The eleventh lecture on women of the Gilded Age in Southampton will focus on the life of Frances “Tanty” Breese Miller. Her’s is a life in two acts. In the first, she is the privileged daughter of the wealthy and fun-loving James Breese and the rather chilly Frances Tileston Breese. She’s a tomboy but compliant, makes her debut, joins the Junior League and makes a conventional marriage. In Act II, she breaks out of high society and becomes a liberated woman, sometimes in ways that shock family and friends.
