Mary Schenck Woolman
Faculty, Household Economics
Dublin Core
Title
Mary Schenck Woolman
Faculty, Household Economics
Faculty, Household Economics
Description
Mary Schenck was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1860 to John V. Schenck, a doctor, and Martha (McKeen) Schenck. The Schencks were well-off, and Mary received her early education at the Longstreth School, a private Quaker institution in Philadelphia that emphasized vocational education and social service work. She went on to attend the University of Pennsylvania, though the school did not award degrees to women at the time. She later earned a B.S. from Columbia University in 1897 and pursued graduate work at Radcliffe College in the 1920s.
Schenck married Franklin Conrad Woolman, a New Jersey lawyer and state legislator, in 1882. Shortly after their marriage, however, Franklin’s health began to decline and the couple were forced to sell their large New Jersey home and move into a boardinghouse in New York City so Mary could look for work. While caring for her husband, Woolman took a job correcting manuscripts for local publishers. Around 1892, one of her fellow boarders, a professor at the Columbia University Teachers College, asked her to look at a manuscript for a sewing instruction book; when Woolman suggested a different method of instruction for the book, the college president asked her to write her own instruction manual and hired her to teach at the school. Woolman remained at Teachers College for twenty years, organizing the school’s Domestic Art Department and publishing several books, including A Sewing Course for Schools (1900) and Textiles: A Handbook for the Student and Consumer (1913). During this time, she also served as Vice President of the newly formed New York Association of Sewing Schools.
Impressed with Woolman’s scientific approach to the study of sewing and textiles, Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler recruited her to form the Manhattan Trade School for Girls in 1902. The school offered vocational courses for working women in dressmaking, millinery, and other needle trades, and Woolman, still teaching part-time at Teachers College, served as director until the New York City Board of Education took over its management in 1910. Her book The Making of a Trade School (1910) detailed her experiences as founder and director.
Woolman left New York in 1913 to take a position as professor of Household Economics and temporary Director of the School of Household Economics at Simmons. That same year, she succeeded Mary Morton Kehew as President of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union (WEIU) of Boston, emulating her colleague Susan Kingsbury’s efforts to foster cooperation between Simmons and the Union. However, Woolman found the responsibilities of a dual appointment overwhelming and left both positions after only a year. She turned her attention instead to research and social service work, traveling through Europe to study textile work and other handicrafts, and producing books and educational pamphlets on clothing, consumer choices, and the textile industry.
During World War I, Woolman was appointed Textile Specialist for Massachusetts under the Department of Agriculture’s War Emergency Fund. In this role, she organized exhibits on Boston Common designed to help women reuse clothing and conserve resources for the war effort. She also organized the wartime Clothing Information Bureau in Boston and served as a member of the Massachusetts Committee on Food Conservation in 1917. Woolman continued her social and political activism after the war, advocating for legislation to support girls’ vocational education and later serving on President Hoover’s Committee on Home Building and Home Ownership. She was an active suffragist and a member of both the Massachusetts and Boston chapters of the League of Women Voters. Woolman also held membership in the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL), the Consumers’ League, and the National Child Labor Commission, and supported several organizations dedicated to improving education for Black students in the South. In 1926, she was honored with the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences, and in 1939, she was made a life member of the American Home Economics Association.
Woolman died in August of 1940 in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts.
Schenck married Franklin Conrad Woolman, a New Jersey lawyer and state legislator, in 1882. Shortly after their marriage, however, Franklin’s health began to decline and the couple were forced to sell their large New Jersey home and move into a boardinghouse in New York City so Mary could look for work. While caring for her husband, Woolman took a job correcting manuscripts for local publishers. Around 1892, one of her fellow boarders, a professor at the Columbia University Teachers College, asked her to look at a manuscript for a sewing instruction book; when Woolman suggested a different method of instruction for the book, the college president asked her to write her own instruction manual and hired her to teach at the school. Woolman remained at Teachers College for twenty years, organizing the school’s Domestic Art Department and publishing several books, including A Sewing Course for Schools (1900) and Textiles: A Handbook for the Student and Consumer (1913). During this time, she also served as Vice President of the newly formed New York Association of Sewing Schools.
Impressed with Woolman’s scientific approach to the study of sewing and textiles, Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler recruited her to form the Manhattan Trade School for Girls in 1902. The school offered vocational courses for working women in dressmaking, millinery, and other needle trades, and Woolman, still teaching part-time at Teachers College, served as director until the New York City Board of Education took over its management in 1910. Her book The Making of a Trade School (1910) detailed her experiences as founder and director.
Woolman left New York in 1913 to take a position as professor of Household Economics and temporary Director of the School of Household Economics at Simmons. That same year, she succeeded Mary Morton Kehew as President of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union (WEIU) of Boston, emulating her colleague Susan Kingsbury’s efforts to foster cooperation between Simmons and the Union. However, Woolman found the responsibilities of a dual appointment overwhelming and left both positions after only a year. She turned her attention instead to research and social service work, traveling through Europe to study textile work and other handicrafts, and producing books and educational pamphlets on clothing, consumer choices, and the textile industry.
During World War I, Woolman was appointed Textile Specialist for Massachusetts under the Department of Agriculture’s War Emergency Fund. In this role, she organized exhibits on Boston Common designed to help women reuse clothing and conserve resources for the war effort. She also organized the wartime Clothing Information Bureau in Boston and served as a member of the Massachusetts Committee on Food Conservation in 1917. Woolman continued her social and political activism after the war, advocating for legislation to support girls’ vocational education and later serving on President Hoover’s Committee on Home Building and Home Ownership. She was an active suffragist and a member of both the Massachusetts and Boston chapters of the League of Women Voters. Woolman also held membership in the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL), the Consumers’ League, and the National Child Labor Commission, and supported several organizations dedicated to improving education for Black students in the South. In 1926, she was honored with the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences, and in 1939, she was made a life member of the American Home Economics Association.
Woolman died in August of 1940 in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts.
Creator
Simmons University Archives
Date
1914
Rights
Images from the Simmons University Archives collections are made available for study purposes only. For more information, or to request rights to reproduce or reuse any images, contact the University Archives at [email protected].
Citation
Simmons University Archives, “Mary Schenck Woolman
Faculty, Household Economics,” Suffrage at Simmons, accessed April 16, 2024, https://beatleyweb.simmons.edu/suffrage/items/show/12.
Faculty, Household Economics,” Suffrage at Simmons, accessed April 16, 2024, https://beatleyweb.simmons.edu/suffrage/items/show/12.