Florence Jaffray Harriman
Encyclopedia
Florence Jaffray "Daisy" Harriman (July 21, 1870 – August 31, 1967) was an American socialite
, suffragist, social reformer, organizer
, and diplomat
. “She led one of the suffrage parades down Fifth Avenue, worked on campaigns on child labor and safe milk and, as minister to Norway in World War II, organized evacuation efforts while hiding in a forest from the Nazi invasion.” In her ninety-second year, U.S. President John F. Kennedy
honored her by awarding her the first “Citation of Merit for Distinguished Service.” She often found herself in the middle of historic events. As she stated, “I think nobody can deny that I have always had through sheer luck a box seat at the America of my times.”
to shipping magnate F.W.J. Hurst
and his wife Caroline. When she was three years old, her mother, then 29, died. She and her two sisters (Caroline Elise and Ethel) were raised in and around New York City by her father and maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Somerville Jaffray. At age six, she watched her first political torchlight parade, part of the 1876 presidential campaign
. "She later told of leaning over the bannister of her home at 615 Fifth Avenue, to hear visitors such as John Hay
, President James A. Garfield, and President Chester A. Arthur
.
She was known throughout her life as “Daisy.”
Between 1880 and 1888, she received private lessons at the home of financier J. P. Morgan
. She also attended the Misses Lockwood's Collegiate School for Girls.
In 1889, at age nineteen, she married J. Borden Harriman
, a New York banker (and an elder cousin of future cabinet secretary, New York Governor and diplomat William Averell Harriman). The list of attendees at their wedding included past and future president Grover Cleveland
, railroad tycoons Cornelius Vanderbilt
and Edward Harriman, John Jacob Astor IV
, and J. P. Morgan. They had one child, Ethel M.B. Harriman, born on December 11, 1897. Ethel worked on Broadway
and in Hollywood, as an actress and writer (as Ethel Russell or Ethel Borden).
(where their estate overlooked the Hudson River), Fifth Avenue in New York City, and Newport, Rhode Island
.
In 1903, she co-founded (with Ava Lowle Willing
(then Mrs. John Jacob Astor IV
), and Helen Hay Whitney
(Mrs. Payne Whitney)) the Colony Club
, New York City’s first club exclusively for women. However, instead of restricting her social and civic activities to the wealthy or to members of her husband’s political party (the Republican Party
), she reached out to others. For example, in 1908, she led efforts by the New York chapter of the National Women's Committee to expose harsh working conditions in New York City's factories, foundries and hotels. She explained, "should not the woman who spends the money which the employees help to provide take a special interest in their welfare, especially in that of the women wage earners?" In 1909 she created waves when, as the “wife of a banker,” she “entertained one hundred members of the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen at her summer home.” In 1906, Republican Governor Charles Evans Hughes
appointed her as a member of the Board of Managers of New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford, New York
.
later described her as "the woman who was most responsible for helping to provide milk for dependent poor children in the great city of New York."
In 1912, Harriman’s active support for the presidential campaign of then-New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson
led to national publicity and leadership roles. She was elected as the first president of the “Women’s National Wilson and Marshall Association,” and organized mass meetings, and mass mailings, in support of his campaign.
Upon taking office, Wilson appointed Harriman as a member of the first U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations
, which Congress had authorized the previous year. After 154 days of testimony, the Commission could not agree on the causes and solutions to labor-management difficulties. Harriman and Commissioner John R. Commons
refused to sign the caustic report written by Commission Chair Frank P. Walsh
. As Commons and Harriman wrote in their separate report (joined by a narrow majority of Commissioners), the Walsh report mistakenly focused on individual “scapegoats' rather than on the system that produces the demand for scapegoats.
Her husband became seriously ill in February 1913, shortly before Wilson took office. After President Wilson's appointment, Washington D.C. became their primary residence. While serving on the Commission on Industrial Relations, she also continued to serve in New York on the Bedford Reformatory board.
erupted in the summer of 1914. Hoping that the healing waters in the Bohemian
spa in Karlsbad
would benefit her husband, Harriman brought her family to Europe in June 1914. After meeting with leading British and French officials while relations between the European powers deteriorated, they traveled through France to Karlsbad (then a part of Austria-Hungary
), and were there when Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia
in late July. After leaving Karlsbad on the last train crossing the frontier through Germany to France, they eventually returned to New York on an armed British vessel, the RMS Adriatic
. Her husband's health continued to deteriorate, and he died on December 1, 1914. His prolonged illness, the resulting lack of income, and the expense of maintaining several homes had consumed nearly all of his net worth. Harriman never remarried.
