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Annie Nathan Meyer and Barnard College: Mission and Identity in Women's Higher Education, 1889–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Lynn D. Gordon
Lynn D. Gordon*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Extract

Colleges and universities are often living monuments to their founders, as either the school or its buildings bear their benefactor's name. Institutional histories, statues, paintings, plaques, biographies, and campus publications tell the college's story—from humble beginnings to present-day glories, praising the generosity, wisdom, and vision of the founder. Such is not the case, however, with Barnard College, the women's undergraduate division of Columbia University, and one of the prestigious Seven Sisters. The college took its name from Frederick A. P. Barnard, tenth president of Columbia (1864–1888). President Barnard had, before his death, wished the new institution well, but took no part in establishing it. In fact, he preferred and worked for coeducation at Columbia, and his family initially objected to the college's use of his name. If not Frederick Barnard, then who founded the college? The answer to that question depends very much upon whom you ask.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , Winter 1986 , pp. 503 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1. McCaughey, Robert A., “Barnard's Godmother: Annie Nathan Meyer,” Barnard Alumnae Magazine, Spring 1977, 6. Official histories are Alice Duer Miller, Barnard College: The First Fifty Years (New York, 1939); White, Marian Churchill, A History of Barnard College (New York, 1954). An abridged version of the previous histories appeared in 1964 to mark Barnard's seventy-fifth anniversary.Google Scholar

2. Annie Nathan Meyer, Barnard Beginnings (New York, 1935), 18.Google Scholar

3. The Nation, 26 Jan. 1888, 68–69.Google Scholar

4. Meyer, , Barnard Beginnings, 32; Solar, Judith Cohen, “Barnard's Founder: The Writer,” Barnard Alumnae Magazine, Summer 1978, 10–11, 20.Google Scholar

5. Barnard College Alumnae, Oct. 1935, 13–14.Google Scholar

6. Fragment, , no date, box 5, folder 2, Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati.Google Scholar

7. Ibid. Google Scholar

8. Martha Lawrence to Meyer, 11 Mar. 1946, box 5, folder 2, ANM Papers. In 1959, the Annie Nathan Meyer Drama Library was dispersed, and the books integrated with the college's general collection. See memo from Esther Greene, librarian, 15 Oct. 1959, Annie Nathan Meyer Biographical File, Barnard College Archives, New York.Google Scholar

9. Meyer to Virginia C. Gildersleeve, 12 Feb. 1944, box 7, folder 1, ANM Papers; Taylor, Robert Lewis, “Profiles: The Doctor, the Lady, and Columbia University,” New Yorker, 23 Oct. and 30 Oct. 1943.Google Scholar

10. Gildersleeve, to Meyer, , 15 Feb., 20 Mar., 14 Apr., 13 Sept., 18 Sept. 1944, Meyer to Gildersleeve, 21 Mar. and 16 Sept. 1944, box 7, folder 1, ANM Papers.Google Scholar

11. “Resolutions as to Amendment of Charter,” 15 Feb. 1950, Meyer to Ganno Dunn, 30 Oct. 1945, box 5, folder 1, ANM Papers; Dunn to Lucius Beers, 26 Sept. 1945, box 5, folder 3, ANM Papers.Google Scholar

12. Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade: Memoirs (New York, 1954), 86.Google Scholar

13. For information on the founding and founders of eastern women's colleges, see Herman, Debra, “College and After: The Vassar Experiment in Women's Education, 1861–1924” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1979); Horowitz, Helen L., Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth Century Beginnings to the 1930s (New York, 1984); Palmieri, Patricia Ann, “In Adamless Eden: A Social Portrait of the Academic Community at Wellesley College, 1875–1920” (Ed.D. diss., Harvard University, 1981). A less scholarly account, but one of the first to discuss Meyer, is Elaine Kendall, Peculiar Institutions: An Informal History of the Seven Sister Colleges (New York, 1976). For sources analyzing ethnic issues at other colleges, see note 22.Google Scholar

