author
Mary Theresa Leiter
A Gilded Age writer and preservation advocate, she is remembered both for her family’s prominence and for her own work keeping Revolutionary-era history alive. Her name is especially linked to a late 19th-century book on Continental Army generals and to long service with the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association.
1 Audiobook
Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the Revolution
by Mary Theresa Leiter
About the author
Born Mary Theresa Carver in 1844, she married businessman Levi Ziegler Leiter in 1866 and became part of a family that figured prominently in Chicago and Washington society. She was also the mother of Mary Victoria Leiter, later Lady Curzon, and Margaret Hyde Leiter, later Countess of Suffolk.
She was more than a society figure, though. Contemporary records connect her with the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, where she served for many years as Vice Regent for Illinois, helping support the preservation of George Washington's estate.
Mary Theresa Leiter also wrote Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the Revolution, a historical work published in the late 1800s. She died in 1913, leaving behind a life that joined family prominence, historical interests, and public-minded cultural work.