Lloyd C. Griscom

{{Infobox ambassador

| name = Lloyd Carpenter Griscom

| image = Lloyd Griscom LCCN2014688468 (3x4a).jpg

| caption = Griscom in 1900

| order =

| ambassador_from = United States

| country = Italy

| term_start = March 17, 1907

| term_end = June 14, 1909

| predecessor = Henry White

| successor = John G. A. Leishman

| president = Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft

| order1 =

| ambassador_from1 = United States

| country1 = Brazil

| term_start1 = June 6, 1906

| term_end1 = January 2, 1907

| predecessor1= David Eugene Thompson

| successor1 = Irving Bedell Dudley

| president1 = Theodore Roosevelt

| order2 =

| minister_from2 = United States

| country2 = Japan

| term_start2 = June 22, 1903

| term_end2 = November 19, 1905

| predecessor2= Alfred Buck

| successor2 = Luke E. Wright (as Ambassador to Japan)

| president2 = Theodore Roosevelt

| order3 =

| minister_from3 = United States

| country3 = Iran

| term_start3 = December 16, 1901

| term_end3 = December 24, 1902

| predecessor3= Herbert W. Bowen

| successor3 = Richmond Pearson

| president3 = Theodore Roosevelt

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1872|11|04}}

| birth_place = Riverton, New Jersey, United States

| death_date = {{death date and age|1959|2|8|1872|11|4}}

| death_place = Thomasville, Georgia

| residence = Luna Plantation

| known_for =

| alma_mater = University of Pennsylvania
New York Law School

| party = Republican

| parents = Clement Griscom
Frances Canby Biddle

| spouse = {{plainlist|

{{marriage|Elizabeth Duer Bronson
|November 2, 1901|1914|reason=d}}
{{marriage|Audrey M.E. Crosse
|October 3, 1929|}}

}}

| children =

| relations = Frances Griscom (sister)

}}

Lloyd Carpenter Griscom (November 4, 1872 – February 8, 1959) was an American lawyer, diplomat, and newspaper publisher.{{cite news|title=LLOYD C. GRISCOM, PUBLISHER, 86, DIES; Lawyer and Former Envoy Led Tallahassee Paper -- Army Officer in 2 Wars|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/02/09/archives/lloyd-c-griscom-publisher-86-dies-lawyer-and-former-envoy-led.html|access-date=21 May 2018|work=The New York Times|date=9 February 1959}}{{cite news|title=LLOYD C. GRISCOM UNDER THE KNIFE {{!}} Condition Very Grave Last Night in Philadelphia After an Operation {{!}} FOR STOMACH TROUBLE {{!}} Surgeons Unwilling to Discuss the Outcome and Reticent About His Prospects|url=https://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9903E5D7143CE633A25751C0A9629C946396D6CF&oref=slogin|access-date=21 May 2018|work=The New York Times|date=April 2, 1912}}

Early life

Lloyd Griscom was born on November 4, 1872, at Riverton, New Jersey. He was the son of shipping magnate Clement Griscom (1841–1912) and Frances Canby Biddle (1840–1923). Among his siblings was Frances Griscom, an amateur golfer who won the 1900 U.S. Women's Amateur held at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, New York,{{Cite web |url=http://golf.about.com/cs/historyofgolf/p/timeline1900.htm |title=Golf Timeline at About.com |access-date=2018-05-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914004129/http://golf.about.com/cs/historyofgolf/p/timeline1900.htm |archive-date=2016-09-14 |url-status=dead }} She and played in the 1898 Amateur at the Ardsley Club.{{Cite web |url=http://www.historywomensgolfam.com/1898.htm |title=History of Women's Golf In America |access-date=2018-05-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927132528/http://www.historywomensgolfam.com/1898.htm |archive-date=2007-09-27 |url-status=dead }}

He graduated in 1891 from the law department of University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Sigma chapter of the Zeta Psi Fraternity. Griscom continued his legal studies at the New York Law School. He later received a Doctor of Laws from the University of Pennsylvania in 1907.

Career

File:Day of Griscom's flight with Wilbur Wright flying the plane (4055965037).jpg, Italy, with King Victor Emmanuel III, Wilbur Wright, and Ambassador Griscom(*error/ this is actually Orville Wright), 1909.]]

In 1893–1894, Griscom served in the United Kingdom as secretary to Ambassador Thomas Bayard; he was admitted to the bar in 1896, and the following year in 1897 he was deputy district attorney of New York. During the Spanish–American War, he served as captain and assistant quartermaster.

