Eugenie Mary Ladenburg Davie

Eugenie Mary "May" Ladenburg Davie (1895–September 19, 1975) was a noted Republican activist in New York and a director of the controversial Pioneer Fund at the end of her life.[1] She was second wife to influential lawyer Preston Davie.[2]

Political activism

Davie was descended from a Tammany Hall founder and was a lifelong activist.[3] Her 1917 affair with Bernard Baruch was of great interest to Alice Roosevelt Longworth who monitored the affair "in the name of patriotism," in the words of historian Blanche Wiesen Cook.[4] She once angered pilot Amelia Earhart by injecting political commentary into a speech introduction.[5]

Davie was on the Republican National Finance Committee, a regent of the National Library of Medicine, a trustee at Adelphi College and Long Island University; chairwoman of the Robert A. Taft Institute of Government.

A onetime leader of the Landon Volunteers, she was vice president of the American Women's Voluntary Services, Inc.[6] She butted heads with Fiorello La Guardia during World War II after he told William Fellowes Morgan, Jr. to dismiss her as an unpaid assistant.[7] She became an active member of the Republican Party and was the head of the Woman’s Auxiliary during Wendell Willkie’s campaign to unseat Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.[8] La Guardia's tenure marked the end of the Tammany power in New York, and Davie's political influence gradually faded over the ensuing decades.[9][10]

Later life

Her husband died in 1967, but she continued to go by Mrs. Preston Davie in formal situations.[11] In the last year of her life, she became involved in the Pioneer Fund as a Director. She was informally known as May Davie, the name under which her New York Times obituary appeared.[12]

References

  1. ↑ Staff report (August 7, 1958). Millionaire Politician; Mrs. May Preston Davie. New York Times
  2. ↑ Staff report (May 6, 1930). EUGENIE LADENBURG TO WED ON MAY 31; Her Marriage to Preston Davie to Take Place at Home of Joseph S. Stevens, Jericho, L.I. PLANS ARE INCOMPLETE Fiancee, a Member of Colony Club, Is Only Child of the Late Adolf Ladenburg, Banker. New York Times
  3. ↑ Staff report (April 29, 1952). MRS. DAVIE STILL FOR TAFT; She Also Says She'll Not Resign Despite Osterman Demand. New York Times
  4. ↑ Blanche Wiesen Cook (1993). Eleanor Roosevelt. Penguin, ISBN 0-14-009460-1
  5. ↑ Staff report (December 24, 1935). MISS EARHART IRKED BY SPEECH AT DINNER; Says Mrs. Preston Davie Injected Political Argument in Talk Introducing Her. New York Times
  6. ↑ Staff report (January 12, 1942). Army & Navy And Civilian Defense: Hen-yard Pagliaccio. Time
  7. ↑ Staff report (December 29, 1941). DUAL JOB CRITICISM OF MAYOR RENEWED; Mrs. Davie, Figure in Markets Row, Deplores La Guardia's Inability to See Aides. New York Times
  8. ↑ , The Reese Family Papers, Marist College Archive and Special Collections.
  9. ↑ Staff report (May 16, 1962). Mrs. Davie on Fair Agency. New York Times
  10. ↑ Staff report (March 25, 1965). G.O.P. Honors Mrs. Davie, Retiring as a County Aide. New York Times
  11. ↑ Blackstone-Shelburne (May 22, 1967). PRESTON DAVIE, LAWYER, 86, DEAD; Colonel on General Staff in World War I Held D.S.M. Graduate of Harvard Law. New York Times
  12. ↑ Staff report (September 20, 1975). MAY DAVIE DEAD; A CIVIC LEADER; Descendant of a Tammany Founder Active in G.O.P. New York Times

External links

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