Mary Vail Andress | |
---|---|
Born | March 27, 1883 Sparta, New Jersey |
Died | May 15, 1964 New York |
Occupation(s) | Banker, war relief worker |
Known for | Distinguished Service Medal (U.S. Army) (1919) |
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]
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]
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.
Mary Vail Andress died in 1964, in New York City, at age 81.[2]