Helen Storrow
Encyclopedia
Helen Osborne Storrow (September 22, 1864 – November 12, 1944) was a prominent American philanthropist, early Girl Scout leader, and chair of the World Committee
of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts
(WAGGGS) for eight years. She founded the First National Girl Scout Leaders' Training in Long Pond, Massachusetts
; headed the leaders' training camp at Foxlease
, UK; and donated the first of the WAGGGS World centres, Our Chalet
.
She was married to James J. Storrow
, a prominent banker, who was the second national president of the Boy Scouts of America.
, she was the youngest of David Munson (“Munson”) Osborne and Eliza Wright's four children. Her parents were raised in modest circumstances, but by the time of Helen's birth, Munson Osborne had become one of the most prominent men in Cayuga County
. Helen and her siblings enjoyed a happy and privileged upbringing, attending private schools, traveling through Europe
, and spending summers at their home on Owasco Lake
at Willow Point, New York. The Osborne mansion at 99 South Street served as a cultural center in Auburn.
Her eldest sister, Emily (1854–1944), married Springfield banker Frederick Harris; her next eldest sister, Florence (1856–1877), was described as a gentle girl, extremely fond of animals, who died of typhoid fever, leaving behind a fiancée, Samuel Bowles; her only brother, Thomas Mott Osborne
(1859–1926), inherited his father’s business, and became a stalwart advocate of prison reform.
Their father, Munson Osborne, was a farmer’s son from Rye, New York. His ancestors were once prosperous landowners, but they became impoverished, having lost their fortune in the aftermath of the American Revolution
. Osborne left his father’s home at the age of fifteen, accepting work wherever it could be found. After several failed business ventures, Osborne founded D. M. Osborne & Co. in 1856, and made a fortune manufacturing agricultural
machinery. Osborne’s life revolved around his work. He was an exacting, but fair employer, and years after his death his former employees still spoke of him with admiration. One of Auburn’s most respected citizens, Osborne served three terms as mayor (1877–1880); a position later held by both his son and one of his grandsons.
Munson Osborne was described as a loving husband and father, though he had a tendency to behave like a "benevolent autocrat." He respected his wife, and happily entertained her more liberal
friends and relations. However, Osborne expected Eliza to conform, for the most part, to the traditional Victorian
ideal of wife and mother. This meant virtually abandoning suffrage work after her marriage, and devoting the bulk of her time to domestic affairs.
Having been raised in a family of social reformers, Eliza (Wright) Osborne was stubborn, self-reliant, witty and outspoken, a far less conventional figure than her spouse. She was the eldest child of David and Martha (Coffin) Wright
. Both parents were descended from Quakers
who traveled to the new world with William Penn
. The Wrights were not practicing Quakers, but they still adhered to many tenants of their parents’ faith - a belief in simplicity, equality, and individual dignity. They were staunch abolitionists
, whose home served as a stop on the Underground Railroad
. The Wrights and their daughter, Eliza Osborne, were loyal friends of the Underground Railroad's famed “conductor," Harriet Tubman
. They helped Tubman settle in Auburn in 1860, and provided Tubman with odd jobs, enabling her to support her family.
Helen’s maternal grandfather was, like her father, ambivalent at best about the issue of women’s suffrage, but that didn’t prevent Helen's grandmother from actively campaigning on behalf of political equality. Martha Wright helped to organize the first suffrage convention at Seneca Falls
in 1848, prepared the final draft of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
’s Declaration of Sentiments
, and briefly served as president of the National Woman's Suffrage Association before her death in 1874. Martha’s role in the suffrage movement has been largely overshadowed due to the fame of her older sister, the feminist, abolitionist, and Quaker minister, Lucretia (Coffin) Mott
.
The Wrights lived at just a walking distance from the Osborne mansion, and played a significant role in the upbringing of the Osborne children, including Helen. David Wright came to live with the Osbornes a few years after Martha’s death, and spent the remainder of his life with Eliza's family, dying at a ripe old age in 1897. Martha Wright’s friends and fellow reformers, individuals like Frederick Douglass
, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony
, and Anna Howard Shaw
, were regular guests in the Osborne home.
Helen’s aunt, Ellen (Wright) Garrison, was also involved in the fight for suffrage. She was an active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association
, campaigning with her sister-in-law, Fanny Garrison Villard
. Ellen married William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., a wool merchant, and the eldest son of “the Great Emancipator,” abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
, Sr. The younger Garrison was an abolitionist, pacifist
, an opponent of Jim Crow laws
and the Chinese Exclusion Act, an advocate of women’s suffrage, Henry George’s single tax
, free trade
, equality for Freedmen
and immigrants, and a founding member of the American Anti-Imperialist League
.
His younger brother, Francis Jackson Garrison, served as the first president of the Boston chapter of the N.A.A.C.P
. Helen’s cousin, Eleanor Garrison, graduated from Smith College
, and worked for Carrie Chapman Catt
as an organizer at the New York office of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Continuing the family tradition of social reform, Eleanor later worked for several years as secretary of Armitage House Settlement
in New York City
.
for patent infringement. The case proved to be difficult and protracted, with McCormick ultimately agreeing to settle out of court, paying Osborne $225,000, an enormous sum at the time. However, the stress of the case had a terrible affect on Osborne. On July 6, 1886, Osborne suffered a massive coronary. Helen and her mother, having witnessed his collapse, tried fruitlessly to revive him, but he died later that evening.
Following her husband's death, Eliza resumed her suffrage work, going on to become vice president of the New York State Woman’s Suffrage Association, and first vice president of the Cayuga County Political Equality Club. A tireless worker, at age eighty, Eliza led a delegation of women to Albany
where they spoke before the State Legislature
, lobbying for suffrage. Eliza was also involved in numerous philanthropic
endeavors. In 1882, Eliza helped found the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, an institution that may have inspired Helen’s interest in settlement work. Modeled on an organization of the same name in Boston, the institution provided young working women with classes in practical subjects, such as sewing and cooking, later adding more intellectually gratifying classes in modern languages and literature.
Helen was sent away to boarding school at the age of eleven. At the time of her father's death, she was spending most of each year at a boarding school in Springfield, Massachusetts
run by a Miss Katherine Howard. In youth, her main interest was music, a love she shared with her brother Thomas. After boarding school, she spent time in Germany
continuing her musical studies, later going on to graduate from Smith College.
, the Storrows met not in Massachusetts, but in Switzerland
, while scaling the Matterhorn
. They were married, after a lengthy engagement, in 1891.
The shy and studious James, was described as "unassuming," but "magnetic", "a born leader and a keen judge of man; unassuming, yet in his quiet way exerting a strong influence over his fellows...a dominating personality." Temperamentally, he was the polar opposite of the out-going, effervescent Helen. However, behind his stiff mien lay an idealistic nature and a keen sense of humor. Their marriage was described as "a perfect partnership” of equals, and Mr. Storrow's biographer claimed that “no two people ever saw more completely eye-to-eye on all the things that count."
James was descended from a long line of Boston Brahmin
families, including the Jacksons, Higginsons, Tracys, and the Cabots
who famously “talk only to God.” His father, also named James Jackson Storrow, was a prominent attorney, whose clients included Alexander Graham Bell
and the government of Venezuela
; his mother, Ann Maria Perry, was the grandchild of naval
hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry
, and a distant cousin of President Thomas Jefferson
.
James graduated in 1888 from Harvard Law School
, and for twelve years was employed as a corporate law
yer. In 1900, he disbanded his law firm and accepted a position at Lee, Higginson & Co.
