Edith Cummings Socialites Information

Edith Cummings (March 26, 1899 – November 1984) was an American socialite and one of the premier amateur golfers of her generation. She was one of the Big Four debutantes in Chicago, at the end of World War I. She became famous in the U.S. following her 1923 victory in the U.S. Women's Amateur. On August 25, 1924, she became the first golfer and first female athlete to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

Cummings was born on March 26, 1899 to David Mark Cummings and Ruth Dexter. She had a younger brother, Dexter. Her father was a wealthy Chicago socialite, who sent her to boarding school at the Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut. Cummings was in the class of 1917. Though the school had been founded only in 1909, it attracted many young socialites. Cummings' classmates included fellow Chicago socialite Ginevra King, future philanthropist Katharine Ordway, Isabel Rockefeller (of the Rockefeller family, a granddaughter of William Rockefeller), and Prescott Bush's sisters Mary and Margaret (aunts to U.S. President George H.W. Bush and great aunts to George W. Bush).

In 1915, Cummings met a young student at Princeton University named F. Scott Fitzgerald, who had fallen in love with her friend Ginevra and later immortalized them both in The Great Gatsby.

Following her graduation in 1917, Cummings pursued tournament golf where she earned the nickname "the Fairway Flapper". In 1919 she qualified to compete in the U.S. Women's Amateur for the first time. Cummings and her brother Dexter learned to play golf from their parents at the Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest, Illinois. Both her mother and father had been club champions. Edith had won the club championship in 1918. Brother Dexter won intercollegiate championship in 1923 and in 1924 and the Western Amateur championship in 1925.

In 1921, Cummings competed in the British Ladies Amateur with other famous female golfers such as Alexa Stirling and Marion Hollins. The next year, Cummings entered the U.S. Women's Amateur, where she was in match play against Glenna Collett, then an 18-year-old from Rhode Island, who became known as one of the great female golfers of the 1920s. Cummings lost on the final hole. She won the U.S Women's Amateur in 1923, earning her the cover photo on Time as well as profiles in Vogue, Ladies' Home Journal, and many newspapers. She also won the Women's Western Amateur in 1924.

Her literary fame, occurred because in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, the character of Jordan Baker was based on Cummings, just as the character Daisy Buchanan was modeled after Cummings' friend King. Buchanan and Baker were socialites and friends. Baker "wore all her dresses like sports clothes – there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings," Fitzgerald wrote. In The Great Gatsby, Baker is the love interest of the novel's narrator Nick Carraway. In Gatsby, Baker cheats at golf, but there is no evidence that Fitzgerald drew this detail from Cummings.

Cummings never won another tournament and left tournament golf in 1926, but remained a well-known figure. In 1934, she married wealthy businessman Curtis B. Munson. Munson later was selected by Franklin Roosevelt to investigate the sympathies of Japanese-Americans living in the United States before the U.S. entered World War II.

Cummings and Munson largely faded from the spotlight later in life except for forays into philanthropy. Cummings remained a committed golfer into her 80s. She was enthusiastic about all outdoor activities, especially big game hunting in Yukon and fishing. She and her husband traveled extensively throughout their marriage until her husband’s death in 1979. In his honor, she made a significant contribution to the Decatur House renovation in Washington, D.C.

Today, the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation funds a number of conservation programs. She has an award named after her, the Edith Cummings Munson Golf Award, given annually to one of the top female collegiate golfers who excels in academics. The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation donates $5,000 to the general scholarship fund of the winner's school.

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