Summary Information
Papers of Mary Flinn Lawrence
MSS#185
Mary Flinn Lawrence
1903-1963
2.75 cubic feet (6 boxes)
Mary Flinn Lawrence, former owner and builder of Hartwood Acres, was an active politician and benefactor. The papers include correspondence, diaries, news clippings, and other materials providing thorough documentation of Lawrence's personal and public life from 1910 until 1963.
Language:
The material in this collection is in English.
Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center
1212 Smallman Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
412-454-6364
library@hswp.org
http://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/libraryArchives.aspx
This finding aid has been encoded as a part of the Historic Pittsburgh project a joint effort of the University of Pittsburgh and the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Funding for this portion of the project has been donated by the Hillman Foundation.
Summer, 2001
This guide to the collection was originally prepared by Marion Karl and Susan J.E. Illis on October 5, 1995. Revisions occurred to the finding aid as a part of the encoding process in Summer, 2001.
Encoded by Doug MacGregor on August 17, 2001 from an existing finding aid. >Reviewed by Curator on
July 1, 2006:
Converted from EAD Version 1.0 to EAD Version 2002
Biographical Sketch of Mary Flinn Lawrence (1887-1974)
Mary Flinn Lawrence, former resident of Hartwood Acres in Pittsburgh's North Hills, was an active politician and benefactor. Mary Flinn Lawrence was the Daughter of William Flinn, a prominent Pittsburgh contractor and politician. His construction firm, Booth and Flinn, built many projects, including the Liberty Tubes, the Mt. Washington Tunnels and the Holland Tunnels in New York City. In addition to running a lucrative contracting business, Flinn served as representative and senator in the Pennsylvania Legislature. Through an alliance with Christopher Magee, he wielded enormous political power in Pittsburgh that eventually led to the naming of Route Eight as the William Flinn Highway and mounting a plaque in the concourse of the City County Building in his memory.
Mary was raised in Braemar, the Flinn family estate at the corner in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The house was located at Highland Avenue and Bunkerhill Street, directly across from the entrance to Highland Park. She treated the park as an extension of the grounds of Braemar, riding her horses, skating, and taking many long walks there. An athletic young woman, Mary was an avid swimmer, a competent golfer and a good tennis player. She often walked from Braemar to the East End neighborhoods of East Liberty, Oakland or to Downtown Pittsburgh.
Mary Flinn Lawrence was educated at Farmington School and Briarcliff College. She was regarded as being well read and interested in a wide range of cultural, social and political issues. She was fascinated with the study of medicine and a surgeon who she was a friend of would invite her to watch a number of operations. However, her father forbade her from watching an operation on a man, although in one case, only his leg was involved. Like her father, Mary looked to political action to further her causes and was an influence in the Republican Party, both locally and nationally, throughout most of her life. She championed such issues as woman suffrage, humane working conditions, proper hygiene, and sex education. Notably, she accomplished her goals without alienating her opponents. Even at a time when traditional femininity was prized, men admired and supported her efforts. In fact, some powerful political figures sought her support, such as Gifford Pinchot, former Governor of Pennsylvania.
Her charitable work was an integral part of her life and she spent considerable time at meetings, fundraisers, speaking engagements or other volunteer tasks. An accomplished speaker, she used her gift generously to advance her charitable interests. She was a successful fundraiser who raised millions of dollars for both war efforts and charities. She served with numerous regional organizations and sat of the board of the Home for Crippled Children most of her adult life. She was also active in the Red Cross, Equal Franchise Federation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association, Home for Convalescent Mothers and Babies (now Harmarville Rehabilitation Center), Moral Efficiency Commission of Pittsburgh, Pleasant Hill Farm Association, Farmington Committee, Family Society of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Symphony Society, Young Women's Christian Association, Fox Chapel Garden Club, Twentieth Century Club, and the Civic Club.
Mary Flinn Lawrence married John Wheeler Lawrence (1891?-1945) in 1914, after a four year courtship. The Flinn family discouraged the marriage for reasons that included the difference in their ages, the fact that John's parents were divorced, and Mr. Flinn's dislike of John's mother. Prior to their marriage, John Lawrence lived in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania where he was a student at Haverford School. John's father, who had interests in the gas and coal industries, lived in Pittsburgh with his second wife. John elected to forgo college in order to begin working and saving money to wed Mary. In 1911, after one year of school, he went to work in one of his father's coalmines in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania to prepare himself for the brokerage end of the mining business. Despite working for his father with the intent to save money for marriage, John Lawrence grew increasingly in debt. Mary repeatedly sent John money to pay his club bills and other pressing debts through 1913. In November of that same year, the London and Liverpool Globe Insurance Company hired John as their Pittsburgh agent to pursue Booth and Flinn's contract surety bonds. Finally, in March 1914, John's father succeeded in a stock deal that gave John enough money to marry, and the wedding date was set for June 11, 1914.