14. Meyer, , Barnard Beginnings, 16; Book II of Barnard Beginnings (mss.), Annie Nathan Meyer Letter File, box 1, Barnard College Archives; Kerber, Linda K., “Annie Nathan Meyer,” in Notable American Women (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), vol. 4, The Modern Period, 473-74. See also the second volume of Meyer's autobiography, It's Been Fun: An Autobiography (New York, 1951); and Goldenberg, Myrna, “Stray Crumbs of Knowledge: Annie Nathan Meyer, Barnard College, and the Traditions of Domestic Feminism” (Ed.D. diss., University of Maryland, forthcoming). Margaret Meyer attended the Ethical Culture School and Barnard College (class of 1915). She married a physician, Dr. Ira Cohen, in 1923, and died shortly thereafter in “an accident with a pistol.” While Annie Nathan Meyer said that Margaret died after “surprising” an intruder, family members believed that the young bride may have committed suicide, despondent over a real or suspected pregnancy. Emily Nathan, interview with author, New York, N.Y., 19 June 1985.Google Scholar

15. Meyer, Annie Nathan, ed., Woman's Work in America (New York, 1891), iii; idem, Helen Brent, M.D.: A Social Study (New York, 1892).Google Scholar

16. Annie Nathan Meyer, The Dominant Sex: A Play in Three Acts (New York, 1911), 110–11.Google Scholar

17. Meyer, Annie Nathan, “Woman's Assumption of Sex Superiority,” North American Review 178 (Jan. 1904): 103–9; Nathan, Emily, interview with author, New York, N.Y., 19 June 1985; Mary Kirwin Veloz is completing a dissertation comparing the suffrage views of the Nathan sisters. Her work should provide more definitive information on this question. Veloz, Mary Kirwin, “The Nathan Sisters: Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage in the Progressive Era” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Davis, forthcoming).Google Scholar

18. Gildersleeve, , Many a Good Crusade, 49–61.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., 97–109.Google Scholar

20. Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, Iphigene: Memoirs of Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger of the New York Times Family, as Told to Her Granddaughter, Susan W. Dryfoos (New York, 1981), 72. For Barnard students' politics, see Horn, Max, The Intercollegiate Socialist Society, 1905–1921: Origins of the Modern American Student Movement (Boulder, Colo., 1979). On the large number of Barnard women active in professional careers, see Elizabeth Tidball, M. and Kistiakowsky, Vera, “Baccalaureate Origins of American Scientists and Scholars,” Science, 20 Aug. 1976, 646-52.Google Scholar

21. Gildersleeve, , Many a Good Crusade, 73; Kirchwey, Freda, “Observation and Discussion: Fraternities versus Democracy,” Barnard Bear, Oct. 1912, 3–6.Google Scholar

22. Wechsler, Harold S., The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in America (New York, 1977); Synnott, Marcia Graham, The Half-Opened Door: Researching Admissions Discrimination at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900–1970 (Westport, Conn., 1979); Oren, Dan A., Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale (New Haven, Conn., 1985). Material on quotas and “geographic diversity” at women's colleges may be found in Louise Blecher Rose, “The Secret Life of Sarah Lawrence,” Commentary, May 1983, and particularly in the letters to the editor regarding Rose's article, Commentary, Aug. 1983. These letters discuss, among other issues, quotas at Wellesley and Swarthmore (coed) Colleges. See also Harmon, Lawrence, “Wellesley College Struggles with Pluralism,” The Jewish Advocate, 29 Sept. 1983, 1, 21.Google Scholar

23. Gildersleeve to Wilford M. Aikin, 18 Dec. 1935, folder 12e, Deans' Office Correspondence, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

24. Burton, A. S. to Gildersleeve, , 7 Jan. 1921, Professor John Dyneley Prince to Mary V. Libby and Libby to Prince, 26 Sept. and 28 Sept. 1934, correspondence between Libby and Gildersleeve, 2 Feb. and 4 Feb. 1931, O'Grady, Mary and Kaiser, Catherine to Butler, Nicholas Murray, 17 June 1930, folder 12e, Deans' Office Correspondence, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

25. Kerber, , “Annie Nathan Meyer”; Joshua, Rabbi Liebman, Loth to Meyer, , 10 Apr. 1945, box 3, folder 5, ANM Papers; Gildersleeve and Meyer, correspondence of 4 Feb. 1927, 2 June 1934, 30 Mar. 1935, box 7, folder 1, ANM Papers; Meyer to Gildersleeve, 10 Apr. 1929, file 1 (Trustees), Departmental and Deans' Office Correspondence, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

26. Meyer to Gildersleeve, 1 June 1934, file 1 (Trustees), Departmental and Deans' Office Correspondence, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

