Born: 17 January 1853, United States
Died: 26 January 1933
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Alva Smith, Alva Vanderbilt
The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt Belmont was a wealthy socialite who was also a committed suffragist. She used her fortune to support efforts to win the vote for women. She was the president and primary benefactor of the National Woman’s Party (NWP) founded by Alice Paul. Because of her support, the NWP was able to launch ambitious campaigns to pass the 19th Amendment, including protests at the White House which led to arrests and imprisonment for hundreds of women.
Belmont initially supported suffrage organizations focused on state voting rights like the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She witnessed a rally in London organized by he Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant suffrage organization founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Inspired by the suffragettes’ actions and intensity, Belmont began to favor more confrontational tactics used to secure a federal amendment enfranchising women. She joined the executive committee of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU), formed after Lucy Burns and Alice Paul broke away from NAWSA in 1914 over personal and philosophical differences. The name of the organization changed to the National Woman’s Party (NWP) in 1916.
With Belmont’s attention came her bountiful resources. She played a significant role in the work of the CU and NWP, She provided money to finance their ambitious campaigns. Her social prominence also won both publicity and respectibility for their efforts, which many considered radical and militant. She often hosted suffrage gatherings at her opulant summer mansion in Newport, Rhode Island known as “Marble House.” The house is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
After the ratification of the 19th Amendment in August 1920, Alva Belmont continued to support the work of the National Woman’s Party in the ongoing struggle for women’s social, political, and economic equality. Because of her generous patronage, the NWP was able to purchase a permanent headquarters on Capitol Hill. Initially, the NWP bought the Old Brick Capitol, a historic building on First Street, NE. The federal government seized that building through eminent domain and demolished it to build the Supreme Court. With Alva’s continued support, the NWP then purchased the grand house at 144 B Street, NE (now Constitution Avenue) which they named the Alva Belmont House in her honor. In 2016, the headquarters was declared a National Monument and became a National Park Service site as the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument.
The following is excerpted from Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company.
Alva E. Smith Belmont (Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont), an American philanthropist and woman suffrage leader, born in Mobile, Ala., daughter of Murray Forbes and Phoebe Ann Smith. She was educated in France, and in 1874 was married to William K. Vanderbilt.
In 1896 she became the wife of Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, who died in 1908. Mrs. Belmont is actively interested in architecture, hospitals, children’s homes, abolition of child-labor, better and more sanitary conditions for working women, and other social and charitable work.
She gave $100,000 to the Nassau Hospital in Mineola, L.I., and is the founder and president of the Political Equality Association. Mrs. Belmont has rendered notable service in the cause of women suffrage, and is an eloquent speaker and writer on that subject.