Mary Flinn Lawrence had numerous suitors for her affections, but she chose the seemingly troubled John Lawrence. William Flinn probably knew of John's financial woes and unimpressive work record, but was persuaded to consent to the marriage. The festive occasion included a sit-down dinner for 350 on the grounds of Braemar and lavish decorations that included 1500 colored lights and flowers from Beechwood, the family farm in Fox Chapel (now maintained by the Western Conservancy as Beechwood Farm Nature Reserve). Guests danced to an orchestra imported from New York City in a pavilion built for the occasion. Mary and John embarked on a two-month honeymoon, first to New England, stopping in New York to spend the night with former President and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt at Sagamore Hill. Later, the newlyweds toured the Southwest. Despite having limited success in business, John Lawrence was a respected horseman and an accomplished speaker, John als served in both world wars, as an aerial gunner in the U.S. Navy during World War I and in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He worked in the insurance business and was involved in benevolent organizations.
Mary maintained a lifelong friendship with a former suitor, Captain Joseph B. Connally of Atlanta, Georgia. Loraine Cooney, a mutual friend from Atlanta, introduced Mary to Connally during their college days. Although Connally was a member of a distinguished family that included an uncle who was a governor of Georgia and a father who was a respected doctor, he had the reputation of a playboy. Even after her marriage to John Lawrence, she never severed the relationship with Connally. By the time the First World War erupted, she was very unhappy in her marriage and met Connally in Atlanta before he went overseas. Connally distinguished himself in World War I. As a supply officer, he exposed himself to poisonous gas to get food for his men and although he was shell-shocked, refused to leave his regiment until the last man was returned home. By the time Connally returned to Atlanta, he knew he would not recover and ceased to encourage the relationship. He died on August 26, 1920. Mary mourned his death for the rest of her life. Connally was not the Mary's only suitor during her marriage to John. She wrote to many men during World War I and carried on a correspondence with Lyles Black, a suitor who had proposed to her in 1913. Black, a Tennessee native claimed that he found Mary different from the Southern girls he knew and was impressed with her interests and intelligence. He proposed to her again in 1918 despite her marriage to John Lawrence.
Mary was very close with her family, seeing her sister, Edith (Mrs. Simon Patterson) and her niece and nephew, Nancy and George Reece, several times a week. Three of her four brothers, Ralph E., Alexander (Rex), and George H. followed their father into his firm, with only William Arthur pursuing other professional interests. In general, the siblings had friends and interests in common and spent time with one another frequently, both privately and publicly. They spent summers at Beechwood. Mary loved Beechwood, where she grew flowers that she arranged and generously donated. Mary was greatly disappointed in 1920, when her father decided to give Beechwood to her brother Ralph and his wife Jessie.
William Flinn died in 1924. Flinn had nurtured Mary's interest in politics and social issues and was proud of her abilities and competence. She showed her devotion to her father by taking flowers to his grave frequently. Her inheritance from him enabled her to buy the property and to build a mansion for her estate, known as Hartwood, in 1928. She retained her early interest in riding and built stables at Hartwood. The Lawrences, along with Mary's sister Edith's family, frequently successfully competed in horse shows. They were lifelong members of Rolling Rock Club, where Mary caused a sensation at age 75 by donning her riding habit and riding in the Rolling Rock Horse Show.
In 1937, when Mary was 50 years old, the Lawrences adopted a three-year old boy who they named John Wheeler Lawrence, Jr. Three years later they adopted a second three-year old boy and named him William Flinn Lawrence. Both children came from England and fulfilled Mary's dream of motherhood. John died on January 26, 1945. In her later years, Mary lived full-time at Hartwood and curtailed her social and benevolent activities. In 1962, she was severely injured in an automobile accident. In 1969, Hartwood was sold to Allegheny County, with the condition that she be permitted to reside there until her death. She died on October 29, 1974 and was buried in Homewood Cemetery. Allegheny County made Lawrence's mansion and grounds a regional park, named Hartwood Acres, which opened to the public in 1976.
Collection Scope and Content Note
The papers include correspondence, diaries, news clippings, and other materials providing thorough documentation of Lawrence's personal and public life from 1910 until 1963. These papers reveal her involvement in many benevolent and progressive activities, including her involvement in many benevolent and progressive activities. The correspondence is uneven in both content and scope, depending, in part, with whom Mary was corresponding. At times, such as the period of John Lawrence's courtship (1910-1914) and the letters to Joseph Connally, a nearly complete picture of Mary's daily life is provided. In other instances, small vignettes occur which provide insights into Mary's emotional, intellectual, and romantic sides. In general, she kept a tight rein on her inner thoughts and feelings. However, most of the noteworthy letters highlight discussions of social conditions and current events in the Pittsburgh area.
