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Anna C. Brackett
Anna C. Brackett (1836-1911) was the first
woman in the U.S. to be appointed principal of a secondary school, the St.
Louis Normal School, in 1863. A
skilled educational theorist, Brackett wrote books and articles on
pedagogy and produced some of the first English translations of German
pedagogical texts. She was
also an ardent feminist who wrote and lectured on women’s right to equal
education and employment opportunities.
Brackett had a lifelong domestic partnership with Ida
Eliot, also an educator, with whom she co-wrote at least one work.
Brackett and Eliot ran a private girls school together in New York
City, and adopted two daughters, Hope (b. ca 1870) and Bertha (b. ca
1876). In the late 1880s,
Hope attended the University of Michigan, boarding with Eliza Sunderland
and her family while Sunderland’s graduate study was just getting
underway.
In the letter displayed here, Brackett writes freely
to Thomas Davidson, a good friend who was originally from Scotland, and
with whom she often shared inside jokes.
Displayed by permission of Sterling Library, Yale University.
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March 1, 1874
Sir:
If you are president of the Univ. of course you can’t come. If you are prof at Cincinnati, of course you can’t come.
If you are neither, then you can.
The other two ladies are of no consequence, provided of
course that you prefer our society to theirs.
We wd say nothing about it to any one.
We can “meet by chance” if we choose, you know – as for
a quiet place where you can write and study, nothing can be more
perfect. A quarter of
an hour’s walk will put you into woods where you will neither see
nor hear any signs of civilization.
Now you can’t have the mountains + woods + the sea-shore at
once. Resign the
sea-shore for one summer.
Frankly, you see,
we sh’d like your companionship.
– We know each other well enough to know that we have
somewhat the same tastes as to summer work.
Am glad you were
so successful at Chicago. Mrs.
Doggett is a very prominent woman there, I know.
I know her only through a little correspondence.
. . .
As for our
little “Daisy” it must be the Scotch blood in her that makes her
say “I’m going up stairs my lone” for I’m sure she
never heard it here. Her
real name is Hope. I
fancied you might like her for her Scotchness + I do want you
to teach her Greek.
Now, in case you
are free this summer, look out for the “quiet course” in Gorham
[NH] + resign the “pleasing anxious care” of the sea-shore –
i.e., if it w’d please you.
Truly,
Anna C. Brackett
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