When Alva Belmont divorced William Vanderbilt she built a teahouse for feminists. Here I follow the life of this unexpected suffragist ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March.

There is a house in Newport, Rhode Island, that looks very different from its neighbours. Set on the back lawn of Marble House – the mansion William Vanderbilt gifted his wife Alva as a summer cottage – is a teahouse with a flared green roof and lacquered crimson columns reminiscent of a Chinese pavilion. This teahouse was the site of the United States suffrage movement during the early 20th century, which led to (white) women gaining the vote in 1920.

Alva was no stranger to living a bold life. Having married into the wealthy Vanderbilt family, she became a socialite, leveraging the family’s name into elite circles, which were initially reluctant to admit ‘new money’ into the clique. She was a major factor in arranging the marriage of her daughter Consuelo to Charles Spencer-Churchill, the 9th Duke of Marlborough (first cousin of Winston Churchill) to secure a noble title for the family in exchange for a healthy dowry.

In 1895, at a time when divorce among the elite was unheard of, she split with Vanderbilt due to his adultery and secured a number of estates and alimony of roughly $10 million (about $315 million in today’s money). The following year she married his friend Oliver Belmont. When he passed in 1908, Alva devoted the remainder of her life to women’s suffrage.

The socialite became one of the movement’s most generous philanthropists. In addition to donating large sums to the US and UK suffragists, she also routinely paid the bail of picketers, supported striking female workers and funded large rallies in New York as well as paid for the offices of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1909, she formed her own Political Equality League to seek support for suffrage in New York City neighbourhoods and led the division’s 1912 Women’s Votes Parade.

Which brings us back to the teahouse. Commissioned by Alva in 1913 to New York architectural firm Hunt & Hunt, it was designed based on sketches of pavilions taken on a research trip to China. It is, historians say, a unique example of ‘American chinoiserie’.

It was this backyard venue that hosted the Conference of Great Women in 1914 at which Alva and Consuelo addressed the gathered suffragettes. For the occasion, British manufacturers Maddock & Sons produced porcelain Votes for Women-themed tableware, and guests received teacups and saucers of the china as favours. The conference and a tea party hosted there later that summer helped to raise money for the suffrage movement.

Alva held the office of president of the National Woman’s Party until her death in 1933. At her funeral, a contingent of all-female pallbearers carried her coffin. Her legacy lives on in the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, which Alva had bought for the National Woman’s Party as lobby headquarters in Washington DC, and a backyard teahouse on Rhode Island that fuelled the women’s movement with tea.

Find out more about International Women’s Day.

This article originally appeared in AUSTCS enews 2 March 2021. Mailchimp no longer allows external links to the original newsletter.