Charlotte Garrigue

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Charlotte Garrigue Masaryk (born November 20, 1850 in Brooklyn, New York, USA, died May 13, 1923 near Prague) was the wife of the Czechoslovak philosopher, sociologist, politician and president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first President of Czechoslovakia. She was born to a Unitarian family with Huguenot ancestry on her father's side and having a Mayflower passengers' descent on her mother's one.

In 1877 visiting a friend studying at a conservatory in Leipzig, Germany, she first met her future husband Tomáš Masaryk who was staying there after having gained his doctorate at the University of Vienna. They married a year later in the USA, after which they settled in Vienna. After the wedding her husband added her surname into his name thus becoming Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, as he is remembered in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (or often by the abbreviation TGM). In 1881 the Masaryks moved to Prague, where Tomáš obtained a professorship at the University of Prague. Of the couple's six children, four of them reached adulthood - Alice, Herbert, Olga and Jan, who later became a noted Czechoslovakian diplomat and politician.

In the era before the First World War Mrs. Masaryk became involved in many social, humanitarian and cultural activities of Prague society. She joined the Social Democratic Party, however she (in accordance with her husband) rejected the Marxist doctrine of the class struggle.

After the outbreak of the First World War, her husband left for exile with their daughter Olga to pursue the international support for the independence of the nations of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, notably the Czechs and Slovaks. For the majority of the war, Mrs. Masaryk was under police supervision, while daughter Alice was even under arrest. The situation became even worse when son Herbert died of typhus in 1915. All of these hardships caused Charlotte Masaryk to suffer from depression and cardiac problems.

In December 1918 Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk returned to Prague as the President of Czechoslovakia. The family began living at the Prague Castle, often spending time at the chateau of Lány.

Mrs. Masaryk died in 1923, her husband in 1937.