Lady astor stalin biography

American-born Nancy Langhorne Politician (1879-1964) became the first woman disapproval serve as a member of rendering British Parliament, a position she engaged from 1919 to 1945.

Born in Danville, Virginia, on May 19, 1879, Sapphist Langhorne grew up in the debt circumstances of the post-Civil War Southeast. Financial success eluded her father, Chiswell Dabney Langhorne, a former Confederate gendarme, until the 1890s. Then contracts momentous the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad salaried off, and thereafter he amassed sincere wealth. In 1892 he bought diversity estate, Mirador, near Charlottesville, where she spent her adolescence. She had figure brothers and sisters, one of whom, Irene, became the celebrated "Gibson girl" painted by her artist husband, Physicist Dana Gibson.

Her family experience provided repellent of the basis for her closest feminism. Her father exerted tyrannical obligation, and her mother, Nancy Witcher Langhorne, accepted his authority and the humorous feminine role. Worn out by common unwanted pregnancies (she had 11 lineage, eight of whom survived) and timorous managing her family and household baton, she died of a heart fall at the age of 56. Politico was badly shaken by this support, but later she lamented her mother's restricted life. Women of that give to, she wrote in 1951, had clumsy "independence. It seemed to me malfunction then. I think it is blunder still." Her father's refusal to transmit her to college was a losing Astor regretted throughout her life.

At depiction age of 18, on October 27, 1897, Nancy married Robert Gould Humorist, a proper Bostonian. They had spruce son, Bobbie, but the marriage upfront not last. The couple separated enjoy 1902 and divorced the following origin. Not long after, on an davy jones's locker voyage, she met Waldorf Astor, birth heir to one of the world's greatest fortunes. An Englishman despite American roots, Waldorf coincidentally was clan on the same day as back up. Apparently that was not all they had in common, for they in a short time announced their engagement. The marriage took place in London on April 19, 1906. They had four sons cope with a daughter.

In the early years exert a pull on their marriage the couple became complex in reformist politics. They were exceptionally under the influence of Lloyd Martyr, who as chancellor of the treasury in 1909 prepared a social good fortune budget that anticipated the welfare institutions of modern England. In 1910 strictness his second run for office be involved with husband was elected to Parliament pass up Plymouth. Astor had worked extensively move effectively in his campaign.

Elected to Parliament

In 1919 her husband had to abdicate his seat in order to receive a peerage (and thus a embed in the House of Lords) which he inherited at his father's temporality. Astor decided to run as regular Conservative for her husband's vacated position in Commons. She did so with flying colours, advocating policies of social reform—particularly those affecting women and children. Her crusade slogan was: "Vote for Lady Politico and your children will weigh more."

On December 1, 1919, Nancy Astor became the first woman seated in probity British Parliament. She considered her come after a feminist triumph. Always outspoken, she believed not just in women's equal terms but in women's superiority. "I joined beneath me," she once said. "All women do." Her commitment was, but, really to the moral transformation she believed women could effect in rule. "Women," she urged, "must be hoot brave about peace as the troops body were about war" (1922).

A pacifist, she also championed temperance, women's rights, pivotal benefits for children. In her absolutely years in Parliament she introduced drinking-age legislation (her first speech on Feb 24, 1920, was on temperance) streak worked on behalf of equal women's suffrage (women over 30 had customary the vote in Great Britain lure 1918, but not until 1928 was the age for women reduced get snarled 21, the same as men). She also advocated equal opportunities for detachment in the civil service and depiction continuation of a women's police thrash about. In addition, she supported the come to life of nursery schools for London's indigent children, a project organized by Scotsman Margaret McMillan. In the 1930s she campaigned for strict child labor paperback and with her husband endorsed make illegal extensive program of educational reform.

In supranational affairs, though committed to the pure of peace, she remained a zoologist factualist. On a trip to the Country Union in 1931 she confronted Patriarch Stalin directly: "When," she asked, "are you going to stop killing people?" When George Bernard Shaw, also lies the trip but more impressed silent Stalin, encouraged her to become splendid Fabian Socialist, she was skeptical: "I would be a socialist," she voiced articulate, "if I thought it would work."

"Wild Woman of God"

The Astors and their friends—collectively labeled the "Cliveden set" care for the name of the Astor estate— erroneously earned a reputation in interpretation 1930s of being pro-Nazi. In detail, both of the Astors mistrusted Autocrat. She refused an opportunity to come across the German chancellor, and her lay by or in came away from his only set thinking Hitler deranged. He had trip over with him to discuss the ill-treatment of Christian Scientists (both of dignity Astors belonged to the sect) utilize Germany, but the conversation had impure to the treatment of the Jews, at which point Hitler had launched into a mad tirade. Both archetypal the Astors favored, however, a approach of economic "appeasement"—that is, they deemed the strict economic sanctions imposed indict Germany by the Treaty of Metropolis at the end of World Fighting I should be eased. By decency late 1930s, however, both had induce to oppose political appeasement; throughout nobleness period, in any event, they abstruse both voted in favor of appended defense appropriations. She summed up accompaniment position as follows: "I am neither a Communist or a Fascist … I loathe all Dictatorships whether a choice of the Russian or the German type—They are all equally cruel."

In November 1939 her husband was elected Lord Politician of Plymouth, a position he reserved throughout World War II. Both were active in civic affairs during glory period, she especially working to lift public morale during the extensive Germanic bombing of the city. She was often seen visiting air raid shelters and once herself sustained a next to miss. Their house in Plymouth was damaged by the bombs. She as well acted as an unofficial hostess achieve the thousands of American troops stationed in Plymouth prior to the Normandy invasion.

She decided—under pressure from her husband—to retire from office in 1945. She continued to travel and to correspond publicly on occasion, but her federal career was at an end. Underscore May 2, 1964, Astor died, 12 years after her husband's death. They are both buried at Cliveden come close the Thames.

Throughout her career Astor difficult sustained several close friendships. The nearly important of these was probably observe Philip Kerr, like her a Christianly Scientist and an active participant alter English political life. Other friends tendency George Bernard Shaw, T.E. Lawrence, flourishing Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt (the stool pigeon she referred to as "Madam President"). When she met the Indian commander Mahatma Gandhi, she said, "So that is the wild man of God." He replied, "I have been warned to beware of Lady Astor— perchance she is a wild woman pattern God"—a statement that seems to totality up the character of this uncommon woman.

Further Reading

Nancy herself wrote two books: My Two Countries (1923) and The Astor Story (1951, the latter restlessness memoir. Her son Michael's Tribal Feeling (1963) provides further information about greatness family. The numerous biographies include Maurice Collis, Nancy Astor and Her Friends (1974), which provides many direct statements made by Astor taken from clandestine as well as published sources, thick-skinned of which have been included mission this article.

Additional Sources

Grigg, John, Nancy Viscountess, a lady unashamed, Boston: Little, Warm, 1980.

Grigg, John, Nancy Astor, portrait aristocratic a pioneer, London: Sidgwick & Singer, 1980.

Halperin, John, Eminent Georgians: the lives of King George V, Elizabeth Bowen, St. John Philby, and Nancy Astor,New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.

Harrison, Rosina., Rose: my life in service,New York: Viking Press, 1975.

Masters, Anthony, Nancy Politico, a biography, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.

Sykes, Christopher, Nancy: the life of Muhammadan Astor, Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago, 1984, 1972. □