University of Mississippi - Ole Miss Yearbook (Oxford, MS)

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Miss SARAH MCGEHEE IsoM

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Evhiraivh Un Minn Sarah iH1lrCErhrr Zlnnm

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illiiaa Sarah il1HrC5rhrr Elanm, Eat: Zlnatrurtnr in tlliratnrg linihrrnitg nf mississippi. Miss Sarah McGehee Isom was born in Oxford, Miss., and received her earlier education in that town, Later she attended the Augusta Seminary, Stanton, Va., from which she was graduated, and returning to her home, took a course in belles-lettres in the University of Mississippi. Early in life she showed traces of her genius, and, desiring to continue the study of her chosen profession, she entered the Philadelphia School of Expression, being the first Southern woman to study in the schools of oratory in the East. It was with pardonable pride, then, that Miss Isom heard this expression from the lips of her instructor, James E. Murdoch, as he handed to her her graduation papers: You are the brightest and most eminent pupil I have ever instructed. Your equal in this work is Julia Marlowe only. Miss Isom continued her studies in Boston with George Riddle, and later with Mme. Janauschek, and when, in 1885, the new chair in elocution and oratory in the University of Mississippi was offered her, she accepted. As L. Q, C. Lamar said: It was an exceptional recognition bestowed upon her in consequence of her rare abilities. Her career was one long line of successes. Upon the occasion of her reading in Boston, soon after her work at the Philadelphia School of Expression. the dramatic papers of that city pronounced her a reader of great power and predicted that if she chose the stage for her profession she might become the greatest tragic actress in America. At the Shake- speare .lubilee Celebration in Stratford-on-Avon, England, a few years ago, she was invited to make the opening address. She read in London and in many parts of her own country, always with success and distinction. , In June, 1901, the National School of Oratory, Philadelphia, conferred on her the degree of Bachelor of Oratory. She declined a position on the faculty of one of the leading dramatic schools of New York City. and only lately she was invited by Franklin S. Sargent of the Sargent School of Dramatic Acting, New York, to furnish the epic portion of the commence- ment recital of the American Oratorical Association in Washington, D. C., in .Iune. ln the course of her travels and readings she met and often became the friend of many of the leadirg actors and writers, and especially the great Shakespearean editors and critics of the age. She was endowed with a voice of great range and volume, together with the sweetness and delicacy that we have come to call Italian. In her work here in the University she never tolerated anything but the purest and best literature, and because of her very truth and refinement her interpretation of these selections was characterized by wonderful force and artistic finish. Occupying t'he unique position that she did in the educa- tional world, for. as stated in Werner's Magazine of June, 1900, She was the only woman holding a regular chair of oratory, she impressed through the medium of her classes much of her personality on the State of Missis- sippip and the robust quality of her art and of the selections she gave to her students tended not to enervate but to strengthen their manhood and to preserve in them the ideals of the South, 6