Eugenie Mary Ladenburg Davie

Eugenie Mary "May" Ladenburg Davie (January 31, 1895 – September 19, 1975) was a noted Republican activist in New York City and a director of the controversial Pioneer Fund at the end of her life. Early life Davie was born in 1895. Davie descended from a Tammany Hall founder. She was the daughter of the former Emily Louise Stevens and Frankfurt-born Adolph Ladenburg, who co-founded Ladenburg Thalmann in 1876 with Ernst Thalmann. Her father died a year after her birth when he was lost overboard from a steamer. Her mother inherited her father's entire estate. Her mother, the daughter of Alexander Henry Stevens (brother of Byam K. Stevens) and Mary Alleyne (née Otis) Stevens (granddaughter of U.S. Senator Harrison Gray Otis), was from a prominent New York City family descended from Major General Ebenezer Stevens, an officer in the American Revolution, and Albert Gallatin, the 4th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom and France. Her paternal grandparents were Eugénie Adèle (née Halphen) Ladenburg (who was from a respected Parisian family related to the Paris Rothschilds) and Emil Ladenburg, a prominent banker who was born in Mannheim, Grand Duchy of Baden. Political activism Davie was a long-time political activist She once angered pilot Amelia Earhart by injecting political commentary into a speech introduction.