Electra Havemeyer Webb (August 16, 1888 – November 19, 1960) was a collector of American antiques and founder of the

Shelburne Museum Shelburne Museum is a museum of art, design, and Americana located in Shelburne, Vermont, United States. Over 150,000 works are exhibited in 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of which are historic and were relocated to the museum grounds. It is located ...

Early life

Electra Havemeyer was born on August 16, 1888. She was the youngest child of

Henry Osborne Havemeyer Henry Osborne Havemeyer (October 18, 1847 – December 4, 1907) was an American industrialist, entrepreneur and sugar refiner who founded and became president of the American Sugar Refining Company in 1891. Havemeyer was the third generation of ...

(1847–1907), President of the American Sugar Refining Company, and

Louisine Elder Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer (July 28, 1855 – January 6, 1929) was an art collector, feminist, and philanthropist. In addition to being a patron of impressionist art, she was one of the more prominent contributors to the suffrage movem ...

(1855–1929). She had two older siblings, Adaline Havemeyer (1884–1963), who married Peter Hood Ballantine Frelinghuysen, and Horace Havemeyer (1886–1956), who married Doris Dick Havemeyer. Her paternal grandparents were Frederick Christian Havemeyer Jr. (1807-1891), and Sarah Louise Henderson Havemeyer (1812-1851). Her maternal grandparents were merchant George W. Elder (1831–1873) and his wife, Matilda Adelaide Waldron (1834–1907). She attended

Miss Spence's School , motto_translation = Not for school, but for life we learn , founder = Clara B. Spence , tuition = $60,880 (2022-2023) , chair = , head_label = , head ...

and traveled with her family to the American West, France, Italy, Spain, Egypt, Greece and Austria, but did not attend college.

Career

During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Electra Webb drove an ambulance in New York City, and was named Assistant Director of the Motor Corps. In 1942, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

she joined the Civilian Defense Volunteer Organization, and directed the Pershing Square Civil Defense Center and its blood bank.

Collector

Although she spent her youth among the finest examples of European and Asian material culture, Electra Havemeyer Webb's own collecting took a radical turn. Although she lived with more than twenty extremely fine Impressionist works from her parents' collection in a penthouse at 740 Park Avenue during part of the year, she decorated a small pink farmhouse on portion of her in-laws' estate with the simple New England furniture and craftwork. Quilts, tiger maple furniture, and hooked rugs filled the homey rooms of her country house. Although a woman of tremendous means, Webb's Vermont home was modest and comfortable in scale. Her "Brick House" survives today as a rare and intact example of the Colonial Revival, providing an intimate glimpse into the life of a pioneer collector of America and founder of the Shelburne Museum. The home was in the Webb family until 2000 when the structure and its contents were acquired by the museum. Following a 4.4 million dollar campaign by the museum to restore the home to Mrs. Webb's decor, the museum was recognized by Preservation Trust of Vermont in 2005 for their efforts in preserving the Brick House. Since 2004, it has been open to the public by reservation for guided tours during the summer months.

Shelburne Museum

The closing of one of the Webb's other homes, this one near the polo grounds at Old Westbury, unintentionally birthed a museum. The question of what would become of her cigar store Indians, hunting decoys, and weather vanes had to be settled. In 1947 Electra Havemeyer Webb gathered with her friends to create

. Located near Route 7 in

Shelburne, Vermont Shelburne is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. Located along the shores of Lake Champlain, Shelburne's town center lies approximately south of the city center of Burlington, the largest city in the state of Vermont. As of the ...

, Webb's museum became a haven for the handmade objects of another era. A two-hundred-year-old tavern shelters one of the finest collections of weathervanes, trade signs, and primitive portraits on the continent. A rambling old farmhouse is filled with spectacular assemblages of mochaware,

pewter Pewter () is a malleable metal alloy consisting of tin (85–99%), antimony (approximately 5–10%), copper (2%), bismuth, and sometimes silver. Copper and antimony (and in antiquity lead) act as hardeners, but lead may be used in lower grades o ...