The following year, Harriman found herself near the front lines of another war - the battle along the south side of the Rio Grande River near Brownsville, Texas
, between supporters of rebel Pancho Villa
and the armies of Mexican leader Venustiano Carranza
. During a break in hearings on working conditions for farmworkers that she conducted in Dallas in March 1915, she accepted an offer to visit the Rio Grande River area, where the United States was attempting to remain neutral as Mexican factions battled each other along the River. After watching the battle for Matamoros, Tamaulipas
from Brownsville, she began to tend to the wounded and visited the smoking battlefields, before returning to Washington.
Harriman increased her charitable and political activity. She turned her Mount Kisco home into a tuberculosis sanitarium. During the period of American neutrality, she became a cofounder of the Committee of Mercy, which was created to help the women and children and other European noncombatants made destitute by the war. In May 1916 she was recruited by Eleanor Roosevelt
to lead a contingent of "Independent Patriotic Women of America" in a preparedness parade. After the United States declared war on Germany, she organized the American Red Cross
Women's Motor Corps of the District of Columbia, and directed the Women's Motor Corps in France. From 1917 to 1919, she served as chair of the U.S. National Defense Advisory Commission's
Committee on Women in Industry.
, and worked on behalf of world peace organizations.
While the Wilson Administration ended in 1921, Harriman’s Democratic activism did not. Syndicated columnist William Hard described her as "a candle for the party in its darkest days." She began serving as member of the Democratic National Committee
in 1920 (a position she would hold until the 1950s) and in 1922 became the founder and first president of the Woman's National Democratic Club. Her first book, “From Pinafores to Politics,” was published in 1923. She was often in the company of another widowed fixture of 1920s Washington, Montana
U.S. Senator Thomas J. Walsh
. She resided in a large home known as "Uplands," on a hill off Foxhall Road northwest of Georgetown.
Time Magazine would report in 1934 that her “Sunday night salons have long been a Washington institution.” She would invite up to 32 guests with diverse viewpoints, then referee a thorough off-the-record discussion of a single controversial issue. She enforced two ground rules: no one was ever to grow angry, and no one was to repeat what had been said.
Harriman reportedly “lost most of her fortune during the Depression
,” and “had to eke out her income by interior decorating and real estate” (while sharing her Washington home with well-paying guests). One such cohabitant in the first year of the Roosevelt Administration was the first woman cabinet member, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins
.
As a member of the Democratic National Committee, Harriman was also a District of Columbia delegate to the Party’s conventions. In 1932, when the Convention
nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harriman did not support him. According to Time, she “she unfortunately held out for Newton D. Baker
or Melvin Traylor
.” In her own words, this would cause "the triumphant members of the Roosevelt-before-the-Convention inner clique" to have "a little grey mark against me." However, “after Roosevelt's nomination she hastened to repair her mistake,” and became one of Roosevelt’s strongest supporters at the 1936 Convention
.
Consequently, increasing tension in Europe and the imminent death of Turkish reformer Atatürk, compelled her to advise Secretary of State Hull to install Ismet Inonu as President of Turkey to assure a protectionist ally in the region.
In 1940, Germany invaded Norway with little warning, causing Harriman and the rest of the American legation in Norway to join certain members of the Norwegian royal family and other refugees seeking protection hundreds of kilometers away in Sweden. In the chaos and bombardment, America suffered its first military casualty when Captain Robert M. Losey
, a U.S. military attaché assisting the evacuation while observing the war, was killed in a Luftwaffe attack on Dombås
. The rest of the American legation ultimately arrived safely in Sweden. Harriman is credited with arranging for the safety of other Americans and several members of the Norwegian royal family -- Crown Princess Märtha
and her children Ragnhild
, Astrid
and Harald
.
She returned to the Nordic countries to complete the evacuation of current and future U.S. citizens through Finland on the troopship USS American Legion
in August 1940. In January 1941, she officially left her position, became a vice-chair of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies
, and testified in the House Foreign Affairs Committee in favor of the Lend-Lease Act. Her service in Norway, and the harrowing escape, became the subject of her next book, “Mission to the North,” published in 1941. In July 1942, King Haakon VII of Norway
(then in exile) conferred upon Harriman the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav.
