The Three Graces of Val-Kill by Emily Herring Wilson

Author:Emily Herring Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2017-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

11: THE TODHUNTER SCHOOL

Even in those days, you knew [Eleanor Roosevelt] was a great woman.

—Anne Ward Gilbert

In 1927, five years after Marion had begun teaching English at the Todhunter School on New York’s East Side, she approached Eleanor with an idea that they go into partnership together and buy the school. The director at the time, Winifred Todhunter, had purchased the private school for girls in 1921 and renamed it; now she was ready to retire and return to her native England. She asked Marion, her vice principal, if she wanted to acquire the school, and Marion, who knew how important Allenswood had been to Eleanor when she was young, rushed to sound her out on that possibility. As an experienced administrator Marion knew a good teacher when she saw one, and she believed that Eleanor Roosevelt was a “natural.” Later in her White House press conferences for women, reporters admired the way in which Eleanor Roosevelt opened up the conferences for questions and answers, like a classroom.

Miss Todhunter, an Oxford University graduate, had given the Todhunter School a reputation for progressive teaching that emphasized a college preparatory program as well as courses in the arts. Students, daughters of privilege, mostly from neighborhoods bordered by Park Avenue and Central Park, were enrolled from primary grades through high school. Although most of the other elite schools did not admit Jewish girls, Todhunter had a small number, including two who were elected by their classmates to head the upper and lower schools.1 The faculty were women with career ambitions, some of them graduates of the best colleges. One was Margaret Clapp, whom Marion urged to continue her graduate education. Clapp taught English literature at the Todhunter School for twelve years while working on her master’s degree, which she obtained from Columbia University in 1937. She went on to teach at City College of New York, Douglass College, Columbia University, and Brooklyn College. In 1949 she became president of Wellesley College, her alma mater. Marion was sometimes overlooked as sitting quietly in the corner (Frances Perkins said so), but she had a good eye for picking leaders.

Eleanor was thrilled to hear Marion’s proposal. She agreed immediately to form a partnership with Marion and Nan as the owners of Todhunter. (Nan’s partnership was in name only; her job was at the New York Democratic Women’s office and at the Val-Kill furniture factory.) The stationery was imprinted with the school’s new leadership:

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