Mary Vail Andress

Mary Vail Andress (March 27, 1883[1] – May 15, 1964) was an American banker. She was "the first woman to become an officer of a major New York bank".[2] She also did relief work during both World War I and World War II, and was "the first woman war worker to receive the Distinguished Service Medal".[3]

Mary Vail Andress
A white woman wearing a hat, arms folded across her chest; she is wearing a high-collared white blouse with a dark jacket; there is a medal pinned to her jacket
Mary Vail Andress, from a 1924 publication
BornMarch 27, 1883
Sparta, New Jersey
DiedMay 15, 1964
New York
Occupation(s)Banker, war relief worker
Known forDistinguished Service Medal (U.S. Army) (1919)

Early life

Andress was born in Sparta, New Jersey, the daughter of Theophilus Hunt Andress and Sarah Cecelia Cutler Andress.[2][4] Her father was a physician and a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War.[5] Theodore Newton Vail was her cousin, and Alfred Vail was her great-uncle.[6]

Andress graduated from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.[7][8] Her mother and grandmother had also attended Moravian. She was captain of the basketball team as a student; later she served as a trustee of the college[9] She attended the Summer School of Arts and Sciences at Yale University in 1905.[10]

Career

In 1917 and 1918, Andress joined the Women's Overseas Service League[11] and ran a canteen[12][13] and later directed the American Red Cross rest station in Toul, France.[14][15] "For a whilt it seemed as if I could never quite get down to the real job," she recalled later, "it seemed so often that something new broke loose and always just at the wrong time."[16] For her wartime service she was the first woman awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1919, and the medal was presented to her by General John J. Pershing.[3] She also received the Medal of French Gratitude from the French government.[3][17] In 1919 she went to work with Armenian refugees[18] in Turkey and Georgia, for Near East Relief, and directed an orphanage in Tbilisi.[2][8][17] She spent two years in this work.[19]

Andress began working at the Paris office of Bankers Trust Company in 1920. She was assistant cashier at the main office of Chase National Bank from 1924[17] to 1940.[20] In this, she became the first woman to work as an officer at a major New York bank.[2][21] In 1937, she helped open Chase's London office.[22] Later she was the first woman to serve on the bank's board of directors.[8] "The average woman can manage her own affairs very well," she declared in a 1924 profile. "I have found her competent, judicial, and unflurried."[6]

In 1940, she was again active in war relief, working for British War Relief, United China Relief Drive, and the Red Cross War Fund Drive.[8] She and Anne Morgan created the Friends of France, to raise funds for war relief.[2] In her later years, she served on the board of trustees of the American Craftsmen's Educational Council.

Personal life

Mary Vail Andress died in 1964, in New York City, at age 81.[2]

See also

References
  1. Andress gave March 27, 1883 as her birthdate on her 1918 passport application. Other sources give other dates, ranging from 1877 to 1882; via Ancestry
  2. "MARY V. ANDRESS, BANKER, 86, DIES; Chase National Officer Was Relief Worker in 2 Wars". The New York Times. 1964-05-17. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-06-25.
  3. "First Woman to Get D. S. M." Arizona Republic. 1919-10-12. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. Banta, Theodore Melvin (1901). Sayre Family: Lineage of Thomas Sayre, a Founder of Southampton. De Vinne Press. pp. 15–16.
  5. "Deaths". Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey. 10: 266. October 1913.
  6. "Women are Winners in Business Because--". The Miami Herald. 1924-12-07. p. 88. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Chase National Appoints Woman as Official" Trust Companies (November 1924): 670.
  8. Krismann, Carol (2005). Encyclopedia of American Women in Business: A-L. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-0-313-33383-5.
  9. "Woman Banker to Head Seminar at Moravian". The Morning Call. 1938-12-10. p. 8. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. University, Yale (1905). Catalogue. p. 744.
  11. "Heroines Will Meet". The Dispatch. 1926-06-15. p. 9. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "More Canteen Workers Reach France". The Red Cross Bulletin. 1: 2. October 22, 1917.
  13. American National Red Cross War Council (1917). The Work of the American Red Cross: Report by the War Council of Appropriations and Activities from Outbreak of War to November 1, 1917. p. 90.
  14. "Our History in Pictures – Women's Overseas Service League". Retrieved 2021-06-26.
  15. "American Red Cross Rest Station, Toul. Miss Mary Vail Andress, directrice". Library of Congress. September 1918. Retrieved 2021-06-26.
  16. Hungerford, Edward (1920). With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American Effort. Macmillan. pp. 116–119, 286–287.
  17. "Holder of D. S. M. is Appointed to N. Y. Bank Post". Altoona Tribune. 1924-11-11. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. "Women War Workers, Eager to Serve, Go to Aid Armenians". Washita County Enterprise. 1920-02-05. p. 8. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. "Brooklyn Heroine 2 Years in Caucasus". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1920-06-13. p. 15. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. "Miss Andress Will Leave Bank Post". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1940-06-24. p. 17. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. "Miss Mary Vail Andress First Woman Executive in a Wall-Street Bank". The Boston Globe. 1924-10-23. p. 1. Retrieved 2021-06-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. Petersen, Anne (1937-01-31). "WOMEN ADVANCING IN BANKING WORLD; Miss Mary Vail Andress Will Help to Organize a London Office for Chase National". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-06-26.
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