While serving a short period as Secretary of Legation and chargé d' affaires at Constantinople, the 28-year-old Griscom made a notable achievement in 1900 by persuading the Sultan to purchase what would become the Ottoman cruiser Mecidiye from the American shipbuilder William Cramp & Sons.{{cite book |last1=Griscom |first1=Lloyd |title=Diplomatically Speaking |date=1940 |publisher=Little Brown |location=Boston |pages=166–175}} Shortly afterward, he was appointed Minister to Persia in 1901. He held the corresponding post in Japan (1902–1906) and was ambassador to Brazil (1906–1907) and to Italy (1907–1909).{{cite web|title=Lloyd Carpenter Griscom - People - Department History|url=https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/griscom-lloyd-carpenter|website=history.state.gov|publisher=Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs United States Department of State|access-date=21 May 2018|language=en}}

In 1911, he became a member of the law firm of Beekman, Menken, and Griscom, New York City, and was thereafter active in local Republican politics, helping found The New York Young Republican Club.{{Cite web|url=https://nyyrc.com/history/|title = History}} He contributed numerous articles to the Philadelphia Sunday Press on travel in Central America. In 1917, he was appointed a major in the department of the Adjutant-General of the United States Army and afterward became Assistant Adjutant-General. During the war, he served as liaison officer to General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces of the U.S. Army.{{cite web|title=Lloyd Carpenter Griscom papers|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/mm79024208/|website=loc.gov|publisher=The Library of Congress|access-date=21 May 2018|language=en}} He was a close friend of Col. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

Griscom's primary significance was as an advocate for globalized free trade as a means to promote peaceful development in accordance with his Quaker faith. In the Middle East he worked for better relations between Muslims and Christians, and he played a major role in the relief effort in Italy after the 1908 Messina earthquake took 50,000 lives.

Prior to the death of Secretary of State John Hay in 1905, Griscom was offered the post of First Assistant Secretary of State. The appointment of Elihu Root to succeed Hay nullified Griscom's appointment to the State Department position.

In 1940, he published a memoir of his professional life, Diplomatically Speaking,Lloyd C. Griscom, Diplomatically Speaking Boston: Little Brown, 1940; London: John Murray, 1941 covering his life from youth and his student days at the University of Pennsylvania to his homecoming as an Army officer after the end of World War One in 1919. In the first year it sold more than 90,000 copies in America before it was published in England. The Rt. Hon. Leo Amery, M.P., commented that "My old friend Lloyd Griscom gives a delightfully breezy picture as seen through American eyes of Edwardian England, of the diplomatic world, of many countries."Birmingham Daily Post Tuesday, 2 December 1941, p. 2.

=Later life=

Following his retirement from public service, he bought and became the publisher of several Long Island newspapers, including the East Norwich Enterprise, the North Hempstead Record, and the Nassau Daily Star. Griscom purchased the Tallahassee [Florida] Democrat in 1929 owning it until his death in 1959. He was a cousin by marriage to Wolcott Gibbs, who later worked at several of Griscom's Long Island newspapers.{{cite book|last1=Vinciguerra|first1=Thomas|title=Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of The New Yorker|date=2015|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393248746|page=230|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=13skCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT230|access-date=21 May 2018|language=en}}{{cite book|last1=Vinciguerra|first1=Thomas|last2=Gibbs|first2=Wolcott|title=Backward Ran Sentences: The Best of Wolcott Gibbs from the New Yorker|date=2011|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|isbn=9781608197309|page=8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OZnWhI1Eh4MC&pg=PA8|access-date=21 May 2018|language=en}}

Griscom studied painting under John Singer Sargent.

Personal life

On November 2, 1901, Griscom was married to Elizabeth Duer Bronson (1877–1914),{{cite news|title=MRS. L. C. GRISCOM DEAD.; Wife of ex-Ambassador to Rome Succumbs in Hotel St. Regis.|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F06E7DA1738E633A25754C1A9679D946596D6CF&legacy=true|access-date=16 October 2017|work=The New York Times|date=17 November 1914}} the daughter of lawyer Frederic Bronson.{{cite news|title=GRISCOM-BRONSON NUPTIALS.; United States Minister to Persia Takes a Wife in London.|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F04EFD7143FE433A25750C0A9679D946097D6CF&legacy=true|access-date=16 October 2017|work=The New York Times|date=3 November 1901}}{{cite book|last1=Browning|first1=Charles H.|title=Americans of Royal Descent: Collection of Genealogies Showing the Lineal Descent from Kings of Some American Families ...|date=1911|publisher=Genealogical Publishing Com|isbn=9780806300542|page=353|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eyik0rO0HlsC&pg=PA546-IA13|access-date=16 October 2017|language=en}} Her mother, Sarah Gracie King,{{cite news|title=MRS. ADRIAN ISELIN DIES IN HER SLEEP; Wife of Banking House's Head Is Stricken in Her 81st Year. A SOCIETY CONSERVATIVE Was a Descendant of the King, Duer and Gracie Families, Long Prominent in This City.|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A05E3DC143BE433A25756C0A9629C946094D6CF&legacy=true|access-date=16 October 2017|work=The New York Times|date=5 April 1931}} was the granddaughter of U.S. Representative James Gore King and William Alexander Duer. Through Elizabeth's uncle, Frederick Gore King, she was the first cousin of Alice Gore King.{{cite web|last1=Sullivan|first1=Robert G.|title=Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs: Van Rensselaer Vol. IV|url=http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/families/hmgfm/vanrensselaer-3.html|website=www.schenectadyhistory.org|publisher=Schenectady County Public Library|access-date=6 December 2016|pages=1814–1821|date=1911}} The Bronsons lived at 174 Madison Avenue{{cite book|title=Social Register, New York|date=1904|publisher=Social Register Association|page=55|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pJFIAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA55|access-date=16 October 2017|language=en}} and had a country home, "Verna" in Southport, Connecticut{{cite web|title=Bronson Windmill|url=https://www.ghvis.com/bronson-windmill/|website=ghvis.com|publisher=Greenfield Hill Improvement Society|access-date=16 October 2017}} (which later became the Fairfield Country Day School).{{cite web|title=History|url=https://www.fairfieldcountryday.org/page/about-fcds/history|website=www.fairfieldcountryday.org|publisher=Fairfield Country Day School|access-date=16 October 2017|language=en}} Together, they were the parents of:{{cite book|last1=Jordan|first1=John Woolf|title=Colonial Families of Philadelphia|date=1911|publisher=Lewis Publishing Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/colonialfamilies02jord/page/1073 1073]|url=https://archive.org/details/colonialfamilies02jord|access-date=21 May 2018|language=en}}{{cite book|last1=Carpenter|first1=Louis Henry|title=Samuel Carpenter and His Descendants: Comp|date=1912|publisher=private circulation|page=156|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WzEfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA156|access-date=21 May 2018|language=en}}