, an investment bank. James proved to be an astute businessman, quickly achieving the position of senior partner at Lee, Higginson & Co., and accumulating a vast personal fortune. Though he was employed by one of America’s most conservative banks, James remained politically moderate and socially progressive, positions that set him at odds with other members of his social milieu
.
The Storrows longed for a large family, but had only one child, James Jackson Storrow, Jr., who was born on November 20, 1892 in Boston, Massachusetts.
From the earliest days of their marriage, the Storrows were interested in the settlement movement and charity work, helping to build playgrounds in poor immigrant neighborhoods, sponsoring night schools, vocational schools, and evening centers. James also took a keen interest in civil service reform, educational reform and legal reform, spear-heading an effort to diversify the makeup of the Boston Chamber of Commerce
, and helping to establish a juvenile court
. In a testament to how highly regarded he was by Bostonians from every social strata, on multiple occasions James was asked to act as a mediator
between corporate interests, the city, and labor unions. Elected on the Democratic
ticket, James served for several years on the City Council
, and during the First World War held the post of New England Fuel Administrator. He was largely responsible for preventing a severe coal
shortage, actually using his own credit to ensure vital shipments of coal reached the Northeast, during the winter of 1917-1918.
The Storrows rejected "Nativist"
ideology, i.e., the anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant stance widely embraced by the American upper class
es during the late 19th and early 20th century. While serving on the Boston School Committee, James quickly “gained a reputation” among Irish-Catholics “for absolute fairness in the sensitive matter of hiring and promoting Boston teachers and administrators.” He insisted that teachers should be hired and promoted on the basis of “merit regardless of religious background,” whereas before, Catholics had been routinely discriminated against. When James ran for re-election to the School Committee in 1905, he received a ringing endorsement from The Pilot, Boston's leading Irish-Catholic newspaper
:
The North End of Boston during the late 19th century was an impoverished, over-crowded, filthy, disease ridden area, reminiscent of the London
slum
s depicted by Dickens
. The ward suffered from the highest infant mortality rates, child mortality rates, and homicide rates, in Boston. Many affluent Bostonians blamed conditions in the North End on the residents themselves, immigrants, who were predominately Jewish and Italian. Massachusetts state legislator Edward C. Chandler voiced the opinion of many in Boston when he stated that “the personal habits of the tenants are largely responsible for such conditions…Undoubtedly many a suitable tenement house is turned into a place of misery by the ignorance and vice of its occupants.”
Helen agreed that further education was necessary, and should be encouraged in immigrant communities, but she rejected the notion that immigrants were inherently inferior, and disliked the condescension shown by many of her peers toward immigrants. She took a genuine interest in the women and children of the North End, joining the North Bennet Street Industrial School’s board of managers in 1898, and serving as secretary of the institution. The school was founded in 1885 by Pauline Agassiz Shaw. The daughter of scientist and Harvard professor, Louis Agassiz
, Shaw pioneered the kindergarten
movement in the United States. The school provided classes in printing, pottery, stone carving, woodwork, woodcarving, woodturning, cement work, sewing and dressmaking; there was also an athletic club, a debating club, a drama club, music lessons, reading rooms, a kindergarten, and a nursery for infants belonging to working mothers.
The weekly story-hour was soon expanded to include discussions about history, politics, civics, economics, art, literature, and lectures given by well-known figures. Guerrier managed to attract a wide range of individuals to speak before the club:
Seven additional clubs were eventually formed, each named for the day of the week when members met. There was a club for girls as young as ten, another for working women in their mid-twenties, and clubs for girls every age in between. At a time when many first and second generation immigrants failed to graduate, or even attend high school, clubs like the Saturday Evening Girls played a vital role in educating their members. One young woman, Vanessa Casassa Bruno, described her experience as a member of the Saturday Evening Girls during the 1910s:
Helen was inspired by Guerrier's desire to impart her knowledge of art and literature to the young women of the North End, taking an avid interest in Guerrier's work, and using her connections to generate funding, and attract speakers to the club. A naturally exuberant, enthusiastic woman, during the club's early years Helen became a familiar figure, forming lasting friendships with several of the girls, and providing the club with invaluable financial support. The Storrows would later personally finance the college education of several young men and women from the Saturday Girls Club, the North Bennet school, and various settlement houses they patronized. Believing that the young women would benefit from time spent in the countryside, Helen also provided them with a summer camp at Wingaersheek Beach
in West Gloucester, Massachusetts
.
During a tour of Europe in 1906, funded by Helen, Guerrier and her partner, Edith Brown, had an epiphany – they would return to America and develop a pottery. The enterprise would be operated by Brown, Guerrier, and the Saturday Girls, providing the young women with employment and a skill set. Helen readily agreed to subsidize the venture and the Paul Revere Pottery was born. In 1908, she purchased a large townhouse at 18 Hull Street to serve as the club’s new headquarters; the pottery and kiln were erected in the basement. The operation was wholly run by the Saturday Girls. They produced and decorated the pottery, operated the kiln, ran the store in Boston where their wares were sold and, later on, they also conducted pottery classes. Helen, Guerrier, and Brown, agreed that an aesthetically pleasing atmosphere should surround the girls. Accordingly, their rooms were always filled with “fresh flowers and bright light,” and as they worked, the young women were treated to “dramatic readings and soothing music” performed by the children of well-to-do families who patronized the pottery. They produced a wide variety of objects, including pitchers, vases, inkwells, plates, bowls, and even lamps.
The Saturday Girls regularly staged theatricals, operettas, recitals, and folk dancing exhibitions, to raise additional funds for the pottery. Helen personally instructed the girls in the art of folk dancing. Their performances were attended by leading Boston philanthropists and patrons of the arts, among them Isabella Stewart Gardner
. While their productions met with great success, the girls often resented the supercilious attitude of their wealthy benefactors. As previously stated, in the early 20th century many wealthy Americans, including some supporters of the Saturday Girls Club, viewed Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants as inherently ignorant, either unable or unwilling to comprehend cultural and intellectual subjects, and unlikely to benefit from advanced education.
In order to raise funds and gain publicity, the club staged an annual exhibition, allowing affluent Bostonians to tour the pottery and view their work. The young women were angered by the “expectations of inferiority,” and the belittling remarks made openly by some visitors, who were astonished to discover that "illiterate" and "ignorant" girls could produce such beautiful artwork. The young women rebelled against their condescension:
It was Helen's fervent wish to dispel stereotypes of immigrants by demonstrating the artistic accomplishments of the women at the Paul Revere Pottery, and the organizations connected to the Saturday Girls Club. However, as one author noted: "For the girls, it [the opinion of the Brahmins] may not have mattered; Storrow's vision and dedication to securing a future for them, perhaps conflicted with their own ideas of identity, self-definition, and respect."
In spite of tensions between the young women and their benefactors, the pottery and clubs continued for several decades with considerable success. Helen's growing involvement in scouting precluded her from continuing to take a personal interest in the daily operations of the Saturday Girls Club. She announced in 1914 that she would no longer be able to subsidize the pottery, but agreed to fund the operation for an additional year, while they developed a plan to become self-sustaining. In 1915, before withdrawing the bulk of her support, Helen provided the club with a new building constructed on Nottingham Hill; an “L-shaped, two-story pottery, in the style of an English country house…with warm, well-lighted rooms,” and additional space, where Guerrier and Brown made their residence.
in America, Juliette Gordon Low
. It may have been this encounter that sparked her interest in the scouting movement. Whatever the reason, not long afterward, Helen began holding Girl Scout training courses at her summer home in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
In 1917, Helen founded the Pine Tree Camp, on her property at Long Pond, in Plymouth, which became the First National Girl Scout Leaders’ Training School. Decades later, Scouts were still flocking to the camp for training.
