A cropped and digitally retouched image of a 1918 passport photograph of polo player and sportsman William "Bill" Mitchell. He inspired the character of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Buchanan" class="extiw" title="w:Tom Buchanan">Tom Buchanan</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald" class="extiw" title="w:F. Scott Fitzgerald">F. Scott Fitzgerald</a>'s 1925 novel <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby" class="extiw" title="w:The Great Gatsby">The Great Gatsby</a></i>. Mitchell's wife, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginevra_King" class="extiw" title="w:Ginevra King">Ginevra King</a>, inspired the character of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Buchanan" class="extiw" title="w:Daisy Buchanan">Daisy Buchanan</a> in the same novel. Bill Mitchell was the son of banker <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Mitchell_(banker)" class="extiw" title="w:John J. Mitchell (banker)">John J. Mitchell</a>, president of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Illinois" class="extiw" title="w:Continental Illinois">Illinois Trust &amp; Savings Bank</a> and a close personal friend of Ginevra's father Charles Garfield King with whom he shared offices in the same building in downtown Chicago. Ginevra's father orchestrated the union between his daughter and Mitchell as "an arranged marriage" between two elite Chicago families. According to scholars, Ginevra "made the same choice Daisy Buchanan did, accepting the safe haven of money rather than waiting for a truer love to come along." "To say I am the happiest girl on earth would be expressing it mildly", King wrote perfunctorily in her letter to Fitzgerald, "I wish you knew Bill so that you could know how very lucky I am". Bill Mitchell became the director of Texaco, one of the largest and most successful oil companies of the era. Bill's brother, banker <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Mitchell_(banker)" class="extiw" title="w:Jack Mitchell (banker)">Jack Mitchell</a>, co-founded <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines" class="extiw" title="w:United Airlines">United Airlines</a> and married the only daughter of magnate <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Ogden_Armour" class="extiw" title="w:J. Ogden Armour">J. Ogden Armour</a>, the second-richest man in the United States after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller" class="extiw" title="w:John D. Rockefeller">John D. Rockefeller</a>.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Government_Printing_Office" class="extiw" title="w:United States Government Printing Office">United States Government Printing Office</a>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://lflb.passitdown.com/stories/42073">Ginevra King: Not Just Gatsby's Girl</a>