Winthrop Williams Aldrich was an American banker and financier, scion of a prominent and powerful political family, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Aldrich during World War I
Aldrich with Marilyn Monroe, 1957
Portrait of his wife, Harriet Alexander, in 1909 before their marriage, by Joaquín Sorolla.
Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich was a prominent American politician and a leader of the Republican Party in the United States Senate, where he represented Rhode Island from 1881 to 1911. By the 1890s, he was one of the "Big Four" key Republicans who largely controlled the major decisions of the Senate, along with Orville H. Platt, William B. Allison, and John Coit Spooner. Because of his impact on national politics and central position on the pivotal Senate Finance Committee, he was referred to by the press and public alike as the "general manager of the Nation", dominating tariff and monetary policy in the first decade of the 20th century.
Nelson W. Aldrich
Abigail Pearce Truman Chapman
Reformers hated and feared Senator Aldrich for killing reforms disliked by big business. 1906 Puck cartoon.
Taft tries to get progressive ideas into Aldrich