After the United States entered World War II
, Harriman continued to write on causes important to her, and wrote the foreword to the English-language edition of one of the first publications on the Holocaust
and Auschwitz Concentration Camp
, “Oswiecim, Camp of Death,” published in March 1944 before the camp's liberation by Soviet troops. And despite her decades of involvement in the Democratic Party, she joined a bipartisan (but unsuccessful) effort to persuade Roosevelt’s Republican opponent in the 1940 election, Wendell Willkie
, to run for Governor of New York in 1942.
In 1952, she campaigned on behalf of her cousin by marriage, W. Averell Harriman
, in his unsuccessful run for the Democratic nomination for President
.
She served as the 3rd Vice President of the Board of Directors of the National Conference On Citizenship
in 1960.
In 1956, Life Magazine reported that, even at age 86, she continued to host dinners for twenty-two guests nearly every Sunday night.
on April 18, 1963 (when she was 92 years old). It states: “In her illustrious career in public service, Mrs. Harriman has made singular and lasting contributions to the cause of peace and freedom. . . . In all of her endeavors, Mrs. Harriman has exemplified the spirit of selflessness, courage and service to the Nation, reflecting the highest credit on herself and on this country. She has, indeed, earned the esteem and admiration of her countrymen and the enduring gratitude of this Republic.”
Harriman died in Washington, D.C., on August 31, 1967. Her daughter died on July 4, 1953, at age 55. Her granddaughter, Phyllis Russell Marcy Darling, of Eugene, Oregon, died on December 18, 2007, at age 88. Her grandson, Charles Howland Russell, of Carmel Valley, California, died on May 13, 1981, at age 60.
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
, suffragist, social reformer, organizer
Organizer
Organizer could refer to:*Union organizer, a trade union official*Party organizer, a political party official*Community organizing, a way of building democratic power for the powerless*Personal organizer, a type of diary...
, and diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
. “She led one of the suffrage parades down Fifth Avenue, worked on campaigns on child labor and safe milk and, as minister to Norway in World War II, organized evacuation efforts while hiding in a forest from the Nazi invasion.” In her ninety-second year, U.S. President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
honored her by awarding her the first “Citation of Merit for Distinguished Service.” She often found herself in the middle of historic events. As she stated, “I think nobody can deny that I have always had through sheer luck a box seat at the America of my times.”
Biography
Harriman was born Florence Jaffray Hurst on July 21, 1870 in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to shipping magnate F.W.J. Hurst
F.W.J. Hurst
Francis William Jones Hurst , a native of the British West Indies, was a major figure in the cross-Atlantic shipping business in the 19th century. During the American Civil War, he captained ships that ran the Union blockade of Confederate ports...
and his wife Caroline. When she was three years old, her mother, then 29, died. She and her two sisters (Caroline Elise and Ethel) were raised in and around New York City by her father and maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Somerville Jaffray. At age six, she watched her first political torchlight parade, part of the 1876 presidential campaign
United States presidential election, 1876
The United States presidential election of 1876 was one of the most disputed and controversial presidential elections in American history. Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes's 165, with 20 votes uncounted...
. "She later told of leaning over the bannister of her home at 615 Fifth Avenue, to hear visitors such as John Hay
John Hay
John Milton Hay was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln.-Early life:...
, President James A. Garfield, and President Chester A. Arthur
Chester A. Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur was the 21st President of the United States . Becoming President after the assassination of President James A. Garfield, Arthur struggled to overcome suspicions of his beginnings as a politician from the New York City Republican machine, succeeding at that task by embracing...
.
She was known throughout her life as “Daisy.”
Between 1880 and 1888, she received private lessons at the home of financier J. P. Morgan
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric...
. She also attended the Misses Lockwood's Collegiate School for Girls.
In 1889, at age nineteen, she married J. Borden Harriman
J. Borden Harriman
Jefferson Borden Harriman was a New York financier and member of the Gilded Age’s “hunting set.” He was best known as the supportive husband of Florence Jaffray Harriman, a socialite who became a progressive social activist and a United States Ambassador to Norway during the administration of...
, a New York banker (and an elder cousin of future cabinet secretary, New York Governor and diplomat William Averell Harriman). The list of attendees at their wedding included past and future president Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
, railroad tycoons Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
and Edward Harriman, John Jacob Astor IV
John Jacob Astor IV
John Jacob Astor IV was an American businessman, real estate builder, investor, inventor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish-American War and a member of the prominent Astor family...
