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Manumit School

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The Manumit School was a progressive Christian socialist boarding school located in Pawling, New York, from 1924 to 1943, and in Bristol, Pennsylvania, from 1944 to 1958.[1]

Founded on purchased farmland by Rev. William Fincke and his wife Helen, it was originally called The Manumit School for Workers' Children. Its curriculum provided a progressive "workers' education" focus during a time of growing socialist optimism in America. Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn worked there as an English and Drama teacher until 1929.[2]

History

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In 1924, Rev. William Mann Fincke and his wife, Helen Hamlin, founded Manumit as a co-educational boarding school for elementary-level students on a working farm in Pawling, New York. The school was closely associated with several New York City labor unions. A. J. Muste served as Chair of the Manumit Associates/Board for several years.[3] The name "Manumit" is derived from a Latin word meaning "set forth from the hand"; in English, to "manumit" means to release a slave from slavery.[4]

In 1926, Henry R. Linville became interim director following the illness of Rev. Fincke.[5] who died in 1927.[6] In the 1927/28 academic year, Nellie M. Seeds, wife of Scott Nearing, became director.[7][2] In 1933, William Mann Fincke's son, William, and his wife, Mildred Gignoux, became co-directors.[8] By this time, the school was facing significant financial difficulties, with only a few students remaining and concerns about whether the school's focus on political and social ideas was affecting the students' welfare.

In 1938/39, the Progressive Schools' Committee for Refugee Children was formed under the leadership of Mildred and William Fincke, and at least 23 Jewish refugee children attended Manumit.[9] In 1942, the school added its first two years of high school to its elementary curriculum.[10] In 1943, William I. Stephenson became director while William Fincke attended Yale University to pursue a doctorate.[11] On October 25, 1943, a fire destroyed the major school building, the “Mill,” along with most of the school's records.

In 1944, William M. Fincke resumed the directorship with his wife, Amelia Evans.[12] The school was relocated to Bristol, Bensalem Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.[13] In 1947, Benjamin C.G. Fincke, son of the founders, and his wife, Magdalene (“Magda”) Joslyn, became co-directors. In 1949, the school added the final two years of high school. In 1950, the school adopted a "work project" experiment.[14] The first full high school graduation took place in 1951. Between 1950 and 1957, there were between 43 and 52 graduates annually. Of the 42 on a list, 29 attended colleges, 3 attended art schools, and 1 attended a technical school.[15]

In 1954, Benjamin Fincke resigned.[16] John A. Lindlof, a former student and teacher at Bristol, became Co-Director.[17] In the mid-1950s, 14% of the student body was Black, and 8% was of Asian descent.[18] In 1956, external attacks on the school began, including fire hazard inspections. Local political manipulations were suspected due to recent housing projects surrounding the school and objections to its interracial status.[19]

In 1957/58, the school was closed following the denial of license renewal for 1958 by the State Board of Private Academic Schools, Pennsylvania Department of Public Instruction. Subsequently, school records were destroyed. The Board inspector had repeatedly singled out the school for complaints, raising suspicions of prejudice against its integrated nature.[20] William Mann Fincke died on January 4, 1968, in Stonington, Connecticut, where he had been teaching remedial reading since 1963.[21]