The bulk of the correspondence is outgoing letters to Joseph B. Connally (1908-1920) and incoming letters from John W. Lawrence (1910-1919), with additional correspondence from William Lyles Black, Loraine Cooney, Louis de V. Douseman, Ewing Rafferty and the Connally and Flinn families. The majority of the correspondence with Joseph Brown Connally is outgoing, with an occasional incoming letter from Connally. During World War I and Connally's ensuing hospitalization, Mary wrote several times a week, providing nearly complete documentation of her daily activities. However, during the war, she devoted some portion of each letter to tracking and numbering her previous correspondence. She wrote frequently about her friends and family, but remained very circumspect regarding her marriage. In addition to chronicling her numerous meetings and charitable activities, Mary's letters reveal the concerns of Connally and others for Mary's hectic schedule. The correspondence during the war shows a preoccupation with casualties among family and friends, selling of bonds, and other war-related topics. In a January 22, 1918 letter, Mary bemoans the United States' unpreparedness for war, the inefficiency and incompetency of the government, and discusses the participation of her brothers and husband. In addition, she discusses her frequent Red Cross work, which she interrupted to go to Washington, D. C. for the passage of the Woman Suffrage Bill in December 1918. She also mentions a Liberty Loan Parade in Pittsburgh in which 40,000 women marched (April 23, 1918), as well as the over-subscription of the Liberty Loan Drive by four billion dollars (May 5, 1918). The correspondence also documents her involvement with the woman suffrage movement, although it does not offer much in-depth information beyond the dates and sites of meetings. They also frequently discuss the personal life of their mutual friend, Loraine Cooney, and their mutual dislike for her husband, whom they refer to only as "Mr. Cooney."
Although infrequent, Connally's letters provide a first-hand account of the warfront. On April 15, 1918, Connally writes of his eleven-day voyage to France, and on May 26, 1918, he writes of bombings and the hardships endured by soldiers. He frequently recounts the conditions in France and episodes of heavy bombing. In October 1918, Connally writes about the Battle of the Argonne Forest, where the shelling lasted non-stop for eighteen days and he was shell-shocked and gassed (October 26, 1918). Also of particular note is an October 13, 1918 letter from Mary telling of the influenza epidemic in Pittsburgh, causing many events to be cancelled. The post-war correspondence focuses on more general issues, including woman suffrage, politics, and Mary's social activities and travels. She also discusses racial issues, particularly the attempts of African-American soldiers to enjoy equal rights with white soldiers, following their equal service to the country. As Connally's health worsened, Mary's letters focused more on his health and her concerns for his well being. Her correspondence with his mother, Mary V. Connally, is primarily about his worsening health, although one letter included a news clipping regarding her son's "salon" in the hospital.
The correspondence with John Lawrence is exclusively incoming letters from John, written primarily prior to their marriage. The bulk of the correspondence was written between 1910 and 1913, with the majority in 1913. The 1911 and 1912 correspondence provides excellent accounts of coal mining and conditions in the company towns. On August 12, 1911, Lawrence describes a typical day underground in a coal mine in the Bentleyville-Cokesbury area, mentioning that twelve men were killed in one week, a total that a U.S. mine inspector found unacceptable. Later in 1911, he relates the terrible living conditions in the Cokesbury Camp near Ellsworth (November 8, 1911) and the terrible working conditions (November 9, 1911). In addition to discussing his work activities, he also relates his evening and weekend plans, which most often included visits to Pittsburgh. His later correspondence focuses on his business and financial concerns and their upcoming wedding. Many of the letters written prior to their marriage are at least in part love letters, while the letters written after their marriage are much less personal.
Her other major correspondents included Ewing Rafferty, Loraine Cooney, and Lyles Black. Letters from Lyles Black written during the war tell of his activities in France, including acting as mayor for three small towns (August 1918) and running the Hotel de Crillon, where President Wilson was in residence during peace negotiations (December 1918). The correspondence with Loraine Cooney is all incoming letters, written primarily during the time of Connally's serious illness, when Cooney would visit him at the hospital and report on his condition to Mary. Cooney's correspondence is also frequently apologetic for Cooney's inability to visit or meet Mary due to her husband's close monitoring of her activities. The Flinn family correspondence includes a few letters from William Flinn to Mary, a letter from William Flinn to his wife, and one letter to Mary from her brother, written shortly after she underwent surgery in 1906?. Of particular note is a letter from William Flinn, February 16, 1919, in which he expresses his concern about the economy of both Europe and the United States and perceives the beginning of a worldwide depression. Miscellaneous correspondents include Nils McClintock and former Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot.
