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Quick Facts
- NAME: Alva Belmont
- OCCUPATION: Women's Rights Activist, Philanthropist
- BIRTH DATE: January 17, 1853
- DEATH DATE: January 26, 1933
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Mobile, Alabama
- PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France
- Full Name: Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt Belmont
Best Known For
Alva Belmont was a wealthy socialite who used her fortune to advance the women's rights movement of the early 1900s.
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Play NowAlva Belmont. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 08:41, May 22, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/alva-belmont-9206429.
Alva Belmont. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/alva-belmont-9206429 [Accessed 22 May 2013].
"Alva Belmont." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 22 2013, 08:41 http://www.biography.com/people/alva-belmont-9206429.
"Alva Belmont," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/alva-belmont-9206429 [accessed May 22, 2013].
"Alva Belmont," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/alva-belmont-9206429 (accessed May 22, 2013).
Alva Belmont [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 22] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/alva-belmont-9206429.
Alva Belmont, http://www.biography.com/people/alva-belmont-9206429 (last visited May 22, 2013).
Alva Belmont. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/alva-belmont-9206429. Accessed May 22, 2013.
In 1914, she left the NAWSA and focused her efforts on the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, founded by Alice Paul. Belmont served on the organization's board and allowed it to use Marble House for events as a headquarters for a time. The union later became known as the National Women's Party.
After American women won the constitutional right to vote in 1920,
Belmont took over the leadership of the NWP. She herself reportedly refused to vote until a woman candidate was in the running for president. With her great wealth, Belmont helped the NWP established a new headquarters in Washington, D.C. She also supported such causes as the Women's Trade Union League, and even contributed to keeping the Masses, the socialist magazine, from going bankrupt.
Final Years
By the mid-1920s, Belmont spent most of her time in France. She had several residences there, including a large estate known as Château d'Augerville-la-Rivière, which she restored. In her later years, Belmont became more focused on women's rights on an international scale. She created the International Feminist Committee.
Belmont suffered a stroke in May of 1932. More health problems surfaced later that year. Alva Vanderbilt Belmont died on January 26, 1933, in Paris, France. Her body was returned to New York for burial. At her funeral, female pallbearers carried her coffin into the service. She left instructions for a simple banner reading "Failure Is Impossible" to be draped across the coffin. Roughly 1,500 mourners turned out to say good-bye to one of the greatest patrons of the women's rights movement. Although her intrusive and aristocratic manner antagonized some of the women's rights leaders of the time, Belmont will always be remembered for her dedication to the fight for women's equality.
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