Cornelia Bryce Pinchot

Cornelia Elizabeth Bryce Pinchot (August 20, 1881 – September 9, 1960), also known as “Leila Pinchot,” was a 20th-century American conservationist, Progressive politician, and women’s rights activist who played a key role in the improvement of Grey Towers, the Pinchot family estate in Milford, Pennsylvania, which was donated to the U.S. Forest Service in 1963 and then designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. A maternal great-granddaughter of Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Union, and daughter of U.S. Congressman and Envoy Lloyd Stephens Bryce (1851–1917), she was the wife of Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), the renowned conservationist and two-time Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and was also a close friend of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. A founding member of the Committee of 100 and major donor to the education and legal defense funds of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during the organization's first years of operation, she has been described by historians at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission as “one of the most politically active first ladies in the history of Pennsylvania.” Formative years Born into a wealthy, Victorian-era family in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1881, Cornelia Bryce was a daughter of Lloyd Stephens Bryce (1851–1917) and Edith (Cooper) Bryce (1854-1916), and a great-granddaughter of Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Union, a science and engineering college in New York City which made its educational offerings available free of charge to every student admitted. Her siblings were Edith Clare Bryce Cram (1880-1960), who later founded a pacifist organization during World War II, and Peter Cooper Bryce (1889-1964), an officer with the U.S. Cavalry who served stateside during World War I. Among family and friends, Cornelia Bryce was referred to as “Leila.” Educated in private schools and via family trips to Europe, she was reportedly an energetic, independent, and striking woman who “dressed in flamboyant clothes and dyed her hair red.” Her close friend Teddy Roosevelt would grow to admire and later extol her incisive understanding of politics. In 1887, her father was elected to the Fiftieth U.S. Congress. A Democrat, he held that seat until 1889, but was not reelected. From 1889 to 1896, he owned and operated the North American Review, the first literary magazine in the United States.