The Boston scandal

Description

In 1915, Mary (nicknamed Polly) Phelps Jacob married Richard R. Peabody -like she- a blue-blooded Bostonian whose family had arrived in New Hampshire in 1635. They had two children, but soon she’d describe him as a well-educated but undirected alcoholic man and a reluctant father. When her husband was away at war, Polly met Harry Crosby, who was seven years her junior, at a picnic in 1920. Crosby was profoundly affected by his experience in World War I and vowed to live life on his own terms and abandoned all pretense of living the expected life of a privileged Bostonian. Polly and Harry had sex within two weeks and their public affair scandalized proper Boston society. After Richard returned from his service in World War I, he returned to drinking.  Two years later he granted Polly a divorce and to her family’s dismay she married Crosby. Two days later they left for Europe, where they joined the Lost Generation of American expatriates in Paris and devoted themselves to art and poetry.