Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia and raised in Greenwood, Virginia. Her first marriage, to socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, was unhappy and ended in divorce. She then moved to England and married American-born Englishman Waldorf Astor in 1906.

Robert Gould Shaw II was a wealthy landowner, international polo player of the Myopia Hunt Club and socialite in the greater Boston area of Massachusetts. He was one of the prominent figures of the boom years at the turn of the century, sometimes called the Gilded Age.