In July 1932, Helen provided the Girl Scouts with a retreat in Switzerland. She purchased a chalet just outside of Adelboden, in the Bernese Oberland
. Known simply as Our Chalet
, the retreat remains in the hands of the Girl Scouts, and hosts "Helen Storrow Seminars", focusing on international education.
Helen served for many years as First Vice President of Girls Scouts, Inc., the national organization of American Girl Scouts, and as chairman of the executive committee of Massachusetts Girl Scouts, Inc. Serving as Second Vice President of the national organization was none other that Lou Henry Hoover
, wife of future president, Herbert Hoover
.
After the initial founding of the American Girl Scouts organization, there were numerous squabbles with the older organization of British Girl Guides
, including arguments over uniforms, territorial disputes, and an unsuccessful attempt by the Girl Guides to convince the Girl Scouts to change their name; the British organization considered the term “Scout” too masculine for a girls’ movement. Helen responded to the latter argument by suggesting that, instead, the Girl Guides should refer to themselves as Scouts:
In spite of the initial tension between the British and American organizations, the Storrows became close personal friends of Lord Baden-Powell
, who founded the Scouting movement, and his wife, Lady Baden-Powell
. James Storrow’s interest in the Boy Scouts mirrored his wife’s interest in the girls’ movement; he served as the second national president of the Boy Scouts of America
.
In Helen’s honor, the Patriots' Trail Girl Scout Council presents individuals who have made "outstanding contributions to Girl Scouting" with the Helen Storrow Heritage Award.PTgirlscouts.org
Helen is one of only three American women ever granted the Silver Fish Award by Lady Baden-Powell. It was awarded to her in recognition of her long service and dedication to scouting.
During her travels in Europe, Helen developed a passion for folk dancing, becoming a staunch devotee of Cecil Sharp
, aiding him in his efforts to popularize folk dance in the United States. Helen devoted increasingly lengthy amounts of time to providing lessons in English folk dance. In 1911, during a benefit for the Playground Association of America, Helen could be found in the ballroom of the New Willard Hotel in New York City, leading a "practical demonstration" in folk dancing for those in attendance. A year later, she volunteered to instruct the Fathers' and Mothers' Folk Dancing Club at the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. In 1915, Helen helped found, and served as director, of the American branch of the English Folk Dance Society, now known as the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre.
She believed that everyone's life, be they young or old, male or female, could be enriched by dance. She wrote:
Combining her love of dance with her passion for scouting, Helen arranged for teachers from the Country Dance Society to organize a summer dance camp at Long Pond in 1932. Pinewoods camp
operated independently, along side the Scouts’ Pine Tree Camp. Lily Conant later operated the camp, which was willed to Conant's family after Helen's death, becoming Pinewood Camp Inc., in 1975.CDS-Boston.org
, an annual fair occurring in New England. In 1927, Helen purchased Gilbert House, a structure built in the 18th century, transporting the home from West Brookfield, to serve as a permanent headquarters for the department. From 1927 to 1930, Helen invested nearly half-a-million dollars constructing the village of Storrowton, transporting authentic Revolutionary
and pre-Revolutionary buildings and restoring them.
The village quickly became a popular tourist attraction.
Among the buildings reconstructed at Storrowton were: the Potter House (1760); the Atkinson Store (1799); the legal office of Zachariah Eddy (1806); and the Salisbury church (1800). The church contained one of the oldest hand-crafted pipe organs in existence. As a birthday present for Helen, in 1935, Girl Scout volunteers planted a large herb garden near the Gilbert House, known as “Aunt Helen’s Herb Garden,” filled with herbs commonly used in the Revolutionary period. The village was renamed Storrowton by the Trustees, in her honor, in 1944.
In 1903, they helped found the West End House, a club for boys, mainly immigrants, providing classes and lectures on numerous subjects, including history, literature and physical education. Begun as a settlement house, it now serves as a Boys and Girls Club. In 1908, the Storrows provided the boys at West End House with a summer camp in East Parsonfield, Maine. West End House, like the Saturday Evening Girls
Club, aimed to keep youths in poor immigrant neighborhoods off the streets, by providing them with educational and recreational opportunities. Their athletics contests gained both wide popularity and participation:
Another of her husband’s endeavors was the Boston Newsboy’s Club, which he played a prominent role in founding, in 1909. The club's stated mission: "To befriend in every possible way the newsboys and other boys of the city of Boston, without distinction as to race, color, or creed." As with the Storrows' other clubs, it provided Newsboys - youths who were then a common sight, selling newspapers on corners throughout the city - with an outlet for education and recreation, helping the boys graduate high school, and in some instances, go on to attend university.
Frustrated by the monotony of the activities sponsored by most women’s clubs in Boston, in 1913, Helen founded the Women’s City Club, “to promote a broad acquaintance among women through their common interest in the welfare of the city…” She served as the club’s first president. Her goal was to gather members from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, allowing for a diversity of views, to discuss relevant political and social issues.
The Storrows supported America’s entry into the First World War, and Helen presided over the War Service Committee organized by the Women's City Club, raising funds for the war effort. At the war's end, the Storrows converted their summer home into a sanatorium for wounded soldiers:
Towards the end of her life, as the result of her brother’s activism, Helen became interested in the cause of prison reform. To promote this cause, in 1930, she founded and served as president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Tom Brown House.
By the 1920s, the city hall in Auburn, New York, had become extremely dilapidated. Helen and her sister Emily offered to donate a new city hall to Auburn in their father’s memory. They hired prominent Boston architects Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott; construction began in 1929. The dedication was held on April 5, 1930:
During her final years, Helen traveled frequently to Bermuda
. As a gesture of her goodwill toward the island, she funded an annual scholarship allowing a student from Bermuda to study at Harvard.
In 1931, Helen donated one million dollars to the State of Massachusetts to complete the development of the Charles River Basin, in which her husband had been involved prior to his death. It was largely due to the efforts of Helen and James Storrow that the Charles River Basin was landscaped and turned into a recreational area during the 1930s.
America suffered an acute housing shortage in the years following the First World War. In response the Better Homes in America Movement
was initiated. It was a nationwide campaign to promote home ownership, beautification, and the modernization of housing. Helen joined this movement, and detailed efforts to expand the movement to include African American families in an article she authored in 1931 for the Urban League.
One cause Helen never actively championed was women's suffrage, most likely, because her husband was opposed to it.
World Board
Established in 1927, the World Board, originally World Committee, is a governing board for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts . Today, it is made up of seventeen active members of WAGGGS, all of whom are elected democratically by all member organizations at the World Conference...
of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts
World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts
The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts is a global association supporting the female-oriented and female-only Scouting organizations in 145 countries. It was established in 1928 and has its headquarters in London, England. It is the counterpart of the World Organization of the Scout...
(WAGGGS) for eight years. She founded the First National Girl Scout Leaders' Training in Long Pond, Massachusetts
Long Pond (Plymouth, Massachusetts)
Long Pond is a cold water pond in Plymouth, Massachusetts, east of Myles Standish State Forest, Halfway Pond and Round Pond, west of Route 3 at Exit 3 and The Pinehills, northwest of Bloody Pond, and north of West Wind Shores. The pond has an average depth of and a maximum depth of . It is fed by...