Her diaries span her life from ages 21 to 75 and are chronicles of her daily routine. Seldom does she record world events, but rather records the weather, her innumerable meetings, dates with friends or family, and other incidents of her domestic life. The diaries provide a comprehensive picture of the day-to-day activities of an energetic, private, intelligent woman of privilege with a great social conscience. She also documents her health problems, which included frequent headaches and nausea. She enjoyed the outdoors and seldom a day went by that she did not mention something about the weather - how she negotiated her appointments in a heavy snow, how refreshing she found a swim in "Johnny" Heinz's pool on a hot day, or how she picked the last of the roses before an expected frost. The comprehensive set of diaries is a wonderful resource for identifying the array of performing arts presentations that took place in Pittsburgh during the era they cover (1910-1963). Theater, opera concerts, movies and well-known speaker's engagements are noted, as well as weddings, important balls, parties and other social events. Mary Lawrence seemed to attend them all. The diaries in particular chronicle a bewildering number of organizations to which Mary (or in some cases, John) belonged and/or worked for. She was interested in every phase of civic and philanthropic work and worked closely with: the welfare of children, women's rights, mental health, fair labor laws, disabled veterans, gardening, politics, horses, temperance, music, the arts, sports, medicine and sex education. Although John and Mary Lawrence remained married until his death in 1945, Mary's diaries reveal that their marriage was not always happy, due in large part to John's drinking problem. Although he sought different medical treatments and frequently promised Mary that he would stop drinking, his problem was never solved. Interestingly, in her diaries, Mary uses only vague terms to describe John's drinking problem, preferring not to directly label him an alcoholic. Both the diaries and the correspondence reveal that despite her heavy involvement in various benevolent and social organizations, she often believed that she did not do enough, and that her level of involvement was directly linked to her feelings of self-worth.
The news clippings are from both local newspapers and Atlanta newspapers and primarily pertain to Mary's suffrage and social activities, and the movements of the 82nd Division of which Connally was a member. Also included are numerous obituaries and tributes to Connally written shortly after his death in August 1920, revealing exactly how highly regarded he was in Atlanta.
The Mary Flinn Lawrence Papers are housed in six archival boxes and are arranged alphabetically by folder title.
Controlled Access Terms
- Afro-Americans -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Alcoholics -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Argonne, Battle of the, 1918
- Charities -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Coal mines and mining -- Pennsylvania -- Washington County
- Horsemanship -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Hunting -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Soldiers -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Voyages and travels
- Women -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Women -- Suffrage -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Women -- Societies and clubs
- Women in charitable work -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- World War, 1914-1918 -- Aerial operations
- World War, 1914-1918 -- Public opinion
- World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
- Red Cross
- United States. Army. 82nd Division
- Lawrence, Mary Flinn, 1887-1974
- Black, William Lyles
- Connally, Joseph B., d. 1920.
- Cooney, Lorraine
- Lawrence, John W.
- Pinchot, Gifford, 1865-1946
- Rafferty, Ewing
- Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
- Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- Medicine
- Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- Politics and government
- Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- Social life and customs
- Washington County (Pa.) -- Industry.
- Hartwood Acres (Park: Allegheny County, Pa.)
Access and Use
This collection is open for research.
These materials came in one accession in 1988. Acc# 1988.52 Gift of William F. Lawrence, (Papers. William F. Lawrence is the son of Mary Flinn Lawrence.)
Papers of Mary Flinn Lawrence, 1903-1963, MSS #185, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
This collection was processed by Marion Karl and Susan J.E. Illis on October 5, 1995. Revision and rearrangement for the encoded version of the finding aid provided by Doug MacGregor on August 17, 2001.
Property rights reside with the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or publish, please contact the curator of the Archives.
Contents List
Box 1
| folder |
5 |
January-May 1918
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| folder |
6 |
June-August 1918
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| folder |
7 |
September-December 1918
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| folder |
8 |
January-July 1919
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Box 2
| folder |
1 |
August 1919-January 1920
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| folder |
2 |
February-August 1920
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| folder |
3 |
Connally Family 1918-1923
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| folder |
4 |
Cooney, Loraine 1909-1920
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| folder |
5 |
Douseman, Louis de V. 1905-1909
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| folder |
6 |
Flinn Family 1903-1909
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| folder |
10 |
January-July 1913
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Box 3
| folder |
1 |
August-October 1913
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| folder |
2 |
November-December 1913
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| folder |
3 |
January-February 1914
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| folder |
5 |
Rafferty, Ewing 1911-1937
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| folder |
6 |
Miscellaneous 1910-1937
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Box 4
Box 5
| folder |
7 |
Travel Diary 1924
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| folder |
8 |
Greeting Cards 1925
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Box 6
| folder |
2 |
Printed Materials 1917-1951
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| folder |
4 |
Connaly, Joseph Brown
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