https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Argentina-Alexander-Wilbourne-Weddell/dp/B004OFMR08?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B004OFMR08
Alexander Wilbourne Weddell was born in Richmond, Va. , the second son and fourth of six children of Rev. Alexander Watson Weddell and Penelope Margaret (Wright) Weddell. His paternal grandfather had emigrated from Scotland, and his ancestry in other lines extended to colonial Virginia and North Carolina. His father, who had served as private secretary to the Confederate secretary of state, was rector of historic St. John's Episcopal Church in Richmond until his death in 1883.
Growing up under the salutary tutelage of his mother, who implanted in him a taste for literature, Weddell received his early education in Richmond public and private schools. To supplement family income he found part-time jobs as page in the state legislature and office boy for a wholesale grocery house. Through evening classes at George Washington University law school, he also earned an LL. B. degree in 1908.
He was forced to seek full-time employment at the age of sixteen and worked at a succession of positions, including copy reader for the Southern Churchman, bank messenger, and secretary to a railroad president, for whom he traveled extensively along the Atlantic seaboard. In 1904, a self-styled "malcontent and rolling stone, " Weddell rebelled at the "sheer materialism of the atmosphere surrounding and choking" him and abandoned the business world for a clerkship in the Library of Congress, in the Division of Copyrights. Meanwhile chance steered Weddell to the world of diplomacy. As private secretary (1907 - 1910) to the recently appointed American minister to Denmark, Maurice Francis Egan, he found his life's work. Egan fed his intellectual hunger, remedied flaws in his education, and served as mentor on the skills and finesse of the diplomat. Returning to the United States in 1910, Weddell passed the examinations for the Consular Service. Successively he served as consul in Zanzibar (1910 - 1912) and in Catania, Italy (1912 - 1914), and as consul general in Athens (1914 - 1920), Calcutta (1920 - 1924), and Mexico (1924 - 1928). His tenure in Athens was interrupted by temporary assignment in Cairo (1917) and by several wartime commissions (1917 - 1918). In 1928, Weddell resigned from the consular service to devote himself to philanthropy and civic interests. Utilizing salvaged masonry from the ancient Warwick (England) Priory, in 1924 the Weddells built a stately home, "Virginia House, " near Richmond; five years later, retaining only life tenure, they deeded it to the Virginia Historical Society. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Weddell back into the diplomatic service in 1933 as ambassador to Argentina. During his six-year mission he represented the United States at several inter-American conferences, including the 7th Inter-American Conference, Montevideo (1933); Pan-American Commercial Conference (1935); the Chaco Peace Conference of 1935, which arranged an armistice in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia; and the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace (1936). His Introduction to Argentina (1939) revealed his eagerness to acquaint his countrymen with a nation of which they knew little. In 1939 Weddell was transferred to Spain. His ambassadorship there embraced the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and the growing threat of German occupation. His primary concern was to keep Gen. Francisco Franco's pro-Axis government in a state of nonbelligerency during World War II. Ill health forced Weddell to leave federal service in October 1942. Returning to Richmond, he resumed a position of leadership in local historical and aesthetic causes, as president of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (1942 - 1947), the Virginia Historical Society (1944 - 1948), and St. John's Foundation.
On May 31, 1923, he married Mrs. Virginia (Chase) Steedman, a wealthy St. Louis widow of Virginia ancestry, who shared his love for their native state. They had no children.
