Lola Maverick Lloyd

Lola Maverick Lloyd (November 24, 1875 – July 25, 1944) was an American pacifist, suffragist, world federalist and feminist. Born in Texas to the wealthy Maverick family, Lola Maverick married William Bross Lloyd, the son of muckraking journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd. Together, they used their family's influence and wealth to support Progressive Era causes.

Following a public and contentious divorce, Lola Maverick Lloyd dedicated the rest of her life to supporting pacifism. She worked to establish the Woman's Peace Party and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915. Lloyd co-founded the Campaign for World Government in 1937, the first organizational attempt at a world government and world federalism, with close friend Rosika Schwimmer.

Biography

Early life Lola Maverick was born on November 24, 1875, in Castroville, Texas, to lawyer George Madison Maverick and Mary Elizabeth Vance, an Episcopalian. Lola was one of six children; her sister Rena Maverick Green would become a prominent citizen of San Antonio. She was the granddaughter of Samuel Maverick, a politician and land baron who was a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. He also served as mayor of San Antonio and is the origin of the term "maverick" to refer to an independent-minded person. His wife Mary Maverick was also an important early Texan. Lola Maverick was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and attended the Mary Institute. After graduation, she attended Smith College, a women's liberal arts college in Northampton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1897. She began a career in education, eventually returning to Smith College to teach mathematics in 1901.

William Bross and Lola Maverick Lloyd lived at The Wayside following the death of Henry Demarest Lloyd. During a trip to Rhode Island to visit a friend in 1898, Maverick met William Bross Lloyd, the eldest son of muckraking journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd. Lloyd was studying law at Harvard College and shared Maverick's progressive ideals. Maverick and Lloyd would meet again in Rhode Island in 1899 and 1901. They were married in San Antonio in 1902, the year Lloyd graduated. The newlyweds embarked on a cross-country camping trip from San Antonio to Winnetka, Illinois. In spring 1903, they built a small cottage they called Half Wayside across the street from Henry Demarest Lloyd's house, The Wayside. Henry Demarest and Jessie Bross Lloyd died in 1903 and 1904, respectively, and William Lloyd inherited The Wayside. Maverick and Lloyd had their first child, Jessie, in February 1904, and a second daughter, Mary, in June 1906. Their first son Bill was born in September 1908. She is also mother to Georgia Lloyd, whom co-founded the Campaign for World Government and participated in the formation of the United Nations amongst other pacificist and advocacy roles.

William practiced some law in Chicago and was nominally a director of the Chicago Tribune, but worked infrequently, spending most of his time at home with Lola. They built a small vacation home on the Maverick family property in Bexar County, Texas. which Lloyd rarely gets credit for.

Death By 1939, Lloyd's health was failing. She suffered from migraine headaches which would keep her in bed for days at a time. She moved back to her Winnetka house full-time with her daughter Mary. Lola Maverick Lloyd died of complications from pancreatic cancer on July 25, 1944, at the age of 68. Jessie Lloyd spoke the eulogy at her memorial service and believed that the outbreak of World War II undermined her health.