Fenwick, Millicent, 1910-1992

<p>Millicent Fenwick, an outspoken patrician who served four terms in the U.S. House, earned the moniker “Conscience of Congress” with her fiscal conservatism, human rights advocacy, and dedication to campaign finance reform. Fenwick’s blueblood mannerisms, which were inspiration for a popular comic strip character, belied her lifelong commitment to liberal activism on behalf of consumers, racial minorities, and women’s rights. Representative Fenwick’s humor and independence—she voted against her House Republican colleagues 48 percent of the time—made her one of the most public Members of Congress during the 1970s.</p>

<p>Millicent Vernon Hammond was born in New York City, on February 25, 1910. Her father, Ogden Haggerty Hammond, was a wealthy financier and New Jersey state legislator; her mother, Mary Picton Stevens Hammond, died aboard the RMS <i>Lusitania</i> in 1915 after a German U-boat torpedoed the ship. Millicent Hammond attended the elite Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia, from 1923 until 1925. She then accompanied her father to Madrid when President Calvin Coolidge appointed him U.S. Ambassador to Spain. In 1929 she attended Columbia University and later studied with the philosopher Bertrand Russell at the New School for Social Research. In 1932 Hammond married businessman Hugh Fenwick and had two children: Mary and Hugh. The Fenwicks separated six years later, and they eventually divorced in 1945. Millicent Fenwick refused financial assistance from her family and, instead, found work to support her children. She modeled briefly for <i>Harper’s Bazaar</i> and then took a job as associate editor on the staff of Condé Nast’s Vogue magazine. From 1938 to 1952, Fenwick worked on several Nast publications. In 1948 she wrote <i>Vogue’s Book of Etiquette</i>, a 600-page “treatise in proper behavior.” It sold more than a million copies. Fenwick left Vogue in 1952 and inherited a fortune when her father passed away a few years later.</p>

<p>Fenwick’s earliest encounter with political issues came during the 1930s with the rise of fascism in Europe. “Hitler started me in politics; when I became aware of what he was doing to people, I fired up,” she recalled. She joined the National Conference of Christians and Jews in an attempt to counter anti-Semitic propaganda in the United States, speaking out in public for the first time in her life. Fenwick served on the Bernardsville, New Jersey, board of education from 1938 to 1947. She supported Wendell Willkie for President in 1940 and joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1946. She worked on the 1954 campaign of Republican Senate candidate Clifford Case. She also chaired the Somerset County legal aid society and the Bernardsville recreation commission. From 1958 to 1964, she was a member of the Bernardsville borough council and served on the New Jersey committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1958 to 1972. Her first campaign for state office was in 1970 when she won a seat in the New Jersey assembly at the age of 59. Fenwick served several years in the assembly before New Jersey Governor William Thomas Cahill appointed her the state’s first director of consumer affairs. She sought to restrict auto dealers’ misleading advertising and to require funeral homes to offer advance itemization of bills.</p>

<p>Millicent Vernon Hammond Fenwick (February 25, 1910 – September 16, 1992) was an American fashion editor, politician and diplomat. A four-term Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New Jersey, she entered politics late in life and was renowned for her energy and colorful enthusiasm. She was regarded as a moderate and progressive within her party and was outspoken in favor of civil rights and the women's movement.</p>

<p>Born Millicent Vernon Hammond, she was the middle of three children born to the politician and later Ambassador to Spain, Ogden Haggerty Hammond (October 13, 1869 – October 29, 1956) of Louisville, Kentucky and his first wife, Mary Picton Stevens (May 16, 1885 – May 7, 1915) of Hoboken, New Jersey. Her paternal grandparents were General John Henry Hammond (June 30, 1833 – April 30, 1890), who served as chief of staff for William Tecumseh Sherman during the Vicksburg Campaign, and Sophia Vernon Wolfe (1842 – May 20, 1923), daughter of Nathaniel Wolfe, a lawyer and legislator from Louisville. Her maternal grandparents were John Stevens (July 1856 – January 21, 1895), oldest son of Stevens Institute of Technology founder Edwin Augustus Stevens and grandson of inventor John Stevens, and Mary Marshall McGuire (May 4, 1850 – May 2, 1905). Ogden Hammond and Mary Stevens got married on April 8, 1907 and both derived from families who were heavily involved in history. Ogden Haggerty Hammond was “the son of a civil war general,” and after his father's passing, he “entrenched himself in all aspects of superior life.” Mary Picton Stevens “was the heir to a fortune based largely on real estate holdings in Hoboken, New Jersey." Millicent's father attended school at Yale University and later in life became a New York financier. She had a sister, Mary Stevens Hammond, and a brother, Ogden H. Hammond, Jr. She was also cousins with John Hammond, the well-known record producer.</p>

<p>During World War I, Mrs. Hammond insisted on going overseas to help those who needed assistance in Europe, despite the potential dangers that were affiliated while doing so. In 1915, when Millicent was 5 years old, her mother perished in the sinking of the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania, which her father survived. When Ogden arrived back home from this tragic event, he did not want to discuss what happened, regarding his wife nor the event, and kept himself busy and distracted by becoming very involved with his work. Everyone, both friends and family, respected his decision and carried on with their normal lives as if nothing transpired. He remarried two years later, to Marguerite McClure "Daisy" Howland, and by that marriage Fenwick had a stepbrother, McClure (Mac) Howland. Ogden's children now had a stepmother. However, Daisy was so preoccupied with herself, Mac, and her social status that she spent minimal time with her stepchildren. Millicent and Daisy did not have a good relationship and her father was no help. If there were any family issues going on, Ogden requested that his children would go to Daisy and not him. After their mother's passing, Millicent and her siblings developed a closer relationship, especially the relationship between her and her sister, Mary. In 1918, the trial of the Lusitania took place, as people were suing the ship's company for failure to show passengers aboard the safety precautions. Ogden was one of the many people to testify and when the jury reached the verdict, the Hammonds were each compensated, receiving over sixty thousand dollars.</p>