Pauline Arnoux MacArthur
Pauline Arnoux MacArthur was an American clubwoman, writer, pianist and librettist.
Early life
Pauline Arnoux was the daughter of judge William H. Arnoux and Pauline Arnoux. She claimed to be Austrian royalty, through a grandmother who was a princess.Career
Activism
MacArthur was active in social causes, including bringing concerts to prisons and to settlement houses. She was president of the Women's Auxiliary of the University Settlement Society of New York. During World War I, MacArthur was founder and president of Le Cercle Rochambeau, a women's war relief organization, and president of the National Association for Mothers of Defenders of Democracy. She had an apartment on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and may have been involved in the Allied secret service during the war.She wrote "Short Talk on Suffrage", noting that "We suffer from inertia and from the dread of big changes which seem in the nature of upheavals. We will often go on reading in a failing light rather than move and turn on a full light."
She was active in the National Council of Women's Department of Community Music, and founder and president of New York's Thursday Musical Club. She was not a professional pianist, but played socially, on the radio, and at benefit concerts with other musicians.