Mary Harriman Rumsey

Mary Harriman Rumsey (November 17, 1881 – December 18, 1934) was an American social activist, government official and heiress of the wealthy Harriman family. She was the founder of The Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements, later known as the Junior League of the City of New York of the Association of Junior Leagues International Inc, and served as Chair of the Consumer Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. Mary was the daughter of railroad magnate E. H. Harriman and sister to W. Averell Harriman, former New York State Governor and United States Diplomat. In 2015 she was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Early life Mary Harriman Rumsey was born on November 17, 1881, the oldest of six children of railroad industrialist E. H. Harriman (1848–1909) and his wife, Mary Averell Harriman (1851–1932).

Her siblings were Henry Neilson Harriman (1883–1888); Cornelia Harriman (1884–1966), who married Robert Livingston Gerry (1877–1957); Carol Averell Harriman (1889–1948), who married R. Penn Smith in 1917 and, after his death in 1929, married W. Plunket Stewart, a racing stable owner in 1930; William Averell Harriman (1891–1986), who in 1955 became the Governor of New York and who married Kitty Lanier Lawrence, then Marie Norton Whitney (1903–1970), and lastly Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill Hayward (1920–1997); and Edward Roland Noel Harriman (1895–1978), who married Gladys Fries (1896–1983).

Mary attended Barnard College, where she specialized in sociology and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. While there, she worked with Charles B. Davenport at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, becoming so enamored of eugenics that her friends nicknamed her "Eugenia." On Mary's urging, her mother endowed the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor in 1910. Mary married sculptor and polo player Charles Cary Rumsey (1879–1922), shortly after the death of her father on September 9, 1909. Rumsey had been working at Arden House, creating one of the principal fireplace surrounds, as well as other decorative sculpture. By all accounts, the two had a happy marriage. Together they had a daughter and two sons: Charles Cary Rumsey Jr. (1911–2007), who was married to Mary Maloney, a welfare office clerk, until his death at age 95. Mary Averell Rumsey (1913-1989), who made her debut in 1932 at a party with over 1,100 guests. Bronson Harriman Rumsey (1917–1939), who died when the plane he was riding in, along with Daniel S. Roosevelt (1917–1939) (the son of Hall Roosevelt and nephew of Eleanor Roosevelt), hit a mountain slope near Guadalupe Victoria, Puebla, Mexico. Charles was killed in a car accident in 1922. From 1933-1934, she shared a home and possibly a romantic relationship and worked together in the Settlement Houses of New York City. Mary died in 1934, a few weeks after being severely injured in horse riding accident during a hunt near Middleburg, Virginia. Though the exact nature of their relationship is unknown, Perkins was with Rumsey's children at her bedside when she died, and was publicly recognized as one of the 'principal mourners' at her funeral.