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Title |
The Sisters: The Lives and Times of the Fabulous Cushing Sisters |
Author |
Grafton, David |
Summary |
"The Sisters: The Lives and Times of the Fabulous Cushing Sisters" by David Grafton, 1992. As per title, a book about the Cushing sisters including Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney, wife of Greenwood Plantation owner John Hay "Jock" Whitney, who spent considerable time in Thomasville. From the dust cover: "Americans had a forty-year love affair with the Cushing sisters - Minnie, Betsey, and Babe - from the 1930s to the 1970s. They were like movie stars, setting trends and fashions, leading glamorous lives. Daughters of the world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Harvey Cushing of Boston, the sisters were not born rich, but their marriages catapulted them into a world of wealth and power. Minnie married real estate tycoon Vincent Astor after a lengthy affiar, becoming a pillar of old-money New York society. Tiring of his sporting life, she divorced him to marry painter James Fosburgh, a homosexual, and became the doyenne of New York's artistic circles, establishing a glittering salon. Alan Jay Lerner, Claudette Colbert, Renata Tibaldi, David Hockney, Dorothy Rodger, John Hammond, and Robert Motherwell were frequent guests at her soirees. Betsey Cushing married James Roosevelt and, as President Franklin Roosevelt's daughter-in-law, became his unofficial hostess at the White House. When her marriage to Jimmy Roosevelt foundered, she became Mrs. Jock (John Hay) Whitney and one of the richest women in the world. And finally Barbara, known as Babe, married Standard Oil heir Stanley Mortimer of Tuxedo Park, then went on to marry the legendary CBS board chairman William Paley. The only "working girl" among the CUshing sisters, she was a fashion editor at VOGUE magazine. Her sense of elegance set a standard for the style-concious; she was the Duchess of Windsor and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis rolled into one. Her celebrated friendship and bitter feud with Truman Capote is the stuff of legend. A book about the Cushing sisters in the endlessly fascinating story of life among the rich-rich. The houses, the gardens, the yachts, the jewels, the parties, all added up to lives of almost unimaginable luxury. The Cushing sisters got their money thorugh mother wit and single minded perseverance, along with an understanding of power and the shrewd use of their good looks. For the first time, David Grafton provides a portrait of their indomitable, larger-than-life mother, who electrified and utterly dominated her daughters. The sisters made the attainment of money and social standing look easy, something that women everywhere could accomplish. THE SISTERS reveals the truth about the Cushing sisters' lives, their phenomenal rise from the comfortable reaches of the upper middle class to the closest thing to aristocray America has known. THE SISTERS describes the special world - the time between the two world wars - that made this conquest possible. If the lives of the three beautiful Cushing sisters fascinated America for forty years, it was partly because Betsey, Minnie, and Babe fit perfectly into their time. They were role models for an age, mirrors of culture, expressions of values for people who needed to believe in charmed lives." |
Object Name |
Book |
Catalog Number |
2009.053.0001 |
Published Date |
1992 |