EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800: HELEN MAGILL WHITE P/20

                                                                  Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Helen Magill White. She lived from 1853 - 1944. Upon Helen's return to the US, she embarked on a teaching career with an appointment as principal of a private school in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. She left this position in 1883 to accept the opportunity to organise the Howard Collegiate Institute, a newly established women's school in West Bridgewater, Massachussets. With authority to select teachers, she appointed two of her sisters to the school, and her father contributed by investing in a laboratory and a gym.  

Although the student body grew under Helen's administration, a combination of family problems and a conflict with the trustees over her campaign for better sewage caused her to resign in 1887. She then briefly held teaching positions at Evelyn College, a women's annex to Princetown University that soon shut down and at Brooklyn High School, but her career was effectively over by the time she turned 35.

In 1890, she married Andrew Dickson White, a diplomat and former president of Cornell University. She lived with her family in Russia while Andrew served as US minister and ambassador there from 1892 - 1894. In 1897, he received a similar position in Germany,where they lived until 1903. Helen earned a reputation as a brilliant conversationalist, well able to discuss such subjects as architecture, sculpture, music and literature.

Helen eventually retired to Kittery Point, Maine, where she died in 1944.

Read Part Twenty-One HERE