Harriet Hale Woolley

Harriet Hale Woolley, whose Parisian divorce from Clarence Mott Woolley made headlines in 1912, settled in Europe, where she actively supported the arts and music. One of the principal donors involved in the construction of the Fondation des États-Unis, she shared with the Gage family the desire to contribute to “international rapprochement” (The New York Times, 1931).

A musician herself, she settled near Florence toward the end of her life, while continuing to spend the month of August in Le Touquet, on the Opal Coast. She stipulated that the scholarships should reward students in the arts and music, as well as in psychiatry. She believed that this discipline, still emerging at the time and in which France was a pioneer, had in fact saved her life.

Her will specified the composition of the initial selection committees, which originally included the American violinist Albert Spalding. Four of the ten scholarships initially planned were awarded to musicians. Four others were reserved for students in psychiatry, granted by the Swiss and French physicians Charles de Montet and Élie Joakimopoulos. The remaining two scholarships were awarded to visual artists.

The generosity of this legacy stands in stark contrast to the barbs published by her former mother-in-law in The Chicago Tribune in 1913: “She’s an extravagant, wasteful woman, and my boy has been indulgent.” Today, that extravagance has become synonymous with generosity and continues, year after year, to nurture the Franco-American friendship so dear to early twentieth-century America, while supporting artists from all backgrounds.