, and J. P. Morgan. They had one child, Ethel M.B. Harriman, born on December 11, 1897. Ethel worked on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
and in Hollywood, as an actress and writer (as Ethel Russell or Ethel Borden).
Socialite
For many years, Harriman led the life of a young society matron interested in charitable and civic activities. Her life revolved around Mount Kisco, New YorkMount Kisco, New York
Mount Kisco is a community that is both a village and a town in Westchester County, New York, United States. The Town of Mount Kisco is coterminous with the village. The population was 10,877 at the 2010 census.- History :...
(where their estate overlooked the Hudson River), Fifth Avenue in New York City, and Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
.
In 1903, she co-founded (with Ava Lowle Willing
Ava Lowle Willing
Ava Lowle Willing, Lady Ribblesdale was an American socialite and the first wife of John Jacob Astor IV.-Biography:...
(then Mrs. John Jacob Astor IV
John Jacob Astor IV
John Jacob Astor IV was an American businessman, real estate builder, investor, inventor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish-American War and a member of the prominent Astor family...
), and Helen Hay Whitney
Helen Hay Whitney
Helen Julia Hay Whitney was an American poet, writer, racehorse owner/breeder, socialite, and philanthropist. She was a member by marriage of the prominent Whitney family of New York.-Biography:...
(Mrs. Payne Whitney)) the Colony Club
Colony Club
The Colony Club is a private social club in New York City. Founded in 1903 by Florence Jaffray Harriman, wife of J. Borden Harriman, and modeled on similar clubs for men, it was the first social club established in New York City by and for women, although today male members are admitted.- History...
, New York City’s first club exclusively for women. However, instead of restricting her social and civic activities to the wealthy or to members of her husband’s political party (the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
), she reached out to others. For example, in 1908, she led efforts by the New York chapter of the National Women's Committee to expose harsh working conditions in New York City's factories, foundries and hotels. She explained, "should not the woman who spends the money which the employees help to provide take a special interest in their welfare, especially in that of the women wage earners?" In 1909 she created waves when, as the “wife of a banker,” she “entertained one hundred members of the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen at her summer home.” In 1906, Republican Governor Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He served as the 36th Governor of New York , Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , United States Secretary of State , a judge on the Court of International Justice , and...
appointed her as a member of the Board of Managers of New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford, New York
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women is a prison for women in Bedford Hills in the Town of Bedford, Westchester County, New York, USA. Bedford Hills, the only New York State Department of Correctional Services women's maximum security prison, is the largest women's prison in New York State...
.
Suffragist and social reformer
As Harriman would later explain in her book “From Pinafores to Politics,” her leadership and organizing skills became increasingly directed toward the disenfranchised and impoverished. She was active in the women’s suffrage movement in support of extending the vote to women, reportedly leading a parade of suffragists down Fifth Avenue. She also crusaded against unhealthy conditions in New York's tenements. Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
later described her as "the woman who was most responsible for helping to provide milk for dependent poor children in the great city of New York."
In 1912, Harriman’s active support for the presidential campaign of then-New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
led to national publicity and leadership roles. She was elected as the first president of the “Women’s National Wilson and Marshall Association,” and organized mass meetings, and mass mailings, in support of his campaign.
Upon taking office, Wilson appointed Harriman as a member of the first U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations
Commission on Industrial Relations
The Commission on Industrial Relations was a commission created by the U.S. Congress on August 23, 1912. The commission studied work conditions throughout the industrial United States between 1913 and 1915...
, which Congress had authorized the previous year. After 154 days of testimony, the Commission could not agree on the causes and solutions to labor-management difficulties. Harriman and Commissioner John R. Commons
John R. Commons
John Rogers Commons was an American institutional economist and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.-Biography:Born in Hollansburg, Ohio, John R. Commons had a religious upbringing which led him to be an advocate for social justice early in life...
refused to sign the caustic report written by Commission Chair Frank P. Walsh
Frank P. Walsh
Francis Patrick "Frank" Walsh was an American lawyer. Walsh was especially noted for his advocacy of progressive causes, including decent working conditions, decent pay for workers, and equal employment opportunities for all, including women. He was appointed to several high-profile committees...
. As Commons and Harriman wrote in their separate report (joined by a narrow majority of Commissioners), the Walsh report mistakenly focused on individual “scapegoats' rather than on the system that produces the demand for scapegoats.
