Mary Custis Lee Calling Card

Engraved calling card of Mrs. Richard Lathers and The Misses Lathers, Inscribed to Miss Mary Custis Lee. [New York City, New York], 16 May [1892?]. Upper margin inscribed: "To Miss Mary Custis Lee of Virginia" and an additional note "Monday May 16th 3 to 6 PM".

A calling card inscribed to Mary Custis Lee (1835-1918), the eldest daughter of General Robert E. Lee (1807-1870). An article titled "New York Letter" that included copious high society gossip (syndicated, included in the 31 May 1892 The Portland Daily Press) includes a lengthy discussion of Mary Lee, her visit to New York, and specifically to a function held at the Lather's: "The coincidences to which I allude were the announcement of the court of claims of a decision awarding $216,000 to the heirs of Robert E. Lee on the very day when perhaps the most gifted of them, Miss Mary Custis Lee, was receiving social attentions from a number of prominent New Yorkers, and on the day immediately following a set dinner at the Manhattan club by the president of the Southern society to Grover Cleveland, at which ex-Governor Fitzugh [sic] Lee, a nephew of Robert E. Lee, was a guest of honor. Miss Mary Lee is one of the most interesting American women of our time. People who were invited to met her at the residence of Col. Richard Lathers found a stately, gray-haired lady with the manners of a court and the added charm of personal magnetism and intellectual culture." This card may well have been from this New York trip.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Robert E. Lee]