Mary Vail Andress
Mary Vail Andress | |
|---|---|
 Mary Vail Andress, from a 1924 publication | |
| Born | March 27, 1883 Sparta, New Jersey |
| Died | May 15, 1964 (aged 81) New York |
| Occupation(s) | Banker, war relief worker |
| Known for | Distinguished Service Medal (U.S. Army) (1919) |
Mary Vail Andress (March 27, 1883[1] – May 15, 1964) was an American banker. She was "the first woman to become an officer of a major New York bank".[2] She also did relief work during both World War I and World War II, and was "the first woman war worker to receive the Distinguished Service Medal".[3]
Early life
[edit]Andress was born in Sparta, New Jersey, the daughter of Theophilus Hunt Andress and Sarah Cecelia Cutler Andress.[2][4] Her father was a physician and a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War.[5] Theodore Newton Vail was her cousin, and Alfred Vail was her great-uncle.[6]
Andress graduated from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.[7][8] Her mother and grandmother had also attended Moravian. She was captain of the basketball team as a student; later she served as a trustee of the college[9] She attended the Summer School of Arts and Sciences at Yale University in 1905.[10]
Career
[edit]In 1917 and 1918, Andress joined the Women's Overseas Service League[11] and ran a canteen[12][13] and later directed the American Red Cross rest station in Toul, France.[14][15] "For a whilt it seemed as if I could never quite get down to the real job," she recalled later, "it seemed so often that something new broke loose and always just at the wrong time."[16] For her wartime service she was the first woman awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1919, and the medal was presented to her by General John J. Pershing.[3] She also received the Medal of French Gratitude from the French government.[3][17] In 1919 she went to work with Armenian refugees[18] in Turkey and Georgia, for Near East Relief, and directed an orphanage in Tbilisi.[2][8][17] She spent two years in this work.[19]
Andress began working at the Paris office of Bankers Trust Company in 1920. She was assistant cashier at the main office of Chase National Bank from 1924[17] to 1940.[20] In this, she became the first woman to work as an officer at a major New York bank.[2][21] In 1937, she helped open Chase's London office.[22] Later she was the first woman to serve on the bank's board of directors.[8] "The average woman can manage her own affairs very well," she declared in a 1924 profile. "I have found her competent, judicial, and unflurried."[6]
In 1940, she was again active in war relief, working for British War Relief, United China Relief Drive, and the Red Cross War Fund Drive.[8] She and Anne Morgan created the Friends of France, to raise funds for war relief.[2] In her later years, she served on the board of trustees of the American Craftsmen's Educational Council.
Personal life
[edit]Mary Vail Andress died in 1964, in New York City, at age 81.[2]
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^ Andress gave March 27, 1883 as her birthdate on her 1918 passport application. Other sources give other dates, ranging from 1877 to 1882; via Ancestry
- ^ a b c d e f "MARY V. ANDRESS, BANKER, 86, DIES; Chase National Officer Was Relief Worker in 2 Wars". The New York Times. 1964-05-17. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-06-25.
- ^ a b c "First Woman to Get D. S. M." Arizona Republic. 1919-10-12. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Banta, Theodore Melvin (1901). Sayre Family: Lineage of Thomas Sayre, a Founder of Southampton. De Vinne Press. pp. 15–16.
- ^ "Deaths". Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey. 10: 266. October 1913.
- ^ a b "Women are Winners in Business Because--". The Miami Herald. 1924-12-07. p. 88. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Chase National Appoints Woman as Official" Trust Companies (November 1924): 670.
- ^ a b c d Krismann, Carol (2005). Encyclopedia of American Women in Business: A-L. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-0-313-33383-5.
- ^ "Woman Banker to Head Seminar at Moravian". The Morning Call. 1938-12-10. p. 8. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ University, Yale (1905). Catalogue. p. 744.
- ^ "Heroines Will Meet". The Dispatch. 1926-06-15. p. 9. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "More Canteen Workers Reach France". The Red Cross Bulletin. 1: 2. October 22, 1917.
- ^ American National Red Cross War Council (1917). The Work of the American Red Cross: Report by the War Council of Appropriations and Activities from Outbreak of War to November 1, 1917. p. 90.
- ^ "Our History in Pictures – Women's Overseas Service League". Retrieved 2021-06-26.
- ^ "American Red Cross Rest Station, Toul. Miss Mary Vail Andress, directrice". Library of Congress. September 1918. Retrieved 2021-06-26.
- ^ Hungerford, Edward (1920). With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American Effort. Macmillan. pp. 116–119, 286–287.
- ^ a b c "Holder of D. S. M. is Appointed to N. Y. Bank Post". Altoona Tribune. 1924-11-11. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Women War Workers, Eager to Serve, Go to Aid Armenians". Washita County Enterprise. 1920-02-05. p. 8. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Brooklyn Heroine 2 Years in Caucasus". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1920-06-13. p. 15. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Miss Andress Will Leave Bank Post". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1940-06-24. p. 17. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Miss Mary Vail Andress First Woman Executive in a Wall-Street Bank". The Boston Globe. 1924-10-23. p. 1. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Petersen, Anne (1937-01-31). "WOMEN ADVANCING IN BANKING WORLD; Miss Mary Vail Andress Will Help to Organize a London Office for Chase National". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-06-26.