The Molly Brown House Museum
1340 Pennsylvania Street
Denver, Colorado 80203
303.832.4092
Fax: 303.832.2340

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After J.J.'s death Margaret began a new phase of her life. Preservation and equality became her focus.

The Titanic disaster also still played a large role in Margaret's life. As the founder and president of the Titanic Survivors' Committee, Margaret, along with other members, was still looking for a suitable site for a monument created fifteen years earlier. Margaret was opposed to a site on the banks of the Potomac River in Washington D.C.. She felt the soil was too unstable, even after the erection of a sea wall, and the monument might be destroyed. Other chair members outvoted her and the statue was erected near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

In the spring of 1926 she returned to Hannibal, Missouri to attend the Mark Twain Festival. It was not forgotten that the Twains and Tobins were neighbors years ago. Margaret and her family worked to restore the Twain home, complete with the family's belongings, to create the Mark Twain Museum.

Her next preservation project was the home of Eugene Field in Denver. Eugene Field was the author of such children's poems as "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod." Mr. Field had also been managing editor of the Denver Tribune and had frequently poked fun at Margaret in the paper. Margaret had the unique ability to laugh at herself and, in good humor, created the Eugene Field memorial home in his honor. It was later presented to the city of Denver and used as a children's library and museum.

Installing the Sphinxes

Soon after, Margaret traveled back to Egypt. She returned to Denver with two sphinxes with which to decorate the front of her Pennsylvania Street house. Margaret also brought back art and artifacts from around Europe that she donated to the Denver Art Museum and the Museum of Natural History.

That same year Margaret finished her autobiography. She sent The Course of Human Events to Doubleday, Page & Co. in New York. She described the book by saying, "I am writing of my experiences and shall tell the truth…I've told it so well and thoroughly, so far, that my stenographer has gone into gales of laughter at certain chapters." Today there is no evidence of this manuscript with the exception of a few typed lines on yellowed paper.

Margaret continued her work for the National Woman's Party. She traveled with a delegation to Rapid City, South Dakota to meet with President Coolidge regarding an equal rights amendment. Coolidge met with the party, but in the end, did not change his stance on the amendment.

Content from Kristen Iversen's book, Molly Brown, Unraveling the Myth, published by Johnson Books in 1999.