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Mary Ormsbee Whitton

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Ormsbee Whitton
Born
Mary Royce Ormsbee

(1886-02-23)February 23, 1886
Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedJanuary 31, 1971(1971-01-31) (aged 84)
Pound Ridge, New York, U.S.
OccupationsWriter, historian, biographer
RelativesGeorge E. Bria (son-in-law)

Mary Royce Ormsbee Whitton (February 23, 1886 – January 31, 1971) was a 20th-century American author. She wrote First First Ladies (1948) and These Were the Women (1954), both books on women in American history. She also wrote about electrical appliances for the home.[1]

Early life and education

[edit]

Mary Royce Ormsbee was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Edwin Hamilton Ormsbee and Agnes Bailey Ormsbee. Her father was a newspaper editor in Brooklyn,[2] and her mother was an active clubwoman and writer.[3] Her brother Thomas Hamilton Ormbsee and her sister Helen Ormsbee were also writers.[4][5] She attended Erasmus Hall High School,[6] and graduated from Smith College in 1907.[7]

Career

[edit]

Whitton published short stories and poems in various publications,[8] including The Touchstone,[9] House Beautiful,[10] Woman's Home Companion,[10][11] Parents Magazine,[12][13] Pictorial Review,[14] Children: The Magazine for Parents,[15] Prairie Schooner[16] and The American Scholar.[17][18]

Whitton's first book The New Servant (1927) was about new and expanding uses of electrical appliances at home.[1] "Mrs. Whitton has robbed electricity of its mystery," Mary Belle Sherman wrote in the book's introduction. "She has taken away the lingering fears which lurked around electrical equipment and she has made it plain that an intelligent woman has everything to gain by a judicious investment in electrical equipment."[19] Whitton's other two books were about American women's history before 1865.[6][20]

Publications

[edit]
  • "The Craft of Book Binding as Practiced in America" (1918, article)[9]
  • "The Mechanics of Living Beautifully" (1920, article)[10]
  • "Wanted: A Washing Machine" (1921, article)[11]
  • "Rolling through the Ironer" (1922, article)[14]
  • "Running Your House on Greased Wheels" (1925, article)[10]
  • The New Servant: Electricity in the Home (1927)[21][22]
  • "What Shall I Buy First?" (1928, article)[15]
  • "Are You Motor-minded?" (1928, article)[23]
  • "Not Luxuries; But merely a new form of household economy" (1928, article)[24]
  • "The New Ironers" (1930, article)[12]
  • "So Early Monday Morning" (1930, article)[13]
  • "For Ever and Ever, Amen" (1944, story)[16]
  • First First Ladies 1789–1865: A Study of the Wives of the Early Presidents (1948)[25][26]
  • "At Home with Lucretia Mott" (1951, article)[17]
  • "Some New Forty-Niner Letters: From the Vanderbeck-Banfield Collection" (1953, article)[18]
  • These Were the Women: U.S.A. 1776–1860 (1954)[20][27]

Personal life

[edit]

Ormsbee married Belgian-born businessman William Hean Whitton.[28] He died in 1951.[29] She died from a heart attack at her home in Pound Ridge, New York, in 1971, at the age of 84.[8] She was survived by a daughter, also named Mary Ormsbee Whitton, who married journalist George E. Bria,[30] and two grandchildren.[1]

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 3 "Mary Ormsbee Whitton, 84; Author of 'The New Servant'". The New York Times. 1971-02-02. p. 40. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
  2. ↑ "Hamilton Ormsbee Funeral Sunday". The Brooklyn Daily Times. 1923-11-02. p. 14. Retrieved 2026-05-03 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ↑ "Mrs. Agnes Bailey Ormsbee". The New York Times. 1920-12-09. p. 13. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-05-03.
  4. ↑ "Thomas H. Ormsbee, an Author Of Books on Antiques, Dies at 78". The New York Times. 1969-08-05. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-05-03.
  5. ↑ "Helen Ormsbee, A Writer, Dead; Contributor to The Herald Tribune and Times Was a Specialist on Stage". The New York Times. 1957-09-08. p. 83. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-05-03.
  6. 1 2 "Boro Author Writes a Book about Presidents' Wives". Brooklyn Eagle. 1948-12-12. p. 11. Retrieved 2026-05-03 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ Smith College, Class of 1907 Classbook (1907 yearbook); via Internet Archive.
  8. 1 2 "Mary Ormsbee Whitton". The Baltimore Sun. 1971-02-02. p. 9. Retrieved 2026-05-03 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (July 1918). "The Craft of Book Binding as Practiced in America". The Touchstone. 3 (4): 367–368.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Inness, Sherrie A. (2001). Dinner Roles: American Women and Culinary Culture. University of Iowa Press (published 215). ISBN 978-1-58729-332-0.
  11. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (August 1921). "Wanted: A Washing Machine". Woman's Home Companion: 52, 62.
  12. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (June 1930). "The New Ironers". Parents Magazine. 5 (6): 33, 74.
  13. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (November 1930). "So Early Monday Morning". Parents Magazine. 5 (11): 28–29, 75.
  14. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (July 1922). "Rolling Through the Ironer". Pictorial Review. 23 (10): 49.
  15. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (September 1928). "What Shall I Buy First?". Children. 3 (9): 23, 36.
  16. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (1944). "For Ever and Ever, Amen". Prairie Schooner. 18 (3): 217–222. ISSN 0032-6682.
  17. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (1951). "At Home with Lucretia Mott". The American Scholar. 20 (2): 175–184. ISSN 0003-0937.
  18. 1 2 Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (1953). "Some New Forty-Niner Letters: From the Vanderbeck-Banfield Collection". The American Scholar. 22 (3): 346–360. ISSN 0003-0937.
  19. ↑ "'The New Servant'--a Study by Mary Ormsbee Whitton". Brooklyn Eagle. 1927-07-25. p. 10. Retrieved 2026-05-03 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. 1 2 Schlesinger, Elizabeth Bancroft (December 1954). "These Were the Women, U. S. A., 1776-1860 (review)". The New England Quarterly. 27 (4): 563. doi:10.2307/362133.
  21. ↑ "Books Worth Reading". Trained Men. 8 (2): 46. Spring 1928.
  22. ↑ "Books for Parents". Children. 3 (5): 51. May 1928.
  23. ↑ Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (June 1928). "Are You Motor-Minded?". Woman's Home Companion. 55 (6): 97–98.
  24. ↑ Whitton, Mary Ormsbee (April 1928). "Not Luxuries; But merely a new form of household economy". Woman's Home Companion. 65 (4): 79.
  25. ↑ Whitton, Mary Ormsbee. (1948). First First Ladies, 1789-1865; a study of the wives of the early Presidents. New York: Hastings House.
  26. ↑ Fennelly, Catherine (1949). "Review of First First Ladies 1789-1865: A Study of the Wives of the Early Presidents". The William and Mary Quarterly. 6 (4): 683–685. doi:10.2307/1916772. ISSN 0043-5597.
  27. ↑ "Book Review: Early Women's Feats Told by M. O. Whitton". The Bradenton Herald. 1961-10-08. p. 20. Retrieved 2026-05-03 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ↑ "Miss Mary Royce Ormsbee Engaged". Brooklyn Life. 1915-10-30. p. 23. Retrieved 2026-05-03 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ↑ "William H. Whitton". The New York Times. 1951-10-03. p. 33. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
  30. ↑ "Bria, AP newsman who flashed Nazi surrender, dies at 101". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on 2017-03-20. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
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