Her husband became seriously ill in February 1913, shortly before Wilson took office. After President Wilson's appointment, Washington D.C. became their primary residence. While serving on the Commission on Industrial Relations, she also continued to serve in New York on the Bedford Reformatory board.
World War I and the Mexican Civil War
Harriman, her husband and daughter found themselves in the middle of Europe as World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
erupted in the summer of 1914. Hoping that the healing waters in the Bohemian
Kingdom of Bohemia
The Kingdom of Bohemia was a country located in the region of Bohemia in Central Europe, most of whose territory is currently located in the modern-day Czech Republic. The King was Elector of Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806, whereupon it became part of the Austrian Empire, and...
spa in Karlsbad
Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...
would benefit her husband, Harriman brought her family to Europe in June 1914. After meeting with leading British and French officials while relations between the European powers deteriorated, they traveled through France to Karlsbad (then a part of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
), and were there when Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
in late July. After leaving Karlsbad on the last train crossing the frontier through Germany to France, they eventually returned to New York on an armed British vessel, the RMS Adriatic
RMS Adriatic (1907)
RMS Adriatic was an ocean liner of the White Star Line. She was the fourth of a quartet of ships measuring over 20,000 tons, dubbed The Big Four, the ship was the only one of the four which was never the world's largest ship however, she was the fastest of the Big Four...
. Her husband's health continued to deteriorate, and he died on December 1, 1914. His prolonged illness, the resulting lack of income, and the expense of maintaining several homes had consumed nearly all of his net worth. Harriman never remarried.
The following year, Harriman found herself near the front lines of another war - the battle along the south side of the Rio Grande River near Brownsville, Texas
Brownsville, Texas
Brownsville is a city in the southernmost tip of the state of Texas, in the United States. It is located on the northern bank of the Rio Grande, directly north and across the border from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Brownsville is the 16th largest city in the state of Texas with a population of...
, between supporters of rebel Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals....
and the armies of Mexican leader Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza de la Garza, was one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution. He ultimately became President of Mexico following the overthrow of the dictatorial Huerta regime in the summer of 1914 and during his administration the current constitution of Mexico was drafted...
. During a break in hearings on working conditions for farmworkers that she conducted in Dallas in March 1915, she accepted an offer to visit the Rio Grande River area, where the United States was attempting to remain neutral as Mexican factions battled each other along the River. After watching the battle for Matamoros, Tamaulipas
Matamoros, Tamaulipas
Matamoros, officially known as Heroica Matamoros, is a city in the northeastern part of Tamaulipas, in the country of Mexico. It is located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas, in the United States. Matamoros is the second largest and second...
from Brownsville, she began to tend to the wounded and visited the smoking battlefields, before returning to Washington.
Harriman increased her charitable and political activity. She turned her Mount Kisco home into a tuberculosis sanitarium. During the period of American neutrality, she became a cofounder of the Committee of Mercy, which was created to help the women and children and other European noncombatants made destitute by the war. In May 1916 she was recruited by Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
to lead a contingent of "Independent Patriotic Women of America" in a preparedness parade. After the United States declared war on Germany, she organized the American Red Cross
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross , also known as the American National Red Cross, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S...
Women's Motor Corps of the District of Columbia, and directed the Women's Motor Corps in France. From 1917 to 1919, she served as chair of the U.S. National Defense Advisory Commission's
Council of National Defense
The Council of National Defense was a United States organization formed during World War I to coordinate resources and industry in support of the war effort, including the coordination of transportation, industrial and farm production, financial support for the war, and public...
Committee on Women in Industry.
1919 to 1937
Harriman participated in the Versailles Peace Conference, and upon her return was an advocate for American participation in the League of NationsLeague of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
, and worked on behalf of world peace organizations.
While the Wilson Administration ended in 1921, Harriman’s Democratic activism did not. Syndicated columnist William Hard described her as "a candle for the party in its darkest days." She began serving as member of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
in 1920 (a position she would hold until the 1950s) and in 1922 became the founder and first president of the Woman's National Democratic Club. Her first book, “From Pinafores to Politics,” was published in 1923. She was often in the company of another widowed fixture of 1920s Washington, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
U.S. Senator Thomas J. Walsh
Thomas J. Walsh
Thomas James Walsh was a lawyer and Democratic Party politician from Helena, Montana, in the United States.-Background:...
. She resided in a large home known as "Uplands," on a hill off Foxhall Road northwest of Georgetown.
