Five photographs comprise the collection, depicting members of the J. Gordon Douglas family in social settings ca. 1925-1942. Edward, Duke of Windsor and Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, each appear in one of the photographs.
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Description or title of item, PSNCA.H.038: Douglas family photographs, Box 1, Folder 1, Preservation Society of Newport County, Newport, RI.
Photographs are arranged in one series as found and inventoried at the item level.
James Gordon Douglas (1882-1960), a stock broker and sportsman, was born in Douglaston, Queens, New York, son of William Proctor Douglas (1843-1919) and Adelaide Louisa Townsend (1853-1935).
An avid golfer, Douglas won the Count de Turin Cup at the Newport Country Club in 1910. In 1916, Douglas served with Robert W. Goelet as the Green Committee of the club, and served as its governor, 1916-1917. He was also an accomplished polo and tennis player. When he and his family resided in Newport in the summer, they stayed at the Whitney Warren Villa at Parker Avenue and Clay Street. Douglas worked with the New York brokerage firms Watson & Hollins and E.F. Hutton & Co. His New York home was at 392 Madison Avenue.
Douglas married three times. With his wife, amateur tennis player Anne Ward Kountze (1888-1952), whom he married in 1907, Douglas had two sons, James Gordon Douglas, Jr. (1908-1990) and Barclay Kountze Douglas (1911-1991). Both sons served in the U.S. Army. In 1927, he married Mai Duncan Watson (1896-1958), and in 1943 he married Shirley Crossan (1896-1981). He remained married to his last wife until his death in 1960.
J. Gordon Douglas, Jr. married Margaret “Peggie” Phipps in 1930. They had one daughter, Margarita “Dita” Douglas. He went on to marry three more times: to Margaret Moffett (later Altemus) in 1948, to her sister Adelaide McMichael Moffett in 1954, and to Mary Wadsworth Lummis in 1966. Barclay Kountze Douglas married Jane Elizabeth Foster in 1930; their daughter was Diane Marie Gordon Douglas Lamborn (1933-2015). He later married Marie Josephine O’Donnell Hartford (later Bryce, 1903-1992) in 1936 or 1937.
Donald Bell, the donor of the photographs, was a former Newport employee of J. Gordon Douglas, Jr.
The Preservation Society holds as loans several photo albums of the Douglas family. (L.750.1-.18)
A portrait of Anne Kountze Douglas painted by Howard G. Cushing is in the collection and hangs in the salon at Rosecliff. (PSNC.1485)
The collection has been digitized and is available for viewing at