27. Meyer, to Sachar, Abram, 22 Mar. 1942, and Annual Reports of the Counsellor to Jewish Students of Columbia University, 1941–1949, box 6, folder 8, ANM Papers. Other prominent Jews shared Meyer's views of Judaism as a religion, not a culture or nationality. See, for example, Arthur Hays Sulzberger to Patricia Wilson Vaurie of Columbia Alumni News, 24 Dec. 1937, box 6, folder 8, ANM Papers. For correspondence with Zora Neale Hurston, see box 7, folder 3 in Series A, ANM Papers. For controversy over “Black Souls,” see box 6, folders 1 and 2, Series A, ANM Papers. Kerber, “Annie Nathan Meyer.”Google Scholar

28. Gildersleeve to Meyer, 3 Nov. 1912, box 7, folder 1, ANM Papers.Google Scholar

29. Gildersleeve, , Many a Good Crusade, 171–87, 404–12.Google Scholar

30. Gildersleeve, to Mrs.Meyer, Alfred, 15 Dec. 1933, box 7, folder 1, ANM Papers. See also Meyer, Annie Nathan to Butler, Nicholas Murray, 4 Dec. 1933, Meyer to Benjamin Cardozo, 1 Dec. 1933, Butler to Meyer, 17 May 1933, box 2, folder 4, ANM Papers.Google Scholar

31. Gildersleeve, to Meyer, , 12 Dec. 1933 and 4 Apr. 1934, box 7, folder 1, ANM Papers.Google Scholar

32. Baxter, Annette Kar, “Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve,” in Notable American Women, vol. 4, 273–75. The Gildersleeve Papers, in the Columbia University Archives, are disappointing, in that they contain, almost exclusively, the dean's formal addresses and essays, with little about her private views and concerns. For further discussion of Gildersleeve's relationship to the college, see Brennan, Joseph Gerard, The Education of a Prejudiced Man (New York, 1977), 113–18; and Niemczyk, Caroline, “Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965): Educator and Internationalist” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, forthcoming).Google Scholar

33. Lattman, Frances Apt '49 to author, 31 Mar. 1985.Google Scholar

34. Horowitz, , Alma Mater, 259–61. Walter, Judith M., “Perceptions of Leadership Roles: Women in Barnard College, 1889–1939” (Ph.D. diss., Yeshiva University, 1984) indicates that Gildersleeve, despite her feminist concerns, did not readily promote women faculty and that salaries for female professors remained quite low. It is not clear, however, how the Barnard-Columbia relationship and agreements about faculty affected salaries and promotions at Barnard, formally and informally.Google Scholar

35. Neilson, W. A., “Report to the Trustees of Barnard College,” 4 Dec. 1941, box 5, folder 3, ANM Papers. In her response to Neilson, Gildersleeve denied that Barnard used “precise and rigid figures,” and in fact it would have been impossible to hold Jewish students to a precise percentage each year, if only because of the difficulty of determining who was and was not Jewish. However, whether or not we wish to say that Barnard used “quotas,” its policy was clearly to limit the admission of Jewish women. Gildersleeve, Virginia C., “To the Trustees of Barnard College,” 13 Jan. 1942, box 5, folder 3, ANM Papers.Google Scholar

36. Kraditor, Aileen, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920 (New York, 1965), is the best account of the social and cultural conservatism of the suffragists.Google Scholar

37. Guitar, Mary Anne, “Knitted Brows on the Subway: A Profile of New York's Barnard College,” Mademoiselle, Apr. 1964, 169–71; Wechsler, Harold S., “The Rationale for Restriction: Ethnicity and College Admission in America, 1910–1980,” American Quarterly 36 (Winter 1984):643–67.Google Scholar

38. In her work over the past forty years, Barnard College sociologist Mirra Komarovsky has surveyed and documented the changing social attitudes of female and male students. See, for example, Komarovsky, , “The Class of '44 Considers Our Family Patterns,” Barnard Quarterly, Spring 1943, 12–20; idem, “Cultural Contradictions and Sex Roles,” American Journal of Sociology 52 (Nov. 1946):182–89; idem, Women in the Modern World: Their Education and Their Dilemmas (New York, 1953); idem, Dilemmas of Masculinity: A Study of College Youth (New York, 1976); and, most recently, idem, Women in College: Shaping New Feminine Identities (New York, 1985).Google Scholar