; headed the leaders' training camp at Foxlease
Foxlease
Foxlease is a training and activity centre of Girlguiding UK near Lyndhurst, Hampshire, UK. The Foxlease estate has been owned and managed by Girlguiding UK since 1922. The estate is and main house is known as The Princess Mary House, in honour of her marriage...
, UK; and donated the first of the WAGGGS World centres, Our Chalet
Our Chalet
Our Chalet is an international Girl Guide/Girl Scout centre and one of four World Centres of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts . The others are Our Cabaña, Sangam, and Pax Lodge. Our Chalet is just outside of Adelboden, in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland. Located in the...
.
She was married to James J. Storrow
James J. Storrow
James Jackson Storrow II was a Boston-area investment banker instrumental in forming General Motors and its third president . He was a business partner of Henry Lee Higginson, founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra...
, a prominent banker, who was the second national president of the Boy Scouts of America.
Family and progressive roots
Born Helen Osborne on September 22, 1864 in Auburn, New YorkAuburn, New York
Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States of America. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 27,687...
, she was the youngest of David Munson (“Munson”) Osborne and Eliza Wright's four children. Her parents were raised in modest circumstances, but by the time of Helen's birth, Munson Osborne had become one of the most prominent men in Cayuga County
Cayuga County, New York
Cayuga County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. It was named for one of the tribes of Indians in the Iroquois Confederation. Its county seat is Auburn.- History :...
. Helen and her siblings enjoyed a happy and privileged upbringing, attending private schools, traveling through Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and spending summers at their home on Owasco Lake
Owasco Lake
Owasco Lake is the sixth largest and third easternmost of the Finger Lakes of New York in the United States of America . The name Owasco can be roughly translated from a Mohawk and Iroquois term meaning "crossing"....
at Willow Point, New York. The Osborne mansion at 99 South Street served as a cultural center in Auburn.
Her eldest sister, Emily (1854–1944), married Springfield banker Frederick Harris; her next eldest sister, Florence (1856–1877), was described as a gentle girl, extremely fond of animals, who died of typhoid fever, leaving behind a fiancée, Samuel Bowles; her only brother, Thomas Mott Osborne
Thomas Mott Osborne
Thomas Mott Osborne was an American prison administrator, prison reformer, industrialist and New York State political reformer...
(1859–1926), inherited his father’s business, and became a stalwart advocate of prison reform.
Their father, Munson Osborne, was a farmer’s son from Rye, New York. His ancestors were once prosperous landowners, but they became impoverished, having lost their fortune in the aftermath of the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
. Osborne left his father’s home at the age of fifteen, accepting work wherever it could be found. After several failed business ventures, Osborne founded D. M. Osborne & Co. in 1856, and made a fortune manufacturing agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
machinery. Osborne’s life revolved around his work. He was an exacting, but fair employer, and years after his death his former employees still spoke of him with admiration. One of Auburn’s most respected citizens, Osborne served three terms as mayor (1877–1880); a position later held by both his son and one of his grandsons.
Munson Osborne was described as a loving husband and father, though he had a tendency to behave like a "benevolent autocrat." He respected his wife, and happily entertained her more liberal
Social liberalism
Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding...
friends and relations. However, Osborne expected Eliza to conform, for the most part, to the traditional Victorian
Victorian morality
Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria's reign and of the moral climate of the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century in general, which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous Georgian period...
ideal of wife and mother. This meant virtually abandoning suffrage work after her marriage, and devoting the bulk of her time to domestic affairs.
Having been raised in a family of social reformers, Eliza (Wright) Osborne was stubborn, self-reliant, witty and outspoken, a far less conventional figure than her spouse. She was the eldest child of David and Martha (Coffin) Wright
Martha Coffin Wright
Martha Coffin Wright was an American feminist, abolitionist, and signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments.-Early life:...
. Both parents were descended from Quakers
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
who traveled to the new world with William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
. The Wrights were not practicing Quakers, but they still adhered to many tenants of their parents’ faith - a belief in simplicity, equality, and individual dignity. They were staunch abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, whose home served as a stop on the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
. The Wrights and their daughter, Eliza Osborne, were loyal friends of the Underground Railroad's famed “conductor," Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; (1820 – 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves...
. They helped Tubman settle in Auburn in 1860, and provided Tubman with odd jobs, enabling her to support her family.
Helen’s maternal grandfather was, like her father, ambivalent at best about the issue of women’s suffrage, but that didn’t prevent Helen's grandmother from actively campaigning on behalf of political equality. Martha Wright helped to organize the first suffrage convention at Seneca Falls
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely...
in 1848, prepared the final draft of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
’s Declaration of Sentiments
Declaration of Sentiments
The Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, is a document signed in 1848 by 68 women and 32 men, 100 out of some 300 attendees at the first women's rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York, now known as the Seneca Falls Convention...
, and briefly served as president of the National Woman's Suffrage Association before her death in 1874. Martha’s role in the suffrage movement has been largely overshadowed due to the fame of her older sister, the feminist, abolitionist, and Quaker minister, Lucretia (Coffin) Mott
Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Coffin Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer, and proponent of women's rights.- Early life and education:...
.
The Wrights lived at just a walking distance from the Osborne mansion, and played a significant role in the upbringing of the Osborne children, including Helen. David Wright came to live with the Osbornes a few years after Martha’s death, and spent the remainder of his life with Eliza's family, dying at a ripe old age in 1897. Martha Wright’s friends and fellow reformers, individuals like Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
, and Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw was a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and the first ordained female Methodist minister in the United States. Her birthday is celebrated as Anna Howard Shaw Day, as an alternative to St. Valentine's Day.-Early Life:Shaw was...
, were regular guests in the Osborne home.
Helen’s aunt, Ellen (Wright) Garrison, was also involved in the fight for suffrage. She was an active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The National American Woman Suffrage Association was an American women's rights organization formed in May 1890 as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association...
, campaigning with her sister-in-law, Fanny Garrison Villard
Fanny Garrison Villard
300px|thumb|Fanny Garrison Villard at the International Woman Suffrage Congress, Budapest, 1913.Helen Frances “Fanny” Garrison Villard was a women's suffrage campaigner and a co-founder of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...
. Ellen married William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., a wool merchant, and the eldest son of “the Great Emancipator,” abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
, Sr. The younger Garrison was an abolitionist, pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
, an opponent of Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
and the Chinese Exclusion Act, an advocate of women’s suffrage, Henry George’s single tax
Georgism
Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...
, free trade
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
, equality for Freedmen
Freedman
A freedman is a former slave who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves became freedmen either by manumission or emancipation ....
and immigrants, and a founding member of the American Anti-Imperialist League
American Anti-Imperialist League
The American Anti-Imperialist League was an organization established in the United States on June 15, 1898 to battle the American annexation of the Philippines as an insular area...
.
