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Mary Phillips Riis

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Mary Phillips Riis
A white woman with dark hair.
Mary Phillips Riis, from a 1920 magazine profile.
Born
Mary A. Phillips

April 29, 1877
Memphis, Tennessee, US
DiedAugust 4, 1967
New York City, US
Occupation(s)Philanthropist, financier
SpouseJacob Riis (married 1907)

Mary A. Phillips Riis (April 29, 1877 – August 4, 1967) was an American philanthropist, widow of Danish-American reformer and journalist Jacob Riis.

Early life

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Mary A. Phillips was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Richard Fabian Phillips and Elise Caroline (Lina) Rensch Phillips.[1] Her father was born in England,[2] a cotton broker, and eventually president of the Cotton Exchange in St. Louis. She attended schools in England and France.[3] Later in life, she took courses at New York University.[4]

Career

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Mary Phillips moved to New York for a career on the stage. She became secretary, and later wife, to journalist Jacob A. Riis. In widowhood, she took a job on Wall Street, selling bonds.[5] During World War I she helped promote Liberty Loans.[6] In 1919, she became head of an investment securities office, the first in New York City to be staffed entirely by women.[6] She built a fortune enough to own a mansion near Bedford Village, New York.[3] In 1958 she was dubbed "The First Lady of Wall Street" in a newspaper headline.[7]

Riis taught investment courses at Columbia University, meant for women students who, like herself, were faced with managing their own personal finances. She also wrote about finance for women's magazines,[4] and counseled women in business.[8]

She was longtime president of Riis House, a settlement house in New York.[3][9] She supported Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs during the Great Depression, and encouraged Roosevelt to do more for Jewish refugees from Germany.[4] Late in life, she worked especially for children's programs, including playgrounds.[10]

Personal life

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Mary Phillips married widower Jacob Riis in 1907, as his second wife.[11][12] They lived on a farm in New England, which she inherited, while the rest of the Riis estate was divided among his children.[8][5] She was widowed after seven years, in 1914.[13] She died in a nursing home in New York City in 1967, aged 90 years.[3] Some of her papers are in the Jacob A. Riis Papers at the New York Public Library.[14] She donated another collection of Riis papers and photographs to the Library of Congress.[15]

References

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  1. ^ Leonard, John W. (1914). Woman's Who's who of America. American Commonwealth Company. p. 689.
  2. ^ "Untitled social item". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1914-07-02. p. 16. Retrieved 2020-05-23.
  3. ^ a b c d "Mrs. Jacob A. Riis, Financier And Social Worker, Dies at 90; Widow of Reformer Aided Immigrants--Teacher of Investing at Columbia". The New York Times. 1967-08-05. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-23.
  4. ^ a b c Grosch, Mary Frances (2000). "Riis, Mary Phillips (1877-1967), financier and social welfare reformer". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1001400. ISBN 978-0-19-860669-7. Retrieved 2020-05-23.
  5. ^ a b "Successful as a Broker; The widow of Jacob Riis Shows What an Ambitious Woman Can Do". The Washington Times. 1919-04-08. p. 10. Retrieved 2020-05-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ a b Morgan, Mary (April 1920). "The Rise of Mary Riis". The Green Book. 23: 69.
  7. ^ Preuss, Lucile (1958-07-13). "The 'First Lady of Wall Street' Thrives in Ticker Tape World". The Birmingham News. p. 64. Retrieved 2020-05-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b Patterson, Ada (April 10, 1919). "She Practices Altruism in Business". The Continent. 50: 421–422.
  9. ^ "Jacob Riis". Theodore Roosevelt Center. Retrieved 2020-05-23.
  10. ^ "Valiant Lady". Journal and Courier. 1957-11-04. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-05-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Pascal, Janet B. (2005-12-02). Jacob Riis: Reporter and Reformer. Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 157–158. ISBN 978-0-19-514527-4.
  12. ^ Buk-Swienty, Tom (2008). The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 283–284. ISBN 978-0-393-06023-2.
  13. ^ "St. Louis Woman, Widow of Jacob Riis, Noted Publicist". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1914-05-28. p. 15. Retrieved 2020-05-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ Riis, Jacob A; Powell, Lyman P; Riis, Mary Phillips; Roosevelt, Theodore (1871). Jacob Riis papers 1871-1916 [bulk 1900-1914]. New York Public Library. OCLC 122378768.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  15. ^ "Exhibition on Jacob Riis, Pioneering Photographer and Journalist, Opens April 14 at LOC". Fine Books & Collections. March 4, 2016. Retrieved 2020-05-23.
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