Notable students

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Sources

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Manumit Timeline". Archived from the original on 16 October 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  2. ^ a b Cleghorn, Sarah N. (1936). Threescore : the autobiography of Sarah N. Cleghorn. Harrison Smith & Robert Haas.
  3. ^ “A New Community School,” The Survey, 10/15/1924 & Rev. W. M. Fincke, “Elsie Wins a Point and We Get a View of Manumit,” Labor Age, 11/1925. “an alliance of progressive labor and progressive education” See: Scott Walter, “Labor's Demonstration School: The Manumit School for Workers' Children, 1924-1932,” 1998. 26 pp. (ERIC: ED473025) See: Threescore: The Autobiography of Sarah N. Cleghorn (1936) p. 253-81. Cleghorn, a poet, taught at early Brookwood, then Manumit, 1924 to early 1930s.
  4. ^ "Manumit". Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  5. ^ “The Manumit Yearbook: 1927,” 38 pp., includes group activity descriptions, lists of Associates, staff, and of current and former students, Web-site][Linville a founder of, and active in, NYC Teachers Union/TU (one of the precursors of the UFT) from 1916 into the 1930s
  6. ^ “GALLANT SPIRIT passed from us…” The Nation, 6/15/1927. New York Times, 6/1/1927. Memorial Service notes, 24 pages, June 7, 1924, at Tamiment Library.
  7. ^ Nellie Seeds: “Democracy in the Making at Manumit School,” The Nation, 6/1/1927; “Labor’s Laboratory School,” The Survey, 6/15/1927; “Manumit’s Contribution to Social Reconstruction,” Progressive Education, 5/1931. Annual Conference of the Manumit Associates: ”Learning Through Doing;” (1928); “Creative Education,” (1929); “Educational Groundwork for a Changing Social Order,” (1931); NY University Tamiment Library.] [Seeds resigned in 1933; joined NY State Education Department. Died, 1946.]
  8. ^ William L. Stephenson, “A Brief Note on Manumit School,” 1943, Web site)] [William & Mildred were both experienced with “experimental/progressive” education in NYC. On his background re progressive education see: Fincke, “History” in “Manuscript,” 1949. Web-site.
  9. ^ Time magazine, 3/27/39). (See also: records of German-Jewish Children's Aid, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, NYC.)
  10. ^ “Broad Meadows” campus. See: Barbara Dutton Dretzin 2006 Web-site & 2/21/12 e-mail recollections; Steve Stevenson, “Manumit,” 11-page recollections, Web-site.
  11. ^ “Theory of Knowledge,” selections from blank verse paper, 100+ pages, c. 1944, NY University Tamiment Library
  12. ^ W.M. Fincke, “A Philosophy of Discipline” (1941) & W.M. Fincke, “Memorandum on Manumit School” (n.d. probably late 1940s), Web-site.] [On Amelia re Manumit see WMF, “History” in “Manuscript,” 1949, Web-site. In mid-1960s Amelia was Superintendent of Eastern Star Home for the Aged in Somerville, NJ. Died, 12/1972.
  13. ^ Barbara Dutton Dretzin e-mail, 5/5/2006, Web-site.] [W. M. Fincke: “The staff is as cosmopolitan as the student body. It … has included Chinese, Nisei, American Negro, American Indian, English, Czechoslovakian, Scandinavian…German and Austrian anti-nazis [sic.] along with many members of the so-called old American group…. Judaism, Catholicism, Quakerism and Ethical Agnosticism as well as Protestantism are stimulatingly included in the backgrounds…” (W.M. Fincke fund-raising document, c. 1945-46, Web-site)
  14. ^ Report by W.M. Fincke to Board of Directors of School, Nov. 27, 1950; & Dixon Addison Bush, “An Experimental Study of Techniques for Instituting Cooperative Work Programs with Adolescent Students," Education Doctoral Dissertation, New York University, 1951. 313 pages.
  15. ^ Alumni list, “Manumit Closes,” Web-site) Note: one student graduated in 1950.] [Also see report (2/2012) of July 2011 reunion Symposium on the value of a Manumit Education & Speer comments (Website and Tamiment library)
  16. ^ Manumit Board resolution of appreciation, 1956, Web Site.] [Later: Co-Director then Director of Buxton School, Williamstown, MA. Died in Williamstown, MA, 2/18/2003. (See: New York Times, 6/1/2003). Magda, co-director and art teacher at Buxton, died 8/13/2004.
  17. ^ John died in 1982 in Maine. He had become Professor of Education at the University of Maine at Orono in 1961, where there is now (2010) a “John A. Lindlof Learning Center.”
  18. ^ Fund-raising memo by WMF, c. mid-1950s, Web-site). “The complete respect for human beings as human beings and for their backgrounds as important parts of their personalities, the lack of prejudice of racial nature… are so taken for granted that the administrator whose job it is to maintain this enriching heterogeneity is often the only person who continues conscious of it.” (WM Fincke, fundraising document, c. 1945-46, Web-site)
  19. ^ Telegram to President Eisenhower, September 26, 1956)
  20. ^ “Respondent’s Brief” and testimony by William M. Fincke, December 1957. See: Mike Speer (c. 2006 email) link of attacks to Brown v. Bd. of Ed, backlash, “Manumit Ends,” Web Site.
  21. ^ W.M. Fincke, "The Effect of Asking Questions to Develop Purposes for Reading on the Attainment of Higher Levels of Comprehension in a Population of Third Grade Readers," Education Doctoral Dissertation, Temple University, 1968. 140 pages. Completed in 1967.)
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