McCormick, Edith Rockefeller (1872–1932)

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McCormick, Edith Rockefeller (1872–1932)

Chicago socialite and patron of the arts . Name variations: Edith Rockefeller; Mrs. Harold McCormick. Born Edith Rockefeller on August 31, 1872, in Cleveland, Ohio; died of liver cancer on August 25, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois; daughter of John Davison Rockefeller (1839–1937, founder of Standard Oil Trust in Ohio and philanthropist) and Laura Celestia (Spelman) Rockefeller (1839–1915); educated privately and briefly attended the Rye (New York) Female Seminary; married Harold Fowler McCormick (son of Nettie Fowler McCormick [1835–1923]), on November 26, 1895 (divorced 1921); children: John Rockefeller McCormick (died young); Fowler McCormick; Muriel McCormick ; Editha McCormick (died young); Mathilde McCormick .

Moved to New York City (early 1880s); dominated Chicago society after 1895; helped found Chicago Opera Company (1910); moved to Switzerland to study with Carl Jung (1913); divorced husband and returned to Chicago (1921).

Edith Rockefeller McCormick was one of the most eccentric of America's art patrons in the early decades of the 20th century. Heiress to the Standard Oil fortune, for many years she ruled over Chicago society and gave lavishly to her city's cultural institutions. In later years, she became a student of Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung and even practiced psychology herself. Her biographers estimate that over a three-decade span McCormick probably gave away well over $10 million to various causes. She was born in 1872 in Cleveland, Ohio, the third of four children of John D. Rockefeller and Laura Spelman Rockefeller . Her father had founded a New York oil refinery, and by 1870 established the Standard Oil Trust in Ohio, a consortium that controlled virtually all oil refining in the United States and became the Standard Oil Company in 1899; over his lifetime, he would give away an estimated $500 million to philanthropic causes, setting a precedent which his daughter and many other members of the family would follow.

By most accounts, McCormick was a gifted musician who balked at the constrictions of her parents' Baptist household, which by the early 1880s had left Cleveland far behind for the grander precincts of Manhattan. In 1895, she wed Harold Fowler McCormick of Chicago, the son of Nettie Fowler McCormick and Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaper machine that revolutionized agriculture. Like the Rockefellers, the McCormicks were one of the country's emergent dynasties. Together, McCormick and her husband would have five children: John Rockefeller, Fowler, Muriel, Editha, and Mathilde (both John and Editha died young). McCormick became Chicago's premier hostess and most formidable grand dame, throwing opulent soirées at the McCormick mansion at 1000 Lake Shore Drive. She was known as much for the orthodoxy that guided her entertaining as for the headstrong nature of her personality.

McCormick used her fortune both lavishly and charitably. Among her many civic-minded contributions to Chicago was the funding of the payroll for the first juvenile probation officers in the country, and the founding (with her husband) of the John Rockefeller McCormick Memorial Institute for Infectious Diseases, named in honor of their late son. Borrowing the concept of early education from European "kindergartens," McCormick founded a nursery school for girls located in her mother-in-law Nettie's ballroom; all instruction was in French. The McCormicks also gave generously to the Chicago Opera Company, and Edith McCormick's grand arrival there in a Rolls-Royce, trailing a vast ermine cape, assured a sellout crowd. She was also known for her spectacular jewelry, including a Cartier necklace featuring ten massive emeralds along a chain strung with over 1,600 diamonds and a pearl necklace worth $2 million. At her mansion, she hosted dinners for 200 guests with a footman stationed behind every second chair, but always adhered to a promise once made to her conservative father never to serve alcohol in her home; the sober guests ate from an enormous dinner service that had been given by Napoleon to his favorite sister Pauline Bonaparte . Her home was filled with antiques and treasures in every room, including a library that held 15,000 rare books and a rug that was once a gift to Peter the Great from the shah of Persia. No servant was permitted to address her directly (in later years, even her three surviving children were required to make appointments to see her), and all communication between McCormick and her immense household staff was delivered by either her steward or her personal secretary.

McCormick's name became associated with scandal when she left her husband to study in Switzerland with Carl Jung in 1913 (the McCormicks would not formally divorce until 1921). She was already a devotee of the occult and astrology, and thought herself the reincarnation of Ankhesenpoaten , the bride of Tutankhamun. She also gave generously to Jung and his research aims, and helped promote his pioneering work. She continued to serve as a patron to the arts, and supported James Joyce for a time during his writing of the novel Ulysses. After 1921, she remained in Chicago, and built a lavish suburban estate called Villa Turicum in Lake Forest. She continued to give abundantly, establishing the Chicago Zoological Gardens in 1923 and funding a $17 million trust in her name to erect the works of two architects she had come to know in Zurich. One of them, Edwin Krenn, established himself in Chicago, and was her usual companion on the rounds of her still busy social whirl.

Edith McCormick lost a great deal of money in the stock-market crash of 1929 and

collapse of the real-estate market, and died in 1932 with a fortune estimated at only $10 million, one quarter of its original figure. She was buried in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery.