Born: 22 May 1849, United States
Died: 5 May 1918
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Mrs. Potter Palmer, Bertha Honorè
From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
Mrs. Potter Palmer, President Board of Lady Managers Columbian Exposition, 1849 – 1918 A.D.
Miss Bertha Honorè was born and educated in Louisville, Kentucky. She also studied in the convent school at Georgetown, D.C.
She became the wife of Potter Palmer, the Chicago millionaire, in 1871, and soon became, and since continued to be, the recognized social leader of fashionable society in Chicago.
But Mrs. Palmer has marked intellectual as well as social qualities. She is a skilled musician, a proficient linguist, a brilliant writer, a skilled parliamentarian, and a woman of marked executive ability. She was chosen president of the Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, and in the interests of the exposition visited Europe in 1891 and enlisted the interest and co-operation of many leading women in Europe.
Mrs. Palmer is noted not only as a social leader but her gifts for state and local charities as well as private gifts are in generous proportion to her fortune.
The Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition ordered a portrait of Mrs. Palmer to have a place in the Assembly Hall of the Woman’s Building. Mr. Anders L. Zorn was chosen as the artist.
At the unveiling of the portrait addresses were made by several of the prominent women. Among other things this was said:
“In after times, when our names have been forgotten, those who came after us will look upon this portrait and see not only the likeness of our president but the attributes which surrounded her, that helped us to help the women of this century. Her genius has for three years led us over the mountains of difficulty, through valleys of humiliation, to the crowning peaks of difficulty, never listening to such words as ‘fail.’
“We court not the titles of rank in this land of ours, where every woman may be a queen, and when the women of America choose a leader and representative she is not only a queen by queenly. If we cannot crown our Queen we will present our Queen already crowned.”
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Her father was of French descent, her mother of an aristocratic southern family. Her early education was received in Louisville, Kentucky, later she was sent to a convent in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1871, she was married to Potter Palmer, a wealthy and influential citizen of Chicago. She was the recognized social and fashionable leader of the city. An accomplished linguist, a poet, a musician and a woman of marked business and executive ability, it was largely through her efforts that the Woman’s Exhibit of the World’s Fair, of which she was the President, was such an outstanding success. All nations received and delighted to honour her, gave aid in securing exhibits and statistics which proved to be of great value in later years. She was appointed by President McKinley as the official representative of the American Women to the World’s Fair in Paris. Here too, her presence was a great triumph for the nation she represented. She was known and loved for her great personal beauty and charm, for her helpfulness and her many charitable enterprises, and it has been truly said that none in Chicago’s society has ever surpassed her.