Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt
{{Short description|American socialite and philanthropist (1839–1885)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Frank Armstrong Crawford-Vanderbilt
| image = Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt.jpg
| image_size =
| caption =Portrait by William J. Whittemore
| birth_name = Frances Armstrong Crawford
| birth_date = January 18, 1839
| birth_place = Mobile, Alabama, U.S.
| death_date ={{Death date and age|1885|5|4|1839|1|18}}
| death_place = Staten Island, New York, U.S.
| burial_place = Vanderbilt Family Mausoleum, New York, U.S.
| occupation = Philanthropist
| spouse = {{marriage|Cornelius Vanderbilt
|1869|1877|end=his death}}
}}
Frances Armstrong Crawford-Vanderbilt (January 18, 1839 – May 4, 1885) was an American socialite and philanthropist. During the American Civil War, she was a strong supporter of the Confederate States of America. After the war, she lived in New York City and married multi-millionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Early life
Frank Armstrong Crawford was born on January 18, 1839, in Mobile, Alabama, to Robert Leighton Crawford and Martha Eliza Everett.{{Cite web |url=http://www.tnportraits.org/vanderbilt-frank-crawford-no6.htm |title=Tennessee Portraits: Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt |access-date=2013-09-03 |archive-date=2016-03-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304140924/http://www.tnportraits.org/vanderbilt-frank-crawford-no6.htm |url-status=dead }}T.J. Stiles, [http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-magazine/2011/04/the-commodores-civil-war/ The Commodore’s Civil War] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925063953/http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-magazine/2011/04/the-commodores-civil-war/ |date=2015-09-25 }}, Vanderbilt Magazine, Spring 2011 Her parents named her after their best friend, Frank Armstrong, before she was born, not knowing she would be female. Growing up in Mobile, she attended St. Francis Street Methodist Church.Lyle Lankford, [http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-magazine/2009/08/women-to-the-rescue/ Women to the Rescue], Vanderbilt Magazine, Summer 2009
During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, she was "an unrepentant Confederate." After the war, she moved to New York City with her mother.Kara Furlong, [http://www.vanderbilt.edu/register/articles?id=25388 Commodore's 'strange gift' became educational legacy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023060652/http://www.vanderbilt.edu/register/articles?id=25388 |date=2013-10-23 }}, 03/27/06Augusta Jane Evans, A Southern Woman of Letters: The Correspondence of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, University of South Carolina Press, 2002, p. 153 [https://books.google.com/books?id=TVxIUdjk2JEC&pg=PA153] Augusta Jane Evans described her as a "zealous Methodist."
Philanthropy
In 1873 Crawford persuaded her husband, Cornelius Vanderbilt, to give $1 million to Bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire, the husband of her cousin, Amelia Townsend, to found Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.{{Cite web |url=http://www.tnportraits.org/mctyeire-mrs.htm |title=Tennessee Portrait Project: Amelia Townsend McTyeire |access-date=2013-09-03 |archive-date=2016-03-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304140920/http://www.tnportraits.org/mctyeire-mrs.htm |url-status=dead }} Cornelius saw this gift as a sign of reconciliation to the South, after he had helped defeat the Confederate States Army with his USS Vanderbilt during the Civil War. However, he never visited the university.
Personal life
Crawford was briefly married to John Elliott, but quickly divorced.Stiles, The First Tycoon, p. 476 In 1869, she married Cornelius Vanderbilt after the death of his first wife, Sophia Johnson (a mutual cousin). He died in 1877, and was her mother's cousin. She signed a pre-nuptial agreement, agreeing to receive $500,000 in bonds after his death, a great sum at the time but a fraction of Vanderbilt's fortune.Stiles, The First Tycoon, p. 549 Confederate General Braxton Bragg and his brother, Confederate Attorney General Thomas Bragg, both attended the wedding.
Death and legacy
She died on May 4, 1885, in Staten Island. Her funeral was conducted by Charles Deems in the Church of the Strangers, a church for Southerners in New York that she attended regularly.
Her portrait, painted by William J. Whittemore in 1906, was donated by her brother Robert Leighton Crawford Jr. to Vanderbilt University; it is in Kirkland Hall.
Crawford Hall, one of the ten houses on the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt University, was named in her honor.{{cite news|last1=Bub|first1=Sydney|last2=Mediratta|first2=Avi|title=The Legacy of Slavery At Vanderbilt|url=http://www.vanderbiltpoliticalreview.com/the-legacy-of-slavery-at-vanderbilt/|accessdate=August 31, 2017|work=Vanderbilt Political Review|date=October 5, 2016}} An article in the Vanderbilt Political Review about the university's links to slavery notes, "During our research, for example, it was shockingly difficult to find information on Frank Armstrong Crawford’s stance on the Civil War on the Vanderbilt website or in Vanderbilt archives, yet other sources plainly cited her dedication to the Confederate cause."
References
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Category:Philanthropists from New York (state)
Category:People from Mobile, Alabama
Category:Socialites from New York City
Category:Vanderbilt University people
Category:Methodists from Alabama
Category:19th-century American philanthropists
Category:Burials at the Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum