Brown, Molly

Brown, Molly

 orig. Margaret Tobin

(born July 18, 1867, Hannibal, Mo, U.S.—died Oct. 26, 1932, New York, N.Y.) U.S. philanthropist, social reformer, and socialite. The daughter of Irish immigrants, she attended a grammar school and later worked at a tobacco factory. She followed her brother c. 1884 to Colorado, where she met and married James Brown, a miner. After he found gold in 1894, they moved to Denver, where they were welcomed into society. She became a founding member of the Denver Woman's Club, part of a national network of women's clubs dedicated to improving the conditions of women and children. After her husband left her, she traveled to New York and Newport, where she enjoyed social success. As a passenger on the disastrous maiden voyage of the Titanic (1912), she helped command a lifeboat and was celebrated by the U.S. press as “the Unsinkable Mrs. Brown.” Her life, in the semilegendary form she herself recounted it, was popularized in a stage musical and movie.