A religious man and dedicated philanthropist, in 1863 he established the Robert College in Istanbul, an institution to which he left a substantial legacy and which became an important advanced training centre in the Near East, as well as a monument to American philanthropy.
Romeyne became active in the area of philanthropy and social promotion, following the model inaugurated by the "settlement movement", established in England around the end of the 20th century, which later developed also in major cities along the north-east coast of the United States.
The indigent communities living in what were known as settlement houses, funded by men and women from this movement, benefited from educational and welfare projects; this also included the development – particularly among immigrant women – of artistic and professional training, often with an ideal link to the Arts and Crafts movement, which had also reached England from the United States and whose purpose was the promotion of arts and the industry, creating products of high artistic value, highlighting the artisan experience by reproducing motifs and drawings related to the past, more specifically to the Renaissance period.
For this project of hers, she availed herself of support from Carolina Amari (Florence, 9 September 1866 – Rome, 11 August 1942), one of the outstanding figures within the women's emancipation movement which started in Italy at the end of the nineteenth century, based on the model of what was happening at the time in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Being also well known in the United States for her artistic interpretation on fabric of medieval and Renaissance patterns, as well as for her technical dexterity, in partnership with Florence Colgate and Gino Speranza, in 1905 she contributed to setting up in New York the "Scuola d'Industrie Italiane", whose purpose was to help immigrant women find meaningful employment by producing and selling embroidered and lace items.
All the women who lived in the areas around the villa and who had an interest in contributing to supporting the family, or who wished to set aside resources, thus becoming independent from male figures, could enrol in this "vocational school", where they could learn a trade.
Romeyne, as well as being head of the school, often prepared patterns for embroidering: she had studied art and drawing, therefore she was skilled at reproducing on sketchbooks the ornaments and friezes she saw on architectural structures, artefacts or painted images.
[4] She was also inspired by the ancient embroideries she saw in the collection owned by Countess Edith Rucellai in Florence, which she used to create a pattern based on a medieval-Renaissance taste concept, with distinctive curls, floral panoplies, animal and anthropomorphic figures.
Starting from her preparatory sketches, it was then the task of Carolina Amari to produce more stylised drawings, then copied out on paper patterns for the embroiderers who finally reproduced the subject using several types of stitch.
As entrepreneur and promoter of her own business, Romeyne started to take part in numerous trade fairs and exhibitions, for example the international "Industries and Labour " show in 1911 in Turin, proving highly successful.
The end of this syndicated organisation was mainly due to the economic collapse caused by the Great Depression in the United States, which led to a considerable reduction in orders, bringing down the requests for some textile articles to almost zero because of the exorbitant customs duties being imposed.
Having officially ceased all her activities, Marchioness Romeyne decided to gather in her Perugia residence at Palazzo Sorbello all of the unsold artefacts, creating a collection with a large number of items produced both in the embroidery workshop she had inaugurated, and in other affiliated schools from the area.
[10] In 1907, Baron and Baroness Franchetti contributed to opening the first "Casa dei Bimbi" in Rome and, after having personally met the pedagogy expert from the Marche region Maria Montessori in the home of the writer Sibilla Aleramo, decided to support her concretely by inviting her to stay at Villa Montesca for the summer of 1909.
Giovanni Antonio, the eldest of the three brothers, after Italy's Liberation was appointed Vice-prefetto by the Allied Military Government, with the specific assignment of rebuilding roads and bridges in the province, a position which he held from July 1944 to January 1945.
Being a very assertive woman, she succeeded in ensuring the release of her husband, following the arrest by Fascist supporters of the Republic of Salò acting upon an order by the Head of the Province, Armando Rocchi, who tried in vain to make him confess where his three sons were hiding.