhibits remained available to the public until January 1956.(11-13) The pieces were installed largely under the watch of Edith Halpert. Other pieces were hung in other exhibition buildings or the walls of operating taverns.(39-40)

Development of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum

Six years after Abby Rockefeller's death, in 1954, the announcement of a museum to house the Rockefeller folk art collection was published in the March edition of Antiques magazine. The funds for the construction of the project were provided by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A large endowment was also provided upon opening, allowing the museum to acquire over a hundred new objects in its first year.(13)

America's Medici's Notes

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Notes and Reminders for Composition

• Add link to Holger Cahill's WikiPage.
• Add link to Edith Halpert's WikiPage.
• Confirm proper way to cite art catalogues on Wikipedia.
• Confirm proper way to cite "Uncommon Art of the Common People" journal article that is in the compilation "Perspectives on American Folk Art"
• Add link to Donald Deskey's WikiPage.

Further Reading

• Beatrix T. Rumford, "Uncommon Art of the Common People: A Review of Trends in the Collecting and Exhibiting of American Folk Art," in Ian M.G. Quimby and Scott T. Swank (eds.), Perspectives on American Folk Art(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1980), pp. 13-53.
• Lewis Gould, The Most Exclusive Club: A History of the Modern United States Senate(2009) pp. 17–31