Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont Collection
1965 - 1998

Alva Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1853 and died in Paris, France, in 1933. She was educated in France. In 1875, she married William Kissam Vanderbilt (grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt), and had three children: Consuelo, William K. Jr., and Harold Stirling. They divorced in 1895.

In 1896, she married Oliver H. P. Belmont, who died in 1908. After his death, Alva Belmont threw herself into the cause of woman's suffrage. She founded the "Political Equality Association", sponsored lectures, dances and concerts, and wrote and produced a suffrage operetta. In 1914, she joined the Congressional Union (later the National Woman's Party). She was referred to as the "Bengal Tiger".

In 1998, Erik Per Overbey donated these items to Special Collections.

This collection contains 9 items in 9 file folders that reveal the life of Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont, snippets regarding the Smith family, and the Vanderbilt family during the later part of the 19th century, and the first part of the 20th century.

Brochures

• Lecture Presentations by Margaret Hayden Rector - 1992
• Biltmore Estate - 1995

Interment Records

• Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama [Smith Family]

Journal Articles

• The Tangible Past by John Sledge, Alabama Heritage, No. 34, Fall 1994
• Alabama's "Bengal Tiger": Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont by John Sledge, Alabama Heritage, No. 44, Spring 1997
• Alva Vanderbilt's Ball by Scott C. Steward, Social Register Observer, Summer 1997

Newspaper Clippings

• February 15, 1965 - President Johnson and His Family Tree
• February 4, 1979 - Lord Charles Spencer Churchill
• March 2, 1998 - Obituary of Countess Anthony Szapary - 3 clippings

Overview | Complete Finding Aid (pdf)

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