Mary Hoyt Wiborg papers

Mary Hoyt “Hoytie” Wiborg, an American playwright, arts patron, and socialite who lived in New York City and Paris, was born in 1888 in Cincinnati, Ohio to Adeline Moulton Sherman and businessman Frank Bestow Wiborg. Wiborg was a volunteer nurse during World War I and earned the French Medal of Honor for her service; during the second World War, she worked for the French Red Cross. Wiborg also authored the play Taboo, performed by a predominantly Black cast, including Paul Robeson in one of his earliest stage roles, in 1922.

During Wiborg’s childhood, her father’s ink manufacturing business, Ault & Wiborg Company, expanded to New York, and the family thereafter maintained homes in Cincinnati, Manhattan, and Long Island. She had two sisters, amateur artist Sara Sherman Wiborg, who married painter Gerald Murphy and joined the American expatriate community in France in the 1920s, and Olga Marie Wiborg, who married Sidney Webster Fish. In 1918, Wiborg traveled to France to join the ambulance corps. She received a commendation and medal for attending to wounded soldiers at a field hospital in Montmirail, Marne, and after World War I ended, France conferred on her an apartment in Paris in appreciation for her service. During World War II, Wiborg remained in Paris at the start of the German occupation in 1940, but departed after the United States entered the war in December 1941. She was subsequently stationed with the French Red Cross in Switzerland, Germany, and Portugal. Wiborg was named honorary corporal of the 213th Regiment of the French infantry, which referred to her as its marraine, or “godmother.” Additionally, she was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for her part in the French Resistance. Immediately after Paris was liberated in 1944, Wiborg returned to the city and lived there until her death on March 26, 1964.

Notable members of Mary Hoyt Wiborg’s family include great-uncles General William Tecumseh Sherman and U.S. Senator John Sherman.