George and Phoebe Hearst: The Washington Years
Senator and Father of William Randolph Hearst
In 1886, George Hearst, wealthy American businessman, U.S. Senator, and the father of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, arrived in Washington to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat, and a year later was elected to the Senate, where he served until his death in 1891. In 1889, he purchased a house on New Hampshire Avenue, NW that had been built John Field house six years earlier and altered it beyond recognition.
John Field, a successful Philadelphia banker and businessman, and his wife Eliza were well established in Philadelphia before they decided to retire to Washington in the early 1880s. They were great patrons of the arts and noted benefactors of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Mrs. Field’s father was one of its founders. The couple’s portrait was painted by John Singer Sargent in Paris in 1882, and Mrs. Field donated it to the academy after John Field’s death. Artist Gilbert Stuart had painted her mother’s (Abigail Willi…
