Georgia Neese Clark Gray

American actress

Georgia Neese Clark Gray (January 27, 1898 – October 26, 1995) was an American actress and banker who served as the 29th treasurer of the United States from 1949 to 1953, and was the first woman to hold that office.

Georgia Neese was born in Richland, Kansas, the daughter of Albert Neese, a farmer and businessman, and Ella Sullivan Neese, a stay at home mother. Her father, a self made man, had prospered in the years before her birth and become the town's leading citizen, owning much of its property as well as the bank and general store. The family owned homes in Richland and in nearby Topeka where Neese attended high school graduating in 1917. Neese was a Presbyterian but she briefly attended Bethany College, an Episcopalian school for women in Topeka, before transferring to Washburn University. Neese majored in economics at Washburn and was a member of several student organizations. She was president of the drama club and a member of the Upsilon chapter of Alpha Phi. Determined to become an actress, she moved to New York City following graduation in 1921 and enrolled at the Franklin Sargent School of Dramatic Art.

Georgia Neese began her acting career with various stock companies. Gray pursued an acting career from 1921 to 1931, living in New York City, getting to know Helen Hayes and Charlie Chaplin, touring the country and earning $500 a week. When the Depression and the onset of "talkies," motion pictures with sound, cut short her stage career, she returned home to care for her sick father.

Gray started working at her father's Richland State Bank as an assistant cashier in 1935. At the death of her father in 1937, she inherited control and the presidency of Richland State Bank, as well as the family's general store, grain elevator, lumber yard, insurance agency, many farms and other real estate.

Gray was active in the state Democratic Party and was elected Democratic National Committee member from Kansas in 1936, a position she held until 1964. She was an articulate and well liked representative of the party and an early supporter of Harry S. Truman. It was this support that brought about her nomination as the first woman to be Treasurer of the United States from 1949 to 1953.