His younger brother, Francis Jackson Garrison, served as the first president of the Boston chapter of the N.A.A.C.P
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
. Helen’s cousin, Eleanor Garrison, graduated from Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
, and worked for Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt was a women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920...
as an organizer at the New York office of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Continuing the family tradition of social reform, Eleanor later worked for several years as secretary of Armitage House Settlement
Settlement movement
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Death of Munson Osborne
In the mid-1880s, Munson Osborne sued Cyrus McCormickCyrus McCormick
Cyrus Hall McCormick, Sr. was an American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which became part of International Harvester Company in 1902.He and many members of the McCormick family became prominent Chicagoans....
for patent infringement. The case proved to be difficult and protracted, with McCormick ultimately agreeing to settle out of court, paying Osborne $225,000, an enormous sum at the time. However, the stress of the case had a terrible affect on Osborne. On July 6, 1886, Osborne suffered a massive coronary. Helen and her mother, having witnessed his collapse, tried fruitlessly to revive him, but he died later that evening.
Following her husband's death, Eliza resumed her suffrage work, going on to become vice president of the New York State Woman’s Suffrage Association, and first vice president of the Cayuga County Political Equality Club. A tireless worker, at age eighty, Eliza led a delegation of women to Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
where they spoke before the State Legislature
New York Legislature
The New York State Legislature is the term often used to refer to the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York. The New York Constitution does not designate an official term for the two houses together...
, lobbying for suffrage. Eliza was also involved in numerous philanthropic
Philanthropy
Philanthropy etymologically means "the love of humanity"—love in the sense of caring for, nourishing, developing, or enhancing; humanity in the sense of "what it is to be human," or "human potential." In modern practical terms, it is "private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of...
endeavors. In 1882, Eliza helped found the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, an institution that may have inspired Helen’s interest in settlement work. Modeled on an organization of the same name in Boston, the institution provided young working women with classes in practical subjects, such as sewing and cooking, later adding more intellectually gratifying classes in modern languages and literature.
Helen was sent away to boarding school at the age of eleven. At the time of her father's death, she was spending most of each year at a boarding school in Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
run by a Miss Katherine Howard. In youth, her main interest was music, a love she shared with her brother Thomas. After boarding school, she spent time in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
continuing her musical studies, later going on to graduate from Smith College.
Marriage to James J. Storrow
Helen met her future husband, James Jackson Storrow, Sr., in 1882, while touring Europe with her relatives. Though James was just one year behind her brother Thomas at HarvardHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, the Storrows met not in Massachusetts, but in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, while scaling the Matterhorn
Matterhorn
The Matterhorn , Monte Cervino or Mont Cervin , is a mountain in the Pennine Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its summit is 4,478 metres high, making it one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points...
. They were married, after a lengthy engagement, in 1891.
The shy and studious James, was described as "unassuming," but "magnetic", "a born leader and a keen judge of man; unassuming, yet in his quiet way exerting a strong influence over his fellows...a dominating personality." Temperamentally, he was the polar opposite of the out-going, effervescent Helen. However, behind his stiff mien lay an idealistic nature and a keen sense of humor. Their marriage was described as "a perfect partnership” of equals, and Mr. Storrow's biographer claimed that “no two people ever saw more completely eye-to-eye on all the things that count."
James was descended from a long line of Boston Brahmin
Boston Brahmin
Boston Brahmins are wealthy Yankee families characterized by a highly discreet and inconspicuous life style. Based in and around Boston, they form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment...
families, including the Jacksons, Higginsons, Tracys, and the Cabots
Cabot family
The Cabot family was part of the Boston Brahmin, also known as the "first families of Boston."-Family origin:The Boston Brahmin Cabot family descended from John Cabot , who immigrated from his birthplace to Salem, Massachusetts in 1700...
who famously “talk only to God.” His father, also named James Jackson Storrow, was a prominent attorney, whose clients included Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
and the government of Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
; his mother, Ann Maria Perry, was the grandchild of naval
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry
Oliver Hazard Perry
United States Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island , the son of USN Captain Christopher Raymond Perry and Sarah Wallace Alexander, a direct descendant of William Wallace...
, and a distant cousin of President Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
.
James graduated in 1888 from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
, and for twelve years was employed as a corporate law
Corporate law
Corporate law is the study of how shareholders, directors, employees, creditors, and other stakeholders such as consumers, the community and the environment interact with one another. Corporate law is a part of a broader companies law...
yer. In 1900, he disbanded his law firm and accepted a position at Lee, Higginson & Co.
Lee, Higginson & Co.
Lee, Higginson & Co. was a prominent Boston-based investment bank during the 1840s to 1932, home of many members of Boston Brahmin establishment. The bank collapsed in the Swedish match scandal in 1932 while under the leadership of Jerome Davis Greene. Also known for financing the growth of...
, an investment bank. James proved to be an astute businessman, quickly achieving the position of senior partner at Lee, Higginson & Co., and accumulating a vast personal fortune. Though he was employed by one of America’s most conservative banks, James remained politically moderate and socially progressive, positions that set him at odds with other members of his social milieu
Social environment
The social environment of an individual, also called social context or milieu, is the culture that s/he was educated or lives in, and the people and institutions with whom the person interacts....
.
The Storrows longed for a large family, but had only one child, James Jackson Storrow, Jr., who was born on November 20, 1892 in Boston, Massachusetts.
- "When the hoped-for larger family did not materialize, they extended the mantles of “Aunt” and “Uncle” to include not only their own nieces and nephews, but also their son’s companions and the children of friends. Helen wrote warmly of those precious years and the activities they sponsored for a stream of youthful guests at the country home she and Jim eventually built on a hillside in Lincoln."
From the earliest days of their marriage, the Storrows were interested in the settlement movement and charity work, helping to build playgrounds in poor immigrant neighborhoods, sponsoring night schools, vocational schools, and evening centers. James also took a keen interest in civil service reform, educational reform and legal reform, spear-heading an effort to diversify the makeup of the Boston Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
, and helping to establish a juvenile court
Juvenile court
A juvenile court is a tribunal having special authority to try and pass judgments for crimes committed by children or adolescents who have not attained the age of majority...
. In a testament to how highly regarded he was by Bostonians from every social strata, on multiple occasions James was asked to act as a mediator
Mediation
Mediation, as used in law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution , a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties. A third party, the mediator, assists the parties to negotiate their own settlement...
between corporate interests, the city, and labor unions. Elected on the Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
ticket, James served for several years on the City Council
City council
A city council or town council is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.-Australia & NZ:Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies...
, and during the First World War held the post of New England Fuel Administrator. He was largely responsible for preventing a severe coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
shortage, actually using his own credit to ensure vital shipments of coal reached the Northeast, during the winter of 1917-1918.
The Storrows rejected "Nativist"
Nativism (politics)
Nativism favors the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. It may also include the re-establishment or perpetuation of such individuals or their culture....
ideology, i.e., the anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant stance widely embraced by the American upper class
American upper class
See: millionaire for more details-Millionaires:See also: MillionairesHouseholds with net worths of $1 million or more may be identified as members of the upper-most socio-economic demographic, depending on the class model used...
es during the late 19th and early 20th century. While serving on the Boston School Committee, James quickly “gained a reputation” among Irish-Catholics “for absolute fairness in the sensitive matter of hiring and promoting Boston teachers and administrators.” He insisted that teachers should be hired and promoted on the basis of “merit regardless of religious background,” whereas before, Catholics had been routinely discriminated against. When James ran for re-election to the School Committee in 1905, he received a ringing endorsement from The Pilot, Boston's leading Irish-Catholic newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
:
- "Mr. Storrow is a Protestant, but he has a host of friends and admirers among the Catholics, clergy and laity alike, for his philanthropy which knows no test of religion nor of color; for his upright life; for his sincere devotion to the best interests of those citizens who most need the public schools. He will be found where he has been found heretofore, alert for the largest possible moral, material and intellectual benefits for the neediest, rather than seeking to control appointments for personal or political motives..."
