Mary Averell (Harriman) Rumsey (1881 - 1934)

Born 17 Nov 1881 in New York, United States

Ancestors

Wife of Charles Cary Rumsey — married 27 May 1910 in St. John's Episcopal Church, Arden, New York

Died 18 Dec 1934 at age 53 in Washington Emergency Hospital, Washington, District of Columbia

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Biography

Mary (Harriman) Rumsey is Notable.

She was from a prominent family, the Harrimans of Arden, New York. Her father was a railroad industrialist magnate. She attended Barnard College. She married in 1910; she and her husband, the sculptor Charles Cary Rumsey, built a house in Sands Point, New York. She was suddenly widowed after her husband died in a car crash in 1922. ^[2]

In the early 1920s, Harriman co-founded the Welfare Council to aggregate New York’s social agencies, many with overlapping missions and target populations. This later became the Community Council of Greater New York. She was instrumental in opening close to 500 playgrounds in New York City through the Playground Committee. She also got involved in the “Block-Aid Program,” which, according to the Fall 1983 Junior League Review, raised money and distributed food and clothing “in small amounts on a neighbor-to-neighbor basis.” ^[1]

President FDR appointed her to chair the Consumer Advisory Board at the National Recovery Administration. Under the New Deal, the board sought to prevent price gouging and set standards for consumer goods. She is also credited with co-writing the 1935 Social Security Act with labor secretary Frances Perkins.

She lived in Washington, D.C. with Frances Perkins after her appointment, and may have had a long-term romantic relationship with her. She died in 1934 from complications resulting from a horse riding accident at the Middleburg Hunt at the age of 53. After her sudden death, her brother W. Averell continued her work at the National Recovery Administration.

In her obituary, the New York Times printed a quote from 1933, in which Harriman elaborated on the philosophical differences between her and her father:

“His period was a building age, when competition was the order of the day. Today the need is not for a competitive but for a cooperative economic system. When I was a young girl I began to realize that competition was injuring some, and I dreamed of a time when there would be more cooperation, not only among the people themselves, but also between the government and the people." ^[1]

She was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2015 ^[3].

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Maggie Astor, "Mary Harriman Rumsey, Class of 1905", Barnard Archives And Special Collections, 2011.
2. ↑ Kimberly Dijkstra, "Mary Harriman Rumsey: A woman ahead of her time". Port Washington News. September 7, 2015.
3. ↑ National Women's Hall of Fame

See also:

• Wikipedia: Mary Harriman Rumsey

• Find A Grave: Memorial #62654363

• FamilySearch Person: K8QK-7R2

• WikiTree profile Harriman-171 created through the import of Maltby master 08282011.GED on Aug 30, 2011 by Harry Maltby. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Harry and others.