Bronson Winthrop Griscom (1907–1977),{{cite news|title=Deaths. GRISCOM—Bronson|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/21/archives/deaths.html|access-date=21 May 2018|work=The New York Times|date=21 July 1977}} who married Sophie Gay,{{cite news|title=BRONSON W. GRISCOM|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/18/archives/obituary-1-no-title.html|access-date=21 May 2018|work=The New York Times|date=18 July 1977}} the niece of painter Walter Gay, in 1931.{{cite news|title=S R O Sign Out for Gay-Griscom Bridal|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/414184041/?terms=sophie%2Bgay%2BGriscom|access-date=21 May 2018|work=New York Daily News|date=21 Jun 1931|language=en}}
Lloyd Preston Griscom (b. 1913).{{cite news|title=Nina Renshaw Married To Lloyd P. Griscom Jr.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/27/archives/nina-renshaw-married-to-lloyd-p-griscom-jr.html|access-date=21 May 2018|work=The New York Times|date=January 27, 1979}}

After her death in 1914, he remarried to Audrey Margaret Elizabeth Crosse (1900–1975) in England on October 3, 1929.{{cite news|title=COL. L. C. GRISCOM WEDS MISS CROSSE; His Best Man at Ceremony in English Village Is Brig. Gen. Sir Charles Delme-Radcliffe.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/10/04/archives/col-l-c-griscom-weds-miss-crosse-his-best-man-at-ceremony-in.html|access-date=21 May 2018|work=The New York Times|date=4 October 1929}} Audrey was the daughter of Marlborough Crosse and the niece of C. E. Barnwell Ewins of Marston Trussell Hall in Leicestershire.{{cite news|title=LLOYD C. GRISCOM TO WED IN ENGLAND; New York Lawyer Will Marry Miss Audrey M.E. Crosse of Southsea on Oct. 3. A LEICESTERSHIRE BRIDAL Ceremony to Take Place at Marston Trussell Hall, Home of the Bride-Elect's Uncle.|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00E1DA1530E73ABC4052DFBF668382639EDE&legacy=true|access-date=16 October 2017|work=The New York Times|date=18 September 1929}} His best man at the wedding was Brig. Gen. Sir Charles Delmé-Radcliffe (who married the daughter of Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet), who was British military attaché at Rome while Griscom was envoy there.

Griscom died of a stroke on February 8, 1959, at Archbold Memorial Hospital in Thomasville, Georgia while visiting his sister Frances who was a patient there.{{cite news|title=L. C. GRISCOM, EX-DIPLOMAT, DIES AT 86|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/371267768/?terms=sophie%2Bgay%2BGriscom|access-date=21 May 2018|work=Chicago Tribune|date=February 9, 1959|page=54|language=en}}[https://newspaperarchive.com/us/oklahoma/oklahoma-city/oklahoma-city-daily-oklahoman/1959/02-09/ Newspaper Owner, Former Envoy, Dies] After his death, his widow, who inherited the bulk of his estate including the Leon county Luna Plantation as well as the Tallahassee Democrat, which she ran from 1958 through 1965.{{cite news|title=Mrs. Griscom Given Control of Democrat|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/245188525/?terms=Lloyd%2BP.%2BGriscom|access-date=21 May 2018|work=Tallahassee Democrat|date=February 13, 1959|page=9|language=en}}

References

Salvatore Prisco, "Progressive Era Diplomat: Lloyd C. Griscom and Trade Expansion," DIPLOMACY & STATECRAFT, 18 (September 2007), 539–549.

References

External links

[https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/griscom-lloyd-carpenter Lloyd Carpenter Griscom] at the United States Department of State website.
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