Florence Jaffray "Daisy" Harriman (July 21, 1870 – August 31, 1967) was an American socialite, suffragist, social reformer, organizer, and diplomat. "She led one of the suffrage parades down Fifth Avenue, worked on campaigns on child labor and safe milk and, as minister to Norway in World War II, organized evacuation efforts while hiding in a forest from the Nazi invasion."Christopher Gray, "New York Streetscapes: Former Colony Club at 120 Madison Avenue," The New York Times, 2003-09-28. In her ninety-second year, U.S. President John F. Kennedy honored her by awarding her the first "Citation of Merit for Distinguished Service."John F. Kennedy, "Remarks Upon Presenting a Presidential Citation of Merit to Mrs. Florence Harriman," April 19, 1963, reprinted at "The American Presidency Project" website, last accessed 2010-07-31. She often found herself in the middle of historic events. As she stated, "I think nobody can deny that I have always had through sheer luck a box seat at the America of my times."" Crusader for Rights; Florence Jaffray Harriman," The New York Times, 1963-04-19.
Early life and family Harriman was born Florence Jaffray Hurst on July 21, 1870, in New York City to Civil War blockade runner and shipping magnate F. W. J. Hurst and his wife Caroline. In 1871 she became a niece by marriage of Helen Smythe, who married her mother's brother William Phillips Jaffray (1845–1887), a New York dry goods merchant. When she was three years old, her mother, then 29, died."Funeral of Mrs. Hurst," New York Times, 1873-08-15. She and her two sisters, Caroline Elise and Ethel, were raised in and around New York City by her father and maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Somerville Jaffray.Judith A. Leavitt, " American Women Managers and Administrators: A Selective Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Leaders in Business, Education, and Government," 102-03 (1985) . Aged six, she watched her first political torchlight parade, part of the 1876 presidential campaign.Jane Eads, "Lady Democrats Fete Spry Daisy Harriman" in Morgantown (WV) Dominion-News, 1958-01-22 at p. 5. "She later told of leaning over the bannister of her home at 615 Fifth Avenue, to hear visitors such as John Hay, President James A. Garfield, and President Chester A. Arthur."
She was known throughout her life as "Daisy".
Between 1880 and 1888, she received private lessons at the home of financier J. P. Morgan."Florence Jaffray Hurst Harriman: A Register of Her Papers in the Library of Congress," Library of Congress 2002. She also attended the Misses Lockwood's Collegiate School for Girls.
In 1889, at age nineteen, she married J. Borden Harriman, a New York banker, an elder cousin of future cabinet secretary, New York Governor, and diplomat W. Averell Harriman."New Harriman Deal," Time, 1934-01-22. The list of attendees at their wedding included past and future president Grover Cleveland, railroad tycoons Cornelius Vanderbilt and Edward Harriman, John Jacob Astor IV, and J. P. Morgan. They had one child, Ethel Borden Harriman, born in 1897.Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, "From Pinafores to Politics," (Henry Holt & Co., 1923) ASIN B00085GSYO (available in the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, Library of Congress and accessed 2010-07-31). Ethel worked on Broadway and in Hollywood, as an actress and writer.Broadway Database entry for Ethel Borden and Internet Movie Database entry for Ethel Borden.
Socialite
For many years, Harriman led the life of a young society matron interested in charitable and civic activities."Florence J. Harriman," Encyclopædia Britannica, referenced 2008-03-01. Her life revolved around Mount Kisco, New York, Fifth Avenue in New York City, and Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1903, she co-founded with Ava Lowle Willing and Helen Hay Whitney the Colony Club, New York City's first club exclusively for women.James Trager, "Park Avenue: Street of Dreams" p. 160 (Athenaeum 1990). However, instead of restricting her social and civic activities to the wealthy or to members of her husband's political party (the Republican Party), she reached out to others. For example, in 1908, she led efforts by the New York chapter of the National Women's Committee to expose harsh working conditions in New York City's factories, foundries and hotels." Women in Secret Crusade for Labor," New York Times, 1908-05-06. She explained, "Should not the woman who spends the money which the employees help to provide take a special interest in their welfare, especially in that of the women wage earners?""Women in Society to Help Labor," New York Times, 1908-03-07 at p. 3. In 1909, she created waves when, as the "wife of a banker," she "entertained one hundred members of the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen at her summer home.""Banker’s Wife Dines Labor Delegates," The New York Times, 1909-08-19. In 1906, Republican Governor Charles Evans Hughes appointed her as a member of the Board of Managers of New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford, New York.
Suffragist and social reformer
As Harriman would later explain in her book From Pinafores to Politics, her leadership and organizing skills became increasingly directed toward the disenfranchised and impoverished. She was active in the women's suffrage movement in support of extending the vote to women, reportedly leading a parade of suffragists down Fifth Avenue."'Enter Politics:' Mrs. J. Borden Harriman's Message to American Women." New York Herald, 1912-08-12, p. 2. She also crusaded against unhealthy conditions in New York's tenements.Florence J. Harriman, " Fighting Tuberculosis in our Crowded Tenements," New York Times Magazine, 1912-10-13. Franklin D. Roosevelt later described her as "the woman who was most responsible for helping to provide milk for dependent poor children in the great city of New York."President Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Radio Address at the White House Conference on Children in a Democracy, Washington, D.C.," January 19, 1940, reprinted at The American Presidency Project website, last accessed 2010-07-29.