Philanthropic endeavors and social reform
Helen was involved in a wide variety of charitable activities during her life ranging from settlement work to land conservation. Helen’s initial focus was on children’s charities, beginning with the playground movement. Distressed by the number of children being killed and injured in accidents while playing in the streets, Boston philanthropists began constructing playgrounds. It was also hoped that if the children had a proper place to play, rather than congregating in the streets, they would be less likely to become involved in gang-related criminal activities.The North End of Boston during the late 19th century was an impoverished, over-crowded, filthy, disease ridden area, reminiscent of the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
s depicted by Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
. The ward suffered from the highest infant mortality rates, child mortality rates, and homicide rates, in Boston. Many affluent Bostonians blamed conditions in the North End on the residents themselves, immigrants, who were predominately Jewish and Italian. Massachusetts state legislator Edward C. Chandler voiced the opinion of many in Boston when he stated that “the personal habits of the tenants are largely responsible for such conditions…Undoubtedly many a suitable tenement house is turned into a place of misery by the ignorance and vice of its occupants.”
Helen agreed that further education was necessary, and should be encouraged in immigrant communities, but she rejected the notion that immigrants were inherently inferior, and disliked the condescension shown by many of her peers toward immigrants. She took a genuine interest in the women and children of the North End, joining the North Bennet Street Industrial School’s board of managers in 1898, and serving as secretary of the institution. The school was founded in 1885 by Pauline Agassiz Shaw. The daughter of scientist and Harvard professor, Louis Agassiz
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
, Shaw pioneered the kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
movement in the United States. The school provided classes in printing, pottery, stone carving, woodwork, woodcarving, woodturning, cement work, sewing and dressmaking; there was also an athletic club, a debating club, a drama club, music lessons, reading rooms, a kindergarten, and a nursery for infants belonging to working mothers.
Saturday evening girls
It was at North Bennet Street Industrial School that Helen met Edith Guerrier. Guerrier, then a young art student, arrived at the school in 1899, looking for a position in the nursery. She approached Helen with a letter of introduction from her uncle, William Garrison, Jr., who was an old friend of Guerrier's father. Not long after coming to the school, Guerrier was tasked with the job of maintaining the school's reading room. Her story-hour quickly gained immense popularity with young women at the school, forming the foundation of what in 1901 became the Saturday Evening Girls' Club (S.E.G.). The club derived its name from the fact that its members were mainly young working-women, and high school students, who could only attend on Saturdays.The weekly story-hour was soon expanded to include discussions about history, politics, civics, economics, art, literature, and lectures given by well-known figures. Guerrier managed to attract a wide range of individuals to speak before the club:
- "Edward Everett HaleEdward Everett HaleEdward Everett Hale was an American author, historian and Unitarian clergyman. He was a child prodigy who exhibited extraordinary literary skills and at age thirteen was enrolled at Harvard University where he graduated second in his class...
, Reverend Paul Revere Frothingham, Charles Eliot NortonCharles Eliot NortonCharles Eliot Norton, was a leading American author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States.-Biography:Norton was born at...
, activists Paul Davis and Meyer Bloomfield, social reformers Vida ScudderVida Dutton ScudderVida Dutton Scudder was an American educator, writer, and welfare activist in the social gospel movement. She was one of the most prominent lesbian authors of her time.-Early life:...
and Robert Woods, and many doctors, lawyers, judges, librarians, artists, rabbis, clergy, performance artists, suffragists, business leaders, and writers spoke to the S.E.G. on a variety of classical and contemporary issues."
Seven additional clubs were eventually formed, each named for the day of the week when members met. There was a club for girls as young as ten, another for working women in their mid-twenties, and clubs for girls every age in between. At a time when many first and second generation immigrants failed to graduate, or even attend high school, clubs like the Saturday Evening Girls played a vital role in educating their members. One young woman, Vanessa Casassa Bruno, described her experience as a member of the Saturday Evening Girls during the 1910s:
- "The S.E.G. talks that I have attended have helped me a great deal, in that I learned from them what other girls learned in high school, and I was thus given a general idea of the literature at different periods, civic and social problems in different countries, [the] fine arts...Through the club I became connected with the Branch Public Library. During my work there I was able to help children and foreigners to read proper books...to make them better citizens and scholars, as well as increasing my knowledge of books and authors."
Helen was inspired by Guerrier's desire to impart her knowledge of art and literature to the young women of the North End, taking an avid interest in Guerrier's work, and using her connections to generate funding, and attract speakers to the club. A naturally exuberant, enthusiastic woman, during the club's early years Helen became a familiar figure, forming lasting friendships with several of the girls, and providing the club with invaluable financial support. The Storrows would later personally finance the college education of several young men and women from the Saturday Girls Club, the North Bennet school, and various settlement houses they patronized. Believing that the young women would benefit from time spent in the countryside, Helen also provided them with a summer camp at Wingaersheek Beach
Wingaersheek Beach
Wingaersheek Beach is a long beach located on the Annisquam River in West Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA.According to the USGS the name is a corruption of the earlier Dutch name "Wyngaerts Hoeck", which was derived from "Wyngaerton" ....
in West Gloucester, Massachusetts
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Gloucester is a city on Cape Ann in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is part of Massachusetts' North Shore. The population was 28,789 at the 2010 U.S. Census...
.
During a tour of Europe in 1906, funded by Helen, Guerrier and her partner, Edith Brown, had an epiphany – they would return to America and develop a pottery. The enterprise would be operated by Brown, Guerrier, and the Saturday Girls, providing the young women with employment and a skill set. Helen readily agreed to subsidize the venture and the Paul Revere Pottery was born. In 1908, she purchased a large townhouse at 18 Hull Street to serve as the club’s new headquarters; the pottery and kiln were erected in the basement. The operation was wholly run by the Saturday Girls. They produced and decorated the pottery, operated the kiln, ran the store in Boston where their wares were sold and, later on, they also conducted pottery classes. Helen, Guerrier, and Brown, agreed that an aesthetically pleasing atmosphere should surround the girls. Accordingly, their rooms were always filled with “fresh flowers and bright light,” and as they worked, the young women were treated to “dramatic readings and soothing music” performed by the children of well-to-do families who patronized the pottery. They produced a wide variety of objects, including pitchers, vases, inkwells, plates, bowls, and even lamps.
The Saturday Girls regularly staged theatricals, operettas, recitals, and folk dancing exhibitions, to raise additional funds for the pottery. Helen personally instructed the girls in the art of folk dancing. Their performances were attended by leading Boston philanthropists and patrons of the arts, among them Isabella Stewart Gardner
Isabella Stewart Gardner
Isabella Stewart Gardner – founder of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston – was an American art collector, philanthropist, and one of the foremost female patrons of the arts....
. While their productions met with great success, the girls often resented the supercilious attitude of their wealthy benefactors. As previously stated, in the early 20th century many wealthy Americans, including some supporters of the Saturday Girls Club, viewed Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants as inherently ignorant, either unable or unwilling to comprehend cultural and intellectual subjects, and unlikely to benefit from advanced education.
In order to raise funds and gain publicity, the club staged an annual exhibition, allowing affluent Bostonians to tour the pottery and view their work. The young women were angered by the “expectations of inferiority,” and the belittling remarks made openly by some visitors, who were astonished to discover that "illiterate" and "ignorant" girls could produce such beautiful artwork. The young women rebelled against their condescension:
- "In an interesting display of oppositional resistance…the girls acted out by feigning ignorance of English and exhibited a general lack of intelligence, all for the visitors' benefit. This performance by the girls, though funny to them, apparently infuriated Storrow...visitors ultimately walked away from their visit to the pottery with the image of the ignorant immigrant..."
