On September 15, the Fondation des Etats-Unis hosted its former residents, as well as institutional and private partners, for an event on American women patrons from the 1920s to the 2020s. The evening opened with a speech by the directors, Anne Crémieux and Sophie Vasset, followed by a welcome by Philip Frayne, Minister-Counsellor for Cultural Affairs at the United States Embassy. The speech by the President of the Fondation des Etats-Unis, François Weil, Rector of the Paris Academy, inviting the FEU to continue the cultural and philanthropic work of recent years, was followed by a round table where several representatives of American Parisian institutions testified to the particular action of women patrons in French-American culture and relations in Paris.
Whether they were creative and close to artists, like Mona Bismarck, or concerned to get involved in civil society, like Anne Morgan, these women were all part of a network of philanthropists:
- Bianca Roberts, Executive Director, Mona Bismarck American Center
- Carole Gragez, new curator of the Franco-American Museum of the Château de Blérancourt
- Victoria Reppert, Cultural Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in France, who lent the exhibition on Anne Morgan from the U.S. Embassy for the occasion
- Alexandra Pasquer, member of the circle of women patrons of the Musée d’Orsay, Communications Director of the Solendi group Mrs Laurence Rossignol, Minister for Families, Children and Women’s Rights
Pasquer welcomed Mabel Gage’s action and stressed how women’s action must be recalled by those who make history, as suggested in the action plan against sexism launched a week earlier by the government. She also announced the beginning of the conference cycle « Femmes dans le Monde » at the CiuP. This was the occasion to show the documentary made by the Fondation des Etats-Unis’s donor, Mabel Gage inherited, in which Mrs Marguerite Sahut d’Izarn, goddaughter of Mabel Gage, tells the story of this exceptional woman’s commitment in collaboration with her husband, Dr Homer Gage. This short film, which you can view below, was the subject of a commentary by Marcel Pochard, President of CiuP, on the need to get closer to the vision of the City’s donors to better envisage the future and the new ways of living together. The evening ended with a musical cocktail, played by Harriet Hale Woolley Fellows, named after another major UEB donor. Discover the photo album on our FEU Facebook page.