, and staffordshire. The finest collection of carriages and sleighs in North America rests in a unique horseshoe barn. Period homes, filled with outstanding collections of early American furniture and accessories, dot the grounds. Rather than confine her eclectic collections to a single modern gallery, Webb chose to create an institution that would showcase her "collection of collections" in fine examples of early American homes and public buildings. A general store, meeting house, log cabin, and a steamship dot the grounds. The entire museum reflects Electra Webb's passion for American art and design, as she treasured a variety of objects. Five rooms from her Park Avenue apartment were installed in a memorial building after her death in 1960, bringing Webb's collection of works by Monet, Manet, and Degas to the museum grounds. A large pastel by Mary Cassatt, showing a young Electra Havemeyer with her mother Louisine, enjoys a place of honor in the entry hall. Electra Havemeyer Webb began to collect "in earnest" in 1911, more than a decade before the founding of

Colonial Williamsburg Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has 7300 employees at this location a ...

and nearly a half century before authentic American antiques would return to the major rooms of the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C., NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. preside ...

. When she began to gather the remnants of an earlier America there was no

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

. Americans had yet to understand that their heritage was interesting and worthy of preservation. Before there was Henry Francis du Pont's

Winterthur , neighboring_municipalities = Brütten, Dinhard, Elsau, Hettlingen, Illnau-Effretikon, Kyburg, Lindau, Neftenbach, Oberembrach, Pfungen, Rickenbach, Schlatt, Seuzach, Wiesendangen, Zell , twintowns = Hall in Tirol (Austri ...

, Henry Ford's

Greenfield Village The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum ...

, or even the American Wing at the

Metropolitan Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York, Webb was an ambitious and well-known collector of Americana. She worked with the finest antique dealers of the era, including Edith Halpert and Harry Newman, to assemble encyclopedic and irreplaceable collections of American material culture. The honesty of everyday objects spoke to Webb, and she used her significant resources to ensure their preservation. Today the museum's Americana collection is one of the world's finest.

Deaccession Controversy

In 1996 the museum sold $30 million of her artwork, deemed non-essential to the collection, which had been in storage not visible to the public for years. This was to create a collections care endowment, to better preserve and secure the items in the collection. While the board had considered other ways to care for the items, including mergers and loaning out the collection, the final choice received some backlash in the art community. The president of the American Association of Museums refused to endorse the move arguing that the museum was unfairly conflating care for the items with security, while the director at the time argued it set a dangerous precedent for other museums doing the same. Electra Webb's son, James Watson Webb, Jr. went on the record saying that he was disappointed with the move as well. Most of the buyers were unidentified telephone bidders, but one item was sold to Stephen A. Wynn with the intent of displaying it at the Bellagio Casino.

Personal life

In 1910, Electra married polo champion James Watson Webb II (1884–1960) of the

Vanderbilt family The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthr ...

in an elaborate society wedding at

St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, New York St. Bartholomew's Church, commonly called St. Bart's, is a historic Episcopal parish founded in January 1835, and located on the east side of Park Avenue between 50th and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, in New York City. In 2018, the church ce ...

."Miss Havemeyer Bride of J.W. Webb: St. Bartholmew's Crowded at nuptials of Younger Daughter of Late H.O. Havemeyer"
''The New York Times'', February 9, 1910. Retrieved 2010-03-28. He was a son of William Seward Webb and Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt. They had five children: * Electra Webb (1910–1982) * Samuel Webb (1912–1988) * Lila Webb(1913–1961) * James Watson Webb, Jr. (1916–2000) * Harry Webb (1922–1975). Recognizing her achievements in the museum field,

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

awarded Electra Havemeyer Webb an honorary Master of Arts degree in 1956. She was the fifth woman to be recognized in this manner. She died on November 19, 1960 at Mary Fletcher Hospital in Burlington, Vermont.

Shelburne Farms

Electra's parents-in-law Dr. William Seward Webb and Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt had transformed a collection of rambling lakeside farms on the shore of Vermont's

Lake Champlain , native_name_lang = , image = Champlainmap.svg , caption = Lake Champlain-River Richelieu watershed , image_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = New York/Vermont in the United States; and Quebec in Canada , coords = , type = , ...

into a model country estate. The core of property, the Shelburne Farms, survives today as a nonprofit foundation dedicated to fostering innovative agricultural practices. Recalling her first visit to the Webb estate as a young girl, Webb declared: "I felt as though I was in dreamland"; she was smitten by the beauty of Vermont's

Champlain Valley The Champlain Valley is a region of the United States around Lake Champlain in Vermont and New York extending north slightly into Quebec, Canada. It is part of the St. Lawrence River drainage basin, drained northward by the Richelieu River in ...

. On the Webb estate she enjoyed horseback riding, the 113-foot steam yacht and one of America's first private nine-hole golf courses. The pastoral landscape and lush grounds of Shelburne Farms would be replicated at Electra Havemeyer Webb's museum. Shelburne Museum is well known for its fine collection of lilacs, peonies and New England perennials.