brian cassidy bookselle

36.
[Education]
[Photo Album of Mrs.
Dow's School for Girls]
Briarcliff Manor, NY
[ca. 1903-1906]
Oblong 4to. black cloth
commercial album. Post
binding. 58 black-and-white photographs, the majority measuring
6.75” x 4.75” approx., mounted recto and verso to 29 cloth-hinged
card leaves. Five additional photographs loosely laid-in. Lower binding
post perished. Mild wear to outer cloth. One print faded. Otherwise
contents clean, well preserved. Very good.
An early photo album of Mrs. Dow's School for Girls, a college preparatory
boarding school in Briarcliff Manor, NY. Given quality and uniformity
of images, likely one of a small number produced for students
of one of the institution's first graduating classes, perhaps as a
yearbook or memento of the theater club. Mary Elizabeth Dunning Dow,
upon resigning her position as head of the prestigious Miss Porter's
School in Farmington, CT in 1903, and at the bequest of prominent
Briarcliff businessman Walter M. Law, took with her the majority of
that institution's students and teachers to begin this school. Interim
classes were conducted in Law's famed resort complex Briarcliff
Lodge until construction of a new campus was completed in 1905.
Included here are three, circa-1906 interior views of the newly finished
Dow Hall and several additional views of dorm room, gymnasium
and other interiors at Farmington and Briarcliffe. The remaining images
are largely of student body group shots and theater department
productions. Each is sharp, clear, and well composed, with theater
shots often exhibiting elaborate, sometimes unusual set and costume
designs. The album lacks notation, though the ownership label
of a Miss Mary Bigelow Schultz is mounted inside and the verso of a
single loose photograph bears 11 manuscript names, identifying the
students. One of those identified is a Leonore Brewer, who eventually
became a prominent Chicago philanthropist. A privately printed
memorial booklet in her honor (“Leonore Brewer Cudahy: A Memorial”
[1933] - provided) briefly describes the transition from Farmington
to Briarcliff: “In time, Nora and her sister [Leonore] left home for
a finishing school in Connecticut, which that year [1903] migrated
to Briarcliff, New York” (16). The school would grow to include
post-secondary curriculum and be renamed Briarcliff College, gaining
accreditation as a four year school in 1957. It folded in 1977 and
was absorbed by nearby Pace University, which continues to utilize
the original Dow Hall today as a co-ed dormitory. While presumably a
number of copies of this album may have been produced, OCLC notes
no similar holdings.
-875-
48