It was Helen's fervent wish to dispel stereotypes of immigrants by demonstrating the artistic accomplishments of the women at the Paul Revere Pottery, and the organizations connected to the Saturday Girls Club. However, as one author noted: "For the girls, it [the opinion of the Brahmins] may not have mattered; Storrow's vision and dedication to securing a future for them, perhaps conflicted with their own ideas of identity, self-definition, and respect."
In spite of tensions between the young women and their benefactors, the pottery and clubs continued for several decades with considerable success. Helen's growing involvement in scouting precluded her from continuing to take a personal interest in the daily operations of the Saturday Girls Club. She announced in 1914 that she would no longer be able to subsidize the pottery, but agreed to fund the operation for an additional year, while they developed a plan to become self-sustaining. In 1915, before withdrawing the bulk of her support, Helen provided the club with a new building constructed on Nottingham Hill; an “L-shaped, two-story pottery, in the style of an English country house…with warm, well-lighted rooms,” and additional space, where Guerrier and Brown made their residence.
Scouting
Helen was introduced in 1915 to the founder of scoutingGirl Scouts of the USA
The Girl Scouts of the United States of America is a youth organization for girls in the United States and American girls living abroad. It describes itself as "the world's preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls". It was founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912 and was organized after Low...
in America, Juliette Gordon Low
Juliette Gordon Low
Juliette Gordon Low was an American youth leader and the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA in 1912.-Early life:...
. It may have been this encounter that sparked her interest in the scouting movement. Whatever the reason, not long afterward, Helen began holding Girl Scout training courses at her summer home in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
In 1917, Helen founded the Pine Tree Camp, on her property at Long Pond, in Plymouth, which became the First National Girl Scout Leaders’ Training School. Decades later, Scouts were still flocking to the camp for training.
In July 1932, Helen provided the Girl Scouts with a retreat in Switzerland. She purchased a chalet just outside of Adelboden, in the Bernese Oberland
Bernese Oberland
The Bernese Oberland is the higher part of the canton of Bern, Switzerland, in the southern end of the canton: The area around Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, and the valleys of the Bernese Alps .The flag of the Bernese Oberland consists of a black eagle in a gold field The Bernese Oberland (Bernese...
. Known simply as Our Chalet
Our Chalet
Our Chalet is an international Girl Guide/Girl Scout centre and one of four World Centres of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts . The others are Our Cabaña, Sangam, and Pax Lodge. Our Chalet is just outside of Adelboden, in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland. Located in the...
, the retreat remains in the hands of the Girl Scouts, and hosts "Helen Storrow Seminars", focusing on international education.
Helen served for many years as First Vice President of Girls Scouts, Inc., the national organization of American Girl Scouts, and as chairman of the executive committee of Massachusetts Girl Scouts, Inc. Serving as Second Vice President of the national organization was none other that Lou Henry Hoover
Lou Henry Hoover
Lou Henry Hoover was the wife of President of the United States Herbert Hoover and First Lady of the United States, 1929-1933. Mrs. Hoover was president of the Girl Scouts of the USA for two terms, 1922-1925 and 1935-1937....
, wife of future president, Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
.
After the initial founding of the American Girl Scouts organization, there were numerous squabbles with the older organization of British Girl Guides
Ranger (Girl Guide)
A Ranger or Ranger Guide is a member of a section of some Guiding organisations who is between the ages of 14 and 25. Exact age limits are slightly different in each organisation. It is the female-centred equivalent of the Rover Scouts-Early history:...
, including arguments over uniforms, territorial disputes, and an unsuccessful attempt by the Girl Guides to convince the Girl Scouts to change their name; the British organization considered the term “Scout” too masculine for a girls’ movement. Helen responded to the latter argument by suggesting that, instead, the Girl Guides should refer to themselves as Scouts:
- "Our name, Girl Scouts, is very dear to us, and seems to us the logical name. The terms scout and scouting apply to girls and their activities as appropriately as to boys, and represent the same laws and ideals. The idea that we are trying to make boys out of the girls is soon dissipated when the girls show their increased usefulness at home...
- The suggestion to change the name met with the determined opposition from both our girls and their officers, and we shall in all probability remain scouts. I wish most heartily that we might share the same name. Would the Guides consider changing? I wish they would."
In spite of the initial tension between the British and American organizations, the Storrows became close personal friends of Lord Baden-Powell
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, Bt, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB , also known as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement....
, who founded the Scouting movement, and his wife, Lady Baden-Powell
Olave Baden-Powell
Olave St Clair Baden-Powell, Baroness Baden-Powell, GBE was born Olave St Clair Soames in Chesterfield, England...
. James Storrow’s interest in the Boy Scouts mirrored his wife’s interest in the girls’ movement; he served as the second national president of the Boy Scouts of America
Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 4.5 million youth members in its age-related divisions...
.
In Helen’s honor, the Patriots' Trail Girl Scout Council presents individuals who have made "outstanding contributions to Girl Scouting" with the Helen Storrow Heritage Award.PTgirlscouts.org
Helen is one of only three American women ever granted the Silver Fish Award by Lady Baden-Powell. It was awarded to her in recognition of her long service and dedication to scouting.
Folk dancing
Helen's interest in dance began in the early 20th century, when several middle-aged Boston socialites organized a dance class to "amuse themselves and their friends." Helen later said:- "For several years we considered it only funny that we should be pirouetting and hopping about it in arabesque positions, and were ashamed to try to dance really well; but gradually we lost the feeling of self-consciousness and enjoyed it too much not to try to do our best."'
During her travels in Europe, Helen developed a passion for folk dancing, becoming a staunch devotee of Cecil Sharp
Cecil Sharp
Cecil James Sharp was the founding father of the folklore revival in England in the early 20th century, and many of England's traditional dances and music owe their continuing existence to his work in recording and publishing them.-Early life:Sharp was born in Camberwell, London, the eldest son of...
, aiding him in his efforts to popularize folk dance in the United States. Helen devoted increasingly lengthy amounts of time to providing lessons in English folk dance. In 1911, during a benefit for the Playground Association of America, Helen could be found in the ballroom of the New Willard Hotel in New York City, leading a "practical demonstration" in folk dancing for those in attendance. A year later, she volunteered to instruct the Fathers' and Mothers' Folk Dancing Club at the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. In 1915, Helen helped found, and served as director, of the American branch of the English Folk Dance Society, now known as the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre.
She believed that everyone's life, be they young or old, male or female, could be enriched by dance. She wrote:
- "As a means of exercise for girls and boys, and to break up snobbery and self-consciousness among them, folk dancing has been tried out and found to work wonders...it will do the same for grown-ups; it is doing the same where it is given a trial, but dynamite and a derrick are needed in most families...Our friends allow their daughters to make exhibitions of themselves in a way no North End mother would allow for a moment. At present anything goes. There seems to be total ignorance on the subject of what constitutes good dancing, and yet the principles can be clearly defined as those of any art. It seems to me they can be boiled down to three:
- I. There should be pleasure in dancing...
- II. Dancing should be for pleasure and not primarily for show. The moment it is self-conscious, there is something wrong. If in fancy dancing a position is taken because it is believed to be graceful, it isn't. There is no meaning in it. There is one thing wrong in balletBalletBallet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
dancing; it is all meant to be looked at, and while stunts are humorous, it is better to leave them to acrobats, as they are not beautiful.