In 1912, Harriman's active support for the presidential campaign of then-New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson led to national publicity and leadership roles. She was elected as the first president of the "Women's National Wilson and Marshall Association," and organized mass meetings, and mass mailings, in support of his campaign.Jo Freeman, "The Rise of Political Woman in the Election of 1912" (2003).
Upon taking office, Wilson appointed Harriman as a member of the first U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, which Congress had authorized the previous year. After 154 days of testimony, the Commission could not agree on the causes and solutions to labor-management difficulties. Harriman and Commissioner John R. Commons refused to sign the caustic report written by Commission Chair Frank P. Walsh."Walsh Would Have Government Seize All Colossal Fortunes," Atlanta Constitution, 1915-08-24 at p. 12. As Commons and Harriman wrote in their separate report (joined by a narrow majority of Commissioners), the Walsh report mistakenly focused on individual "scapegoats rather than on the system that produces the demand for scapegoats.""Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations: Report of Commissioners John R. Commons and Florence J. Harriman," 169 (1916).Bruce Kaufman, The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations: 86 (2004) .
Her husband became seriously ill in February 1913, shortly before Wilson took office." J. Borden Harriman, Ex-Banker, is Dead," New York Times, 1914-12-02. After President Wilson's appointment, Washington, D.C. became their primary residence. While serving on the Commission on Industrial Relations, she also continued to serve in New York on the Bedford Reformatory board.
World War I and the Mexican Revolution
Harriman, her husband and daughter found themselves in the middle of Europe as World War I erupted in the summer of 1914. Hoping that the healing waters in the Bohemian spa in Karlsbad would benefit her husband, Harriman brought her family to Europe in June 1914. After meeting with leading British and French officials while relations between the European powers deteriorated, they traveled through France to Karlsbad (then a part of Austria-Hungary), and were there when Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia in late July. After leaving Karlsbad on the last train crossing the frontier through Germany to France, they eventually returned to New York on an armed British vessel, the . Her husband's health continued to deteriorate, and he died on December 1, 1914."J Borden Harriman Dying in Mt. Kisco," The New York Times, 1914-10-08. His prolonged illness, the resulting lack of income, and the expense of maintaining several homes had consumed nearly all of his net worth."The Inside Story of Ethel Harriman's War Romance," Washington Post, 1918-02-10, (magazine section) p. 1. Harriman never remarried.
The following year, Harriman found herself near the front lines of another war – the battle along the south side of the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Texas, between supporters of rebel Pancho Villa and the armies of Mexican leader Venustiano Carranza. During a break in hearings on working conditions for farmworkers that she conducted in Dallas in March 1915," Farm Women Work Hard: Mrs. J. Borden Harriman Investigates Conditions in the Southwest," New York Times, 1915-03-20. she accepted an offer to visit the Rio Grande area, where the United States was attempting to remain neutral as Mexican factions battled each other along the river. After watching the battle for Matamoros, Tamaulipas from Brownsville, she began to tend to the wounded and visited the smoking battlefields, before returning to Washington.
Harriman increased her charitable and political activity. She turned her Mount Kisco home into a tuberculosis sanitarium. During the period of American neutrality, she became a cofounder of the Committee of Mercy, which was created to help the women and children and other European noncombatants made destitute by the war.Ida Clyde Clarke, "American Women and the World War," (D. Appleton & Co. 1918). In May 1916 she was recruited by Eleanor Roosevelt to lead a contingent of "Independent Patriotic Women of America" in a preparedness parade.Edward J. Renehan, Jr., "The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War," pp. 118-19 (Oxford U. Press: 1999). After the United States declared war on Germany, she organized the American Red Cross Women's Motor Corps of the District of Columbia, and directed the Women's Motor Corps in France. From 1917 to 1919, she served as chair of the U.S. National Defense Advisory Commission's Committee on Women in Industry.
1919 to 1937
Harriman participated in the Versailles Peace Conference, and upon her return was an advocate for American participation in the League of Nations, and worked on behalf of world peace organizations.
While the Wilson Administration ended in 1921, Harriman's Democratic activism did not. Syndicated columnist William Hard described her as "a candle for the party in its darkest days."William Hard, "Men and Affairs," Charleston (WV) Daily Mail, 1930-07-21 at p. 6. She began serving as member of the Democratic National Committee in 1920 (a position she would hold until the 1950s) and in 1922 became a founder and the first president of the Woman's National Democratic Club. Her first book, "From Pinafores to Politics," was published in 1923. She was often in the company of another widowed fixture of 1920s Washington, Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana.Laton McCartney, "The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country," p. 189 (2008), . She resided in a large home known as "Uplands," on a hill off Foxhall Road northwest of Georgetown."Florence Jaffray Harriman, "Mission to the North" (Lippincott 1941) .