Time Magazine would report in 1934 that her “Sunday night salons have long been a Washington institution.” She would invite up to 32 guests with diverse viewpoints, then referee a thorough off-the-record discussion of a single controversial issue. She enforced two ground rules: no one was ever to grow angry, and no one was to repeat what had been said.
Harriman reportedly “lost most of her fortune during the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
,” and “had to eke out her income by interior decorating and real estate” (while sharing her Washington home with well-paying guests). One such cohabitant in the first year of the Roosevelt Administration was the first woman cabinet member, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins , born Fannie Coralie Perkins, was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition...
.
As a member of the Democratic National Committee, Harriman was also a District of Columbia delegate to the Party’s conventions. In 1932, when the Convention
1932 Democratic National Convention
The 1932 Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago, Illinois from June 27 - July 2, 1932. The convention resulted in the nomination of Governor Franklin Roosevelt of New York for President and Speaker of the House John Nance Garner of Texas for Vice-President...
nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harriman did not support him. According to Time, she “she unfortunately held out for Newton D. Baker
Newton D. Baker
Newton Diehl Baker, Jr. was an American politician who belonged to the Democratic Party. He served as the 37th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio from 1912 to 1915 and as U.S. Secretary of War from 1916 to 1921.-Early years:...
or Melvin Traylor
Melvin Alvah Traylor
Melvin Alvah Traylor , the eldest of seven children of James Milton Traylor and Kitty Frances Traylor née Harvey...
.” In her own words, this would cause "the triumphant members of the Roosevelt-before-the-Convention inner clique" to have "a little grey mark against me." However, “after Roosevelt's nomination she hastened to repair her mistake,” and became one of Roosevelt’s strongest supporters at the 1936 Convention
1936 Democratic National Convention
The 1936 Democratic National Convention was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from June 23 to 27, 1936. The convention resulted in the re-nomination of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President John Nance Garner....
.
Diplomacy and World War II
Early in his second term, Roosevelt scrambled many of his diplomatic assignments. Norway, the fourth nation to grant woman suffrage (after New Zealand, Australia and Finland), was considered "an obvious post for a woman diplomat." Thus, in 1937, Harriman was appointed as the United States’ Minister to Norway. (Her precise title was “Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary” for Norway.) At the time of her appointment, she could hardly have known that this role would soon require her to draw on her experience in helping refugees in the previous World War.Consequently, increasing tension in Europe and the imminent death of Turkish reformer Atatürk, compelled her to advise Secretary of State Hull to install Ismet Inonu as President of Turkey to assure a protectionist ally in the region.
In 1940, Germany invaded Norway with little warning, causing Harriman and the rest of the American legation in Norway to join certain members of the Norwegian royal family and other refugees seeking protection hundreds of kilometers away in Sweden. In the chaos and bombardment, America suffered its first military casualty when Captain Robert M. Losey
Robert M. Losey
Captain Robert M. Losey , an aeronautical meteorologist, is considered to be the first American military casualty in World War II. While serving as a military attaché prior to America's entry into the war, Losey was killed on April 21, 1940 during a German bombardment in Norway...
, a U.S. military attaché assisting the evacuation while observing the war, was killed in a Luftwaffe attack on Dombås
Dombås
The village of lies in the Dovre municipality and serves as an administrative center in the upper Gudbrandsdal, Norway. It lies at an important junction of roads: south leading to the current capital of Norway, Oslo, west via Lesja leading to Åndalsnes on the sea and north to the old capital,...
. The rest of the American legation ultimately arrived safely in Sweden. Harriman is credited with arranging for the safety of other Americans and several members of the Norwegian royal family -- Crown Princess Märtha
Princess Märtha of Sweden
Princess Märtha of Sweden , full name Märtha Sofia Lovisa Dagmar Thyra was the granddaughter of King Oscar II of Sweden and the consort of Crown Prince Olav of Norway . She was the first Crown Princess of Norway in modern times who was not also Crown Princess of Sweden or Denmark...
and her children Ragnhild
Princess Ragnhild of Norway
Princess Ragnhild of Norway, Mrs. Lorentzen, is the eldest daughter of King Olav V of Norway and Princess Märtha of Sweden. She is the older sister of His Majesty King Harald V of Norway and of Princess Astrid of Norway.Princess Ragnhild married Erling S...
, Astrid
Princess Astrid of Norway
Princess Astrid of Norway, Mrs. Ferner, is the second daughter of King Olav V of Norway and his wife, Princess Märtha of Sweden...
and Harald
Harald V of Norway
Harald V is the king of Norway. He succeeded to the throne of Norway upon the death of his father Olav V on 17 January 1991...
