“Edith Rockefeller was the most intelligent, creative, and misunderstood of John D.’s children. In this well-researched and nuanced biography, Ross recounts how Edith’s determination, boldness, and sheer will defied her patriarchal family. Her belief in a socially responsible life led to significant contributions in medicine, philosophy, psychology, and the civic life of Chicago. The arc of her life reveals startling shifts certain to surprise and engage the reader.”—Clarice Stasz, author, The Vanderbilt Women: Dynasty of Wealth, Glamour, and Tragedy “Edith: The Rogue Rockefeller McCormick is a revealing and captivating account that illuminates the significance and the originality of my great-grandmother. Fascinating!”—A descendant of Edith Rockefeller McCormick“Andrea Friederici Ross has brought fresh light to the story of the powerful Rockefeller family through the life of John D.’s daughter Edith. Raised in a strict Baptist household where her mother, Laura Spelman, carried on John’s prescription of severe thriftiness despite enormous wealth, Edith liberated herself through marriage to another wealthy heir, Harold McCormick. Extravagant in the extreme and often in debt, the power couple lived a peripatetic life marked alternatively by great joy and tragedy, excessive spending and generous philanthropy. Ross masterfully weaves in the family’s struggles with mental illness and their pursuit of treatment through the new field of psychoanalysis and old-fashioned quackery. Edith takes us into the world of early twentieth-century industrial capitalists and a new generation of modern women seeking to reshape America and claim their place. A captivating read!”—Kate Clifford Larson, author of Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter
