page_title: Isabel Pell
section_title: Early life and family
hierarchical_section_title: Isabel Pell / Early life and family
caption_attribution_description: English: Title Mrs. Isabel Pell, [4/10/23] Created / Published [1923 April 10] Format Headings Glass negatives. Notes - Title from unverified data provided by the National Photo Company on the negative or negative sleeve. - Date from related negative LC-F8-23563. - Gift; Herbert A. French; 1947. - This glass negative might show streaks and other blemishes resulting from a natural deterioration in the original coatings. - Temp. note: Batch two. Medium 1 negative&#160;: glass&#160;; 4 x 5 in. or smaller Call Number/Physical Location LC-F8- 23565 [P&amp;P] Source Collection National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress) Repository Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Digital Id npcc 08208 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/npcc.08208 Control Number npc2007008207 Reproduction Number LC-DIG-npcc-08208 (digital file from original) Rights Advisory No known restrictions on publication. Online Format image Description 1 negative&#160;: glass&#160;; 4 x 5 in. or smaller
context_page_description: Isabel Townsend Pell was an American socialite and member of the French Resistance during World War II. She was subsequently decorated with the Legion of Honour.
context_section_description: Pell was born on September 28, 1900, to Samuel Osgood Pell (1875–1913), a New York real estate agent, and Isabel Audrey Townsend (1881–1958), who married October 18, 1899, in Babylon. The marriage was mentioned in the New York Times, but was short-lived; Isabel Townsend was granted a divorce in early February 1902, aged 20. She remarried twice, initially to John Cotton Smith, descendant of politician John Cotton Smith.
  Pell's father died in an automobile accident on the night of August 3, 1913, when a train from the Long Island Railroad crashed into his car at a crossing. Isabel Townsend sued for $250,000, but both she and her daughter were left penniless. Pell was cared for by her paternal uncle, Stephen Hyatt Pell (1874–1950) and raised at Fort Ticonderoga, the family mansion on Lake Champlain. The house is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Her other uncle was tennis player Theodore Pell.
  Pell attended Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, and the Spence School in New York City. She made her debut in 1920, at the Piping Rock Club, and was known as a skilled horsewoman in Long Island, New York, and Virginia. She was nicknamed "Pelly" and admired by contemporaries for being outspoken and athletic.
caption: Isabel Pell's mother, April 10, 1923, Gift of Herbert A. French, 1947, National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress) Repository
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