.
She returned to the Nordic countries to complete the evacuation of current and future U.S. citizens through Finland on the troopship USS American Legion
USS American Legion (APA-17)
USS American Legion was a that served with the US Navy during World War II.A steel-hulled, twin-screw passenger and cargo steamship, the vessel was laid down as Badger State on 10 January 1919 under a United States Shipping Board contract at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding...
in August 1940. In January 1941, she officially left her position, became a vice-chair of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies
Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies
The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies was an American political action group formed in May 1940.The group advocated American military materiel support for Britain as the best way to keep the United States out of the conflict then raging in Europe...
, and testified in the House Foreign Affairs Committee in favor of the Lend-Lease Act. Her service in Norway, and the harrowing escape, became the subject of her next book, “Mission to the North,” published in 1941. In July 1942, King Haakon VII of Norway
Haakon VII of Norway
Haakon VII , known as Prince Carl of Denmark until 1905, was the first king of Norway after the 1905 dissolution of the personal union with Sweden. He was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg...
(then in exile) conferred upon Harriman the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav.
After the United States entered World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Harriman continued to write on causes important to her, and wrote the foreword to the English-language edition of one of the first publications on the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
and Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, “Oswiecim, Camp of Death,” published in March 1944 before the camp's liberation by Soviet troops. And despite her decades of involvement in the Democratic Party, she joined a bipartisan (but unsuccessful) effort to persuade Roosevelt’s Republican opponent in the 1940 election, Wendell Willkie
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...
, to run for Governor of New York in 1942.
In 1952, she campaigned on behalf of her cousin by marriage, W. Averell Harriman
W. Averell Harriman
William Averell Harriman was an American Democratic Party politician, businessman, and diplomat. He was the son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman. He served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York...
, in his unsuccessful run for the Democratic nomination for President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
.
She served as the 3rd Vice President of the Board of Directors of the National Conference On Citizenship
National Conference on Citizenship
The National Conference on Citizenship was founded in 1946 and was later chartered by the United States Congress in 1953. NCoC was created in order to be a leader in promoting our nation’s civic life by tracking, "measuring and promoting civic participation and engagement in partnership with other...
in 1960.
Voting rights in the District of Columbia
In 1955, at age 84, Harriman led a parade through the capital to protest "taxation without representation" in the District of Columbia. That year, she wrote in a New York Times letter to the editor that "the time has come for another Boston tea party" to end the disenfranchisement of the District's residents.In 1956, Life Magazine reported that, even at age 86, she continued to host dinners for twenty-two guests nearly every Sunday night.
The Citation of Merit
Harriman received a Citation of Merit for Distinguished Service, presented by President KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
on April 18, 1963 (when she was 92 years old). It states: “In her illustrious career in public service, Mrs. Harriman has made singular and lasting contributions to the cause of peace and freedom. . . . In all of her endeavors, Mrs. Harriman has exemplified the spirit of selflessness, courage and service to the Nation, reflecting the highest credit on herself and on this country. She has, indeed, earned the esteem and admiration of her countrymen and the enduring gratitude of this Republic.”
Harriman died in Washington, D.C., on August 31, 1967. Her daughter died on July 4, 1953, at age 55. Her granddaughter, Phyllis Russell Marcy Darling, of Eugene, Oregon, died on December 18, 2007, at age 88. Her grandson, Charles Howland Russell, of Carmel Valley, California, died on May 13, 1981, at age 60.
Published works
- Harriman, Florence Jaffray Hurst, Examples of Welfare Work in the Cotton Industry: Conditions and Progress : New England and the South, New York: Woman's Dept., National Civic Federation (1910)
- Harriman, Mrs. J. Borden, From Pinafores to Politics, New York: H. Holt and Company (1923)
- Harriman, Florence Jaffray, Mission to the North, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott (1941)
- Harriman, Florence Jaffray Hurst, Norway Does Not Yield; The Story of the First Year, New York: American Friends of German Freedom (1941)
- Zarembina, Natalia, and Harriman, Florence Jaffray Hurst, Oswiecim, Camp of Death (Underground Report), New York, N.Y.: "Poland fights," Polish Labor Group (1944)
- Harriman, Florence Jaffray Hurst, The Reminiscences of Mrs. Florence Jaffray Harriman (1972)