- III. Dancing must develop the body naturally, strengthening the muscles in natural positions, not distorting them...
- If we succeed in transplanting these beautiful old dances of other countries and they take root, they will grown and spread and blossom into other dances, showing the genius of our people, and reflecting our life and times."
Combining her love of dance with her passion for scouting, Helen arranged for teachers from the Country Dance Society to organize a summer dance camp at Long Pond in 1932. Pinewoods camp
Pinewoods Dance Camp
Pinewoods is a dance and music camp located between Long Pond and Round Pond in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on . It has multiple activity buildings and residential cabins which are occupied and used by visiting customers in the summer. Initially known as "Pine Tree Camp", it was founded in 1919 by...
operated independently, along side the Scouts’ Pine Tree Camp. Lily Conant later operated the camp, which was willed to Conant's family after Helen's death, becoming Pinewood Camp Inc., in 1975.CDS-Boston.org
Storrowton village
Helen oversaw the “home department” of the Eastern States ExpositionThe Big E
The Big E, also known as The Eastern States Exposition, is billed as "New England's Great State fair". The Big E serves as the de facto state fair for all six of the New England states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Each of the New England states is...
, an annual fair occurring in New England. In 1927, Helen purchased Gilbert House, a structure built in the 18th century, transporting the home from West Brookfield, to serve as a permanent headquarters for the department. From 1927 to 1930, Helen invested nearly half-a-million dollars constructing the village of Storrowton, transporting authentic Revolutionary
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
and pre-Revolutionary buildings and restoring them.
The village quickly became a popular tourist attraction.
- "Storrowton, which is to Old Colony what Williamsburg is to the Old Dominion, was visited by more than 250,000 persons from all parts of the country last Summer [1940] and Fall...the buildings include, besides the church, a village hall, a country store, a tavern, a smithy, a lawyer's office and several mansions - all enhanced by the old-fashioned gardens, shrubs and picturesque carriage sheds. Antique furnishings grace the rooms, and rare hand-carved paneling, corner cupboards and hand-hewn beams are distinctive features..."
Among the buildings reconstructed at Storrowton were: the Potter House (1760); the Atkinson Store (1799); the legal office of Zachariah Eddy (1806); and the Salisbury church (1800). The church contained one of the oldest hand-crafted pipe organs in existence. As a birthday present for Helen, in 1935, Girl Scout volunteers planted a large herb garden near the Gilbert House, known as “Aunt Helen’s Herb Garden,” filled with herbs commonly used in the Revolutionary period. The village was renamed Storrowton by the Trustees, in her honor, in 1944.
Further club and settlement work
In addition to her work with the North Bennet school and the Saturday Girls Club, Helen and her husband helped found numerous social and charitable organizations in Boston between 1900 and 1930.In 1903, they helped found the West End House, a club for boys, mainly immigrants, providing classes and lectures on numerous subjects, including history, literature and physical education. Begun as a settlement house, it now serves as a Boys and Girls Club. In 1908, the Storrows provided the boys at West End House with a summer camp in East Parsonfield, Maine. West End House, like the Saturday Evening Girls
Club, aimed to keep youths in poor immigrant neighborhoods off the streets, by providing them with educational and recreational opportunities. Their athletics contests gained both wide popularity and participation:
- "A central feature of the West End House was the development of a number of athletic teams and contests. West End House teams helped to increase neighborhood solidarity through the development of a string of intracity rivalries...The Thanksgiving day race was a community event in the West End. Huge crowds lined the streets to watch the boys run for neighborhood glory...".
Another of her husband’s endeavors was the Boston Newsboy’s Club, which he played a prominent role in founding, in 1909. The club's stated mission: "To befriend in every possible way the newsboys and other boys of the city of Boston, without distinction as to race, color, or creed." As with the Storrows' other clubs, it provided Newsboys - youths who were then a common sight, selling newspapers on corners throughout the city - with an outlet for education and recreation, helping the boys graduate high school, and in some instances, go on to attend university.
Frustrated by the monotony of the activities sponsored by most women’s clubs in Boston, in 1913, Helen founded the Women’s City Club, “to promote a broad acquaintance among women through their common interest in the welfare of the city…” She served as the club’s first president. Her goal was to gather members from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, allowing for a diversity of views, to discuss relevant political and social issues.
The Storrows supported America’s entry into the First World War, and Helen presided over the War Service Committee organized by the Women's City Club, raising funds for the war effort. At the war's end, the Storrows converted their summer home into a sanatorium for wounded soldiers:
- "J. J. Storrow has given his country residence, Storrow Farm, Lincoln, with the adjacent buildings and sixteen acres of land, for a Lincoln convalescent hospital for enfeebled and crippled soldiers. The services of several employees, such furniture as can be utilized, care of the grounds, heating, lighting, and the like are included in the gift. A staff of women doctors and nurses have volunteered for service, and a war service committee of the Women's City Club, of which Mrs. Storrow was first president, is aiding to raise fund and equipment."
Towards the end of her life, as the result of her brother’s activism, Helen became interested in the cause of prison reform. To promote this cause, in 1930, she founded and served as president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Tom Brown House.
By the 1920s, the city hall in Auburn, New York, had become extremely dilapidated. Helen and her sister Emily offered to donate a new city hall to Auburn in their father’s memory. They hired prominent Boston architects Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott; construction began in 1929. The dedication was held on April 5, 1930:
- "Thousands of people filled the street surrounding the hall. Flags and streamers floated in the breeze. The Star-Spangled Banner opened the event, played by the Boys Band, and America closed it. The program was broadcast on WSYR Syracuse, and amplifiers were placed above city streets. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts served as escorts to the dignitaries, which included Storrow, Osborne's son and current mayor Charles Devens Osborne, Syracuse Mayor Rolland B. Martin and a number of state politicians."
During her final years, Helen traveled frequently to Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
. As a gesture of her goodwill toward the island, she funded an annual scholarship allowing a student from Bermuda to study at Harvard.
In 1931, Helen donated one million dollars to the State of Massachusetts to complete the development of the Charles River Basin, in which her husband had been involved prior to his death. It was largely due to the efforts of Helen and James Storrow that the Charles River Basin was landscaped and turned into a recreational area during the 1930s.
America suffered an acute housing shortage in the years following the First World War. In response the Better Homes in America Movement
Better Homes in America Movement
In 1922 the United States embraced a nationwide campaign of home ownership, modernization, and beautification because of a critical shortage of homes in the years right after World War I. This was the Better Homes Movement, which was initiated in the pages of the Butterick Publishing Company's...
was initiated. It was a nationwide campaign to promote home ownership, beautification, and the modernization of housing. Helen joined this movement, and detailed efforts to expand the movement to include African American families in an article she authored in 1931 for the Urban League.
One cause Helen never actively championed was women's suffrage, most likely, because her husband was opposed to it.
External links
- TheBige.com, Biography of Helen Storrow
- BAhistory.org, Paul Revere Pottery
- OLM.net, Helen Osborne Storrow: a profile in giving
- PTgirlscouts.org, Scouting Leaders: Helen Osborne Storrow
- CorrectionHistory.org, Osborne Family Papers in Syracuse University Libraries
- CDS-Boston.org, Country Dance Society, Boston Centre
- Pinewoods.org, Pinewoods Camp, Inc.