Catherine Livingston Hamersley

Catherine Livingston Hamersley (8 May 1891-23 November 1977) was a New York City and Newport, Rhode Island society figure, and the first American woman to visit the Najd city of Riyadh, capital of the new state of Saudi Arabia, in 1939. Her other travels included early 20th century visits to Timbuktu, Mali, and she witnessed the 1937 volcano at Rabaul, New Guinea.[1] In 1939 she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.[2]

Catherine Livingston Hamersley
Traditional Najd Woman's Dress

Life and landmark Arabian travel

Catherine Hamersley was born in Manhattan, the daughter of J. Hooker Hamersley, a well-known mogul of the Gilded Age, and Margaret Willing Chisholm. With the death of her father, in 1901, and her mother, in 1904, the orphaned Catherine and her brother, Louis Gordon Hamersley (1892-1942) were raised by their nanny, Sarah Lowrie, who was also a trained nurse. [3]

Catherine married Samuel Neilson Hinckley (1881-1931) in October 1914, and their son Samuel Neilson Hinckley Jr. was born in September 1915. In 1922, Catherine divorced Hinckley to marry Henry Coleman Drayton (1883-1942), a grandson of William Backhouse Astor Jr., and in 1929 she divorced Drayton and married Charles Whitney Carpenter (1884-1954).

It was with Carpenter that Catherine Hamersley became well-known as a world traveler, and their January 1939 travel to Syria, Iraq, and Central Arabia became a landmark trip: the first American woman in Riyadh. Until Catherine’s visit to Riyadh the only recorded visits of “foreign” women who had visited the al Saud capital of Riyadh were:

  • Geraldine Rendel, along with her husband, a British diplomat interested in seeing the Eastern Arabian oil fields from her Kuwaiti base, in 1937[6]
  • Violet Dickson, who accompanied her husband, a retired British Political Agent in Kuwait, also in 1937[7]

The visits of these women, and by Catherine Hamersley were possible due to the consolidation of the Arabian regions by King Abdulaziz al Saud (“ibn Saud”) in 1932, and they were landmark trips to the heart of the Wahabi Islamic sect, an event which had been a goal, never achieved, by the intrepid British explorer and diplomat Gertrude Bell.[8]

During her Riyadh visit Catherine captured photographic images including those of the King, the Crown Prince, and royal advisor Yusuf Yasin of Syria. Catherine herself was photographed in Riyadh wearing traditional Najdi woman’s garb. Later, following the trip, both Catherine and her husband Carpenter gave an interview to Lowell Thomas, on his “Order of Adventurers” Radio program.[9]

In 1939 the United States had no diplomatic representation in Saudi Arabia; any American in the Kingdom was likely working in the Eastern Coastal area of Dhahran, the center of emerging Saudi oil production beginning in 1938. Both the West Arabian coastal city of Jeddah, and the Eastern Coast area were visited by western women. But the al Saud capital of Riyadh and the central Arabian Najd region were off-limits to western women except by special permission from the royal court.

Remarkably, Catherine commented upon her return from her visit that she had not only stayed in the King’s new palace, but had been included in a falcon-hunting trip with King Abdulaziz; some of her photographs show the camp and the falcons used for hunting. The inclusion of a western woman on a royal hunting trip has not been recorded until her visit.[10]

While she is often remembered as an East Coast American society heiress and hostess, her status as the first American woman to visit Riyadh makes her unique among American society hostesses, and her photographs of the trip, in the Litchfield, Connecticut Historical Society collection, are a remarkable and rare record of pre-WWII Saudi Arabia history.

References
  1. Thomas, Lowell (3 Oct 1937). "They Saw A Volcano Burn". The Indianapolis Star (Magazine Section, p.7).
  2. "Elections". The Geographic Journal. 94 (5): 432. November 1, 1939.
  3. Hamersley (1910). "United States Census" (Manhattan Ward 19). Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. "Sotheby's to Sell An Historic Album Photographs Recording First Royal Visit to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain". Art Daily. Retrieved 20 Aug 2020.
  5. Stegner, Wallace. "Discovery! The Story of Aramco Then". Aramco Magazine. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  6. "The Arabian Journey of Geraldine Rendel". Aramco World. Retrieved 20 Aug 2020.
  7. Facey, William (1992). Riyadh: The Old City. London: Immel Publishing. p. 294.
  8. Howell, Georgina (2006). Gertrude Bell, Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. p. 206.
  9. "Air Attractions". The Boston Globe. 12 June 1939.
  10. "Return From Trip Across Arabia". New York Times. 11 Feb 1939.
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