Victorine du Pont Bauduy
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Victorine du Pont Bauduy | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Portrait of Victorine du Pont Bauduy by Rembrandt Peale in 1813 | |
| Born | Victorine Elizabeth du Pont 1792 |
| Died | 1861 (aged 68–69) |
| Occupation(s) | Educator, school superintendent |
| Father | Éleuthère Irénée du Pont |
Victorine Elizabeth du Pont Bauduy (1792–1861) was an American school superintendent and eldest daughter of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771–1834), who founded E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, and of Sophie Madeleine Dalmas du Pont.
Born in Paris in 1792, Victorine immigrated to America in 1800 and attended a New York school for French-speaking pupils. After the du Pont family moved to Delaware, she attended a Wilmington boarding school and then Madame Rivardi's Academy for Young Ladies in Philadelphia, along with her younger sister, Evelina (1796–1863), from 1805 to 1808. She studied reading, writing, spelling, mathematics, geography, French, history, needlework, drawing, dancing, music, and physical sciences.[1][2][3]
Victorine became the first member of her family to learn English, and she influenced the du Pont family's Americanization. As her mother was ailing, she helped parent her younger siblings and home-schooled her siblings, nieces, and nephews.[1][2]
Marriage to Bauduy
Victorine married Ferdinand Bauduy, son of Peter Bauduy, her father's business partner, on November 9, 1813. Their fathers, who were increasingly estranged from each other, disapproved of the courtship and arranged for Ferdinand to return to France for two years. They remained devoted to each other and married when he returned. Ferdinand died of pneumonia less than three months after their marriage on January 21, 1814. Devastated by his untimely death, Victorine never remarried. The Hagley Museum and Library holds a volume of poems she wrote mourning her husband.[1][3][4]
