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This collection consists of personal papers donated to the Reagan Presidential Library. It is available in whole for research use. In accordance with the Deed of Gift, some items may have been withdrawn from the folders. Material is withdrawn most frequently due to national security classified material, personal privacy, protection of the President, etc. 
 

Biography

Mabel "Muffie" Wentworth Brandon Cabot (nee Hobart) is an American heiress and socialite. She served as the first Social Secretary for First Lady Nancy Reagan (1981-1984).

A member of an American family descended from passengers on the Mayflower, Cabot grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, attended various boarding schools, and graduated rom Smith College. Her father, Richard Hobart was an art collector and an investment banker with Loomis Sayles. Her mother, Janet Elliott Wulsin, was a former explorer who undertook several National Geographic Society-financed expeditions to Tibet and Outer Mongolia. 

Cabot's first husband was Eric Wentworth, a correspondent for The Washington Post. The couple divorced in 1964.  After the divorce, Cabot remained in residence at the pair's Embassy Row home now known as Whitehaven. In 1970 she married British national Henry Brandon, a longtime Washington correspondent for The Sunday Times, once known as "the most powerful foreign correspondent in the USA." During this period the couple were known for hosting parties that were the highlight of the Washington social scene.

Despite being a lifelong Democrat and a personal friend of the Kennedy family, she was appointed Social Secretary to fellow Smith College alumna Nancy Reagan in 1981. She served the First Lady until 1985. She went on to serve on the board of trustees of the Phillips Collection and the Eureka Foundation, and served as president of the Washington office of the public relations firm Rogers & Cowan.

Cabot's husband, Henry Brandon, died in 1993. In 1997 she married Louis Wellington Cabot, chair of the America's Cup Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and a scion of the prominent Boston Cabot family.

In 2003, the Aperture Foundation published Muffie Cabot's Vanished Kingdoms: A Woman Explorer in Tibet, China, and Mongolia, 1921-1925, an account of her mother's travels in early 20th-century Asia. HerThe  early work on the book was encouraged by long-time friend Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who read a first draft prior to her death.

Cabot has four children, three from her first marriage and a daughter with Henry Brandon. Cabot's daugher, Ali Wentworth, is an actress, author and producer who appeared on In Living Color. She is married to ABC-TV news anchor George Stephanopoulos.

 

Collection Description

The Library also has a presidential records collection for Mrs. Cabot for her work with Mrs. Reagan as the White House Social Secretary. It is the Mabel "Muffie" Brandon collection.

Last Updated: 12/06/2022 01:57AM

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Brandon, Mable "Muffie": Files, 1981-1983

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