36 Facts About Alva Belmont

Alva Erskine Belmont, known as Alva Vanderbilt from 1875 to 1896, was an American multi-millionaire socialite and women's suffrage activist.

Alva Belmont was noted for her energy, intelligence, strong opinions, and willingness to challenge convention.

Alva Belmont later formed her own Political Equality League to seek broad support for suffrage in neighborhoods throughout New York City, and, as its president, led its division of New York City's 1912 Women's Votes Parade.

Alva Belmont was elected president of the NWP, an office she held until her death.

Alva Belmont was married twice, to socially prominent New York City millionaires William Kissam Vanderbilt, with whom she had three children, and Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont.

On "Equal Pay Day," April 12,2016, Belmont was honored when President Barack Obama established the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument in Washington, DC.

Alva Belmont Erskine Smith was born on January 17,1853, at 201 Government Street in Mobile, Alabama, to Murray Forbes Smith, a and Phoebe Ann Desha.

Alva Belmont maneuvered Consuelo into marrying Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, on November 6,1895.

The annulment was fully supported by Alva Belmont, who testified that she had forced Consuelo into the marriage.

Alva Belmont remained the only active representative of the Vanderbilt family in the New York Central Railroad after his brother's death, serving as a director and member of the executive committee until 1954.

Triumphant, Alva Belmont dressed as a venetian noble to the ball, but her sister-in-law Alice outdid her, in a costume highlighting a then brand-new invention: the electric light.

In 1886, after her husband inherited $65 million from his father's estate, Alva Belmont set her sights on owning a yacht.

Morgan's yacht Corsair was 165 feet long, Mrs Astor's Nourmahal was 233 feet, and Alva Belmont's departed father-in-law's North Star measured 270 feet, Alva Belmont and William's 285-foot yacht was the largest private yacht in the world.

Alva Belmont Vanderbilt shocked society in March 1895 when she divorced her husband who had long been unfaithful, at a time when divorce was rare among the elite, and received a large financial settlement said to be in excess of $10 million, in addition to several estates.

Alva Belmont had accompanied them on at least two long voyages aboard their yacht the Alva.

Scholars have written that it seems to have been obvious to many that he and Alva Belmont were attracted to one another upon their return from one such voyage in 1889.

Alva Belmont paid the bail of picketers who had been arrested and funded a large rally in the city's Hippodrome, which she addressed along with Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

In 1910, Alva Belmont initiated the first attempt to integrate the enfranchisement movement in New York.

Alva Belmont established its first "suffrage settlement house" in Harlem, and she included African American women and immigrants in weekend retreats at Beacon Towers, her Gothic style castle in Sands Point.

Alva Belmont then merged the Political Equality League into the CU.

Alva Belmont served on the executive committee of the CU from 1914 to 1916.

In 1915, Alva Belmont chaired the women voters' convention at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

Alva Belmont was elected president of the National Woman's Party, an office she held until her death.

Alva Belmont restored the 16th century Chateau d'Augerville and used it as a residence.

Alva Belmont suffered a stroke in the spring of 1932 that left her partially paralyzed, and she died in Paris of bronchial and heart ailments on January 26,1933.

Alva Belmont is interred with Oliver Belmont in the Belmont Mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York, for which artist Helen Maitland Armstrong designed a set of Renaissance-inspired painted glass windows.

Alva Belmont was a friend and frequent patron of Richard Morris Hunt and was one of the first female members of the American Institute of Architects.

Eager to reshape and redesign Belcourt, Alva Belmont made changes that transformed the interiors of the mansion into a blend of French and English Gothic and Renaissance styles.

Construction was still underway when Oliver Belmont died, when Alva announced that she would build an addition that was an exact reproduction of the Gothic Room in Belcourt, to house her late husband's collection of medieval and early Renaissance armor.

In 1925 Alva Belmont closed the castle permanently; it was sold to William Randolph Hearst in 1927.

Alva Belmont partially remodeled it and then sold it in 1942.

Alva Belmont had a townhouse in Paris and a villa on the Riviera.

Alva Belmont purchased the 15th-century Chateau d'Augerville in Augerville-la-Riviere, Loiret, in the summer of 1926 and restored it as her primary residence.

Alva Belmont did a great deal of restoration and renovation during her ownership.

Alva Belmont built a massive neo-Gothic portal gate on the northern entrance road, separating the chateau and village from the surrounding farmland.

Alva Belmont added a bowling alley in one of the houses on the estate.