Susan Dwight Bliss

American, 1882 - 1966

BiographySuasan Dwight Bliss lived many years in the family mansion at 9 East 68th Street in New York City.There she maintained and continued book, manuscript, and art collections tracing back to her father and mother. She was known for her philanthropy. She made numerous donations of art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At her death in 1966, she bequeathed approximately $2 million to Yale University for establishing professorships in epidemiology and public health as well as a scholarship in the field.
The libraries of Bowdoin, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale received major benefactions, as did the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The most spectacular is that to Bowdoin. Named the Susan Dwight Bliss Room shortly after her death, it consists of the interior carved paneling (18th century French) and furnishings of her mansion’s library together with more than 1200 specially bound rare books for its shelves.

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