Portrait of a Hungarian nobleman

"Count László Széchenyi de Sárvár-felsővidék (18 February 1879 – 5 July 1938) was an Austro Hungarian military officer, Imperial Chamberlain, diplomat and venture capitalist. His great-uncle was István Széchenyi. László Széchenyi married Gladys Vanderbilt, the youngest daughter of Alice Claypoole Gwynne and Cornelius Vanderbilt II."  --

"Count László Széchenyi was the inventor of the submarine wireless telegraphy, for sending and receiving sound-wave vibrations underwater. The machine was successfully tested with then U.S. Secretary of the Navy George von Lengerke Meyer, in Newport, Rhode Island. Széchenyi, along with David C. Watts, formed the Submarine Wireless Company to produce it."

"Shortly before the War, Count László Széchenyi de Sárvár-felsővidék tried to become a financial Napoléon in Hungary and met his Waterloo very quickly. He is said to have lost $4,000,000 which is supposed to have come largely from his wife. He was a member of the ‘Magnates Group’ which speculated in mines, railroads and other enterprises. They failed to calculate the impact of the World War, and suffered a complete smash as a result of the fall in value of their shares." --

Diplomatic career

"The Kingdom of Hungary and the United States signed a treaty establishing friendly relations on August 29, 1921. On January 11, 1922, Count László Széchenyi presented his credentials as Hungary's first Minister to the United States. He served in that role until March 31, 1933. He was transferred to the same post at the Court of Saint James in England in 1933." --

"Count László was twenty-eight years old, when he met Gladys Vanderbilt (1886–1965), the seventh and youngest child of Alice Claypoole Gwynne and Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the president and chairman of the New York Central Railroad. Gladys grew up in the family home on Fifth Avenue in New York City, and their summer "cottage," The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. They married on January 27, 1908, at her family home in New York City, after their meeting in Berlin near her twenty-first birthday in 1907.^[ Their early married life was spent in Hungary raising their five children."  

(Wikipedia)

US diplomat Alvey A. Adee riding to work (1914)

This 1914 photo by Harris & Ewing shows 72 year old US diplomat Alvey Augustus Adee, Second Assistant Secretary of State, riding to work on his bicycle. My colorization of a picture in the Library of Congress archive.

An article by Peter Bridges in the American Diplomacy web gives us this information about Adee´s bicycle hobby:

"At some point in the 1890s Adee began annual cycling trips to Europe. He took as much as two months’ leave each spring—which successive Secretaries of State granted, presumably on the basis that the reliable Adee would be in charge of the department during their own summer vacations—and he would do between 1,500 and 2,000 miles on his ‘wheel’ through Europe, alone or with a friend or two. His most frequent companions were Alexander Thackara, a senior American consular officer, and Thackara’s wife, who was the daughter of General William T. Sherman, the Civil War commander. France was Adee’s favourite cycling ground, but he also toured Italy, Germany and the Alps. At least once, in 1895, he cycled through England and Scotland, where he is said to have met Woodrow Wilson, then a professor at Princeton University, and to have continued his tour together with the future President."28

"Adee also cycled to the State Department while living in Washington, and was the only official permitted to bring his bicycle into the State Department building and stand it in a particular place in the corner.29 But Adee did not always live in Washington." 

If you are interested in US diplomatic history, the article by Peter Bridges is well worth reading:

http://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2001/12/an-appreciation-of-alvey-adee/  

Cargo ship Alexander in stormy weather

Today the 104 m cargo ship Alexander passed by in stormy weather on its way 

from Ventspils to Ghent: 

Early signs of spring

Signs of spring in the Krapperup castle garden. 

Danish schooner Dannebrog (ab. 1920)

Danish schooner Dannebrog af Thurø, built by J.Ph. Jørgensen, Thurø, in 1916. My colorization of the original photo by an unknown photographer in the MS Maritime Museum of Denmark archive.

Brita and Carl Johan Strömmer (1904)

Brita and Carl Johan Strömmer photographed on their diamond anniversary day on March 3, 1904. My colorization of a photo by Karls Atelier in Vasa, Finland. The original image is in the Svenska Litteratursällskapet archive.

USS Mayflower - The President´s yacht (1909)

USS Mayflower, the US President´s yacht, photographed at the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York State in 1909. My colorization of a Detroit Publishing Co. collection photo in the Library of Congress archive.

"USS Mayflower (PY-1) (later as USCGC Mayflower (WPG-183)) was the second ship in the United States Navy to have that name. Mayflower—a luxurious steam yacht built in 1896 by J. and G. Thompson, Clydebank, Scotland for millionaire Ogden Goelet who died on board the Mayflower in August 1897." --
"With the Spanish–American War requiring that the Navy expand rapidly, she was purchased by the Navy from Goelet's estate and commissioned at the New York Navy Yard as the USS Mayflower on 24 March 1898 with Commander M. R. S. McKensie in command." --
"Mayflower was decommissioned at New York on 1 November 1904 for conversion to a presidential yacht."
"Recommissioned on 25 July 1905, with Commander Cameron Winslow in command, she immediately sailed for Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, to prepare for the peace conference which ended the Russo-Japanese War. President Theodore Roosevelt introduced the Russian and Japanese delegations on board Mayflower on 5 August. The ship continued to play a prominent role in support of the negotiations which won President Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize."
"After duty as a dispatch boat protecting American interests in Santo Domingo in 1906, Mayflower served as presidential yacht until 1929. On 22 July 1908, she collided with the American 211-gross register ton schooner Menawa in Long Island Sound; Menawa was lost, but all six people aboard Menawa survived.[3]Mayflower was the scene of many diplomatic and social events during her years as the presidential yacht. Many members of the world's royal families visited the yacht and numerous persons of great prominence signed her guestbook. President Woodrow Wilson selected Mayflower as the setting for much of his courtship of Mrs. Edith Bolling Galt."
"One of Herbert Hoover's early acts as president was to dispense with Mayflower as an economy measure, saving upkeep costs of $300,000 per year. She was decommissioned at Philadelphia Navy Yard on 22 March 1929, and her Filipino stewards and much of her furniture were transferred to the presidential retreat at Rapidan Camp."
(Wikipedia)