Eulabee Dix: Gilded Age Miniaturist

In 2023, the site received an amazing donation from a Mills family descendant, Dorothy Fell Farrelly, a granddaughter of Dorothy Fell Mills, widow of Ogden Livingston Mills. She and her husband Louis donated three miniature portraits of family members including Margaret Lewis Livingston, Darius Ogden Mills, and a painting never before seen by us, of Ruth Livingston Mills. After some research, we were able to find out that the artist who painted the portrait of Ruth was a woman named Eulabee Dix (1878-1961), an artist who specialized in miniature portraits.

"Mrs. Ogden Mills" by Eulabee Dix, 1907, Watercolor on Ivory

Groundbreaking Women in the Guestbook: Eleonora Randolph Sears

Since receiving the amazing gift of an original Staatsburgh guestbook in 2017, the site has been researching all of the people who signed its pages. The guestbook covers the years 1899-1908 and includes approximately 150 individuals who visited Staatsburgh. There are many different people who signed the guestbook including relatives, friends, and neighbors of the Mills family as well as politicians, businessmen, sportsmen & women, and even the President’s daughter! This essay will look at one of the remarkable and barrier breaking women who signed the guestbook, Eleonora Randolph Sears (1881-1968).

Eleonora Randolph Sears, circa 1901, Bain News Service

Cover of Staatsburgh's guestbook dating from 1899-1908

Patriots, Prisoners & Passengers: Women's History Month

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency ... I desire you would remember the ladies” - Abigail Adams to husband John, 1776

At Staatsburgh, portraits of Ruth Livingston Mills’s ancestors feature prominently throughout the house. This was by design, as Ruth’s pedigree—alongside her family’s generational wealth and her impeccable hostessing skills—was one major factor in her quest to become queen of Gilded Age Society. On a tour of the mansion, the accomplishments and prominent offices held by the men in her family are highlighted, as they feature so greatly in American revolutionary history. But the women associated with Ruth’s family—Elizabeth Lewis, Margaret Livingston, Catherine Livingston, and Mary Lincoln—have their own stories of courage, duty, and perseverance amidst the turmoil of revolutionary America.

Suffragists, Socialists & Socialites: Women's History Month

March is Women's History Month - a month-long celebration of history-making women and their accomplishments! Here at Staatsburgh, there are plenty of stories of remarkable women, groundbreaking achievements, and their contributions to local, national and international history.
 

François Flameng. Ruth Livingston Mills.
1909. Oil on Canvas. 

Of course we have to start off Women's History Month with our very own Ruth Livingston Mills. 

As a woman born into New York's high society, Mrs. Mills attended many charity events and contributed money to a variety of causes. Charity was one avenue for these ambitious society women to focus their energies, since many were not allowed careers in the era. According to newspapers, one of those causes was the fight for female suffrage - the right to vote! Activists and reformers such as Ida B. Wells, Dr. Mary Walker, and Jane Addams campaigned across the county for the right to vote during the Gilded Age.