Eastern High School - Echo Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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As the work on the history progressed, Miss Hartman became the chief historian. She continued the research and wrote the Pro- logue, Chapters I, II, and III, and the first part of Chapter IV. Miss Cairnes and Miss Deem finished Chapter IV and wrote Chapter V. The names of the 13,264 graduates were compiled by Mrs. Dean, assisted by Miss Neilson and Miss Denowitch. Miss Gallagher was the chief artist. She made the plans for the drawings in the book; and the jacket, the cover and the inside cover are the work of her own hands. Miss Hilda Plitt, an alumna, designed the chapter head- ings; and Mary Talbot, of the Class of 1945, drew the designs on the backbone, the sub-title page and the title page, the ex libris and the first school building. The committee wishes to make grateful acknowledgment of the kindness and the skill of Mr. Sidney C. Schultz, associate of Messrs. H. G. Roebuck and Son, and to extend. to this entire publishing organization thanks and appreciation for all their help in making this volume possible. Although the members of the committee have completed their book with a feeling of satisfaction, they are not unaware of its short- comings. They know that the several authors diHer somewhat in style; that the careful reader will notice here and there a broken thread that would have run firmly through the narrative if one author had written it all; that the historical material available was too ex- tensive to be contained in a volume of the size projected, and that, as a result, many interesting events and ideas had to be omitted. Fur- thermore, they know all too well that the work was done under the stress of conducting classes and carrying other daily responsibilities. They take pride and pleasure, nevertheless, in the book over which they have labored; and they modestly hope that a friendly public will find this history to be good reading and that each former student of the school will discover many pages that are of particular interest to her. XII

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FOREWORD Interest in the history of the Eastern High School began in 1937 when moving from the old school at North Avenue and Broad- way to the new one on Thirty-third Street seemed imminent. At that time Mr. Gontrum began to search the archives at the Administration Building and to record what he found concerning the beginnings and the early history of the school. In 1942, when active preparation for celebrating the one-hun- dredth anniversary of the founding of the Eastern and Western High Schools began, A. Marguerite Zouck, chairman of the Centen- nial Committee of the Eastern High School, appointed a Publica- tion Committee, consisting of Miriam B. Dean, Miriam E. Deem, Evelyn M. Farley, Mary T. Gallagher, Caroline E. Grote, Anabel E. Hartman, Elnora M. Lawton, Florence M. Nelson, C. Estelle Porter, Caroline L. Ziegler, and Charles H. Gontrum, chairman. To this committee was given the task of publishing the history of the school, and the information already collected was used as a beginning. The period of one hundred years was divided into hve eras, each era rep- resenting the years spent in one building. Six members of the com- mittee were given the responsibility of collecting more material, each being assigned a particular period, or number of years. All were in- vited to read the manuscript and asked to read the proof. The Annual Reports of the Board of School Commissioners, the Baltimore newspapers, the Eastern Echo, and the faculty minutes and other school files were searched carefully. Additional sources of ma- terial were the memories of alumnae, the recollections of fellow teachers and of the writers themselves, and books concerning Balti- more. The committee is deeply grateful for the help furnished by the librarians in the Maryland Room at the Enoch Pratt Library, in the Library of the Maryland Historical Society, and in the Library of Legislative Reference at the City Hall; also for the help furnished by the personnel in charge of the records in the oHice of the Board of School Commissioners and of the Bureau of Statistics of the De- partment of Education. Appreciation is extended also to those who so kindly furnished the originals of the pictures which appear in the hook. XI

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PROLOGUE THE STORY BEFORE THE STORY The Baltimore Public School System had been making history for more than a decade before QtHigh Schools, were thought of, and for almost two decades before they were thought of in connection with ufemalesiL-history well worth reading, too, for anyone inter- ested in Baltimore and in education and in human nature. The story began on the last day of February, 1826, with an Act of the General Assembly authorizing the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore uto establish Public Schools? and setting a certain period within which this must be done. The Act reminds one of the fairy tales in which a specific. task, like the answering of a riddle or the freeing of a captive princess, must be accomplished within a certain time Cia year and a day? perhapsi or not at all; but it was far more important than any of the fairy-tale provisions! For this Act gave Baltimore the opportunity to secure for herself tche independent organization of her Public School System, free from other legislation than her own, and the appropriation of her revenue for the instruction of her own population? Enter next, Suspense! Procrastination, inaction on the part of the City Council and Mayor of Baltimore, for reasons unknown to the historian, while the time alloted by Act of Assembly uwas fast consuming? . Then, before the time was quite consumed, action! An Ordi- nance of March 1, 1828, provided m for the organization of a Board of School Commissioners iZi for the presenting of an annual report by these Commissioners to the Council on the f1rst Monday in January 60 for the establishment of six male and six female schools on the Monitorial Planibk But there was something else extremely important that the Ordinance failed to provide for, namely, the means for the organiza- tion and support of these dozen schools! And so the newly ap- pointed Commissioners were definitely put Qton the' spoth and Sus- pense made a second entrance. iThe Commissioners refer, with iI.e., the plan of having a large number of pupils under one instructor, who was assisted in keeping order and hearing the lessons by monitors. XIII