Clara Landsberg

Clara Landsberg (March 8, 1873[1] – April 10, 1966) was an American educator. She was the leader of the adult education programme at Hull House, and was a close collaborator of Nobel laureate Jane Addams. She later taught at Bryn Mawr School with her lifelong friend Margaret Hamilton.

Early life

Clara Landsberg was born in Rochester, New York, the daughter of Max Landsberg, a German-American Reform rabbi, and Miriam Isengarten, a good friend of Susan B. Anthony.[2][3][4]

She was one of the first graduates of Bryn Mawr College,[5] where she was a classmate and friend of Margaret Hamilton.[2] She attended the University of Paris as a student of German in the winter 1898–1899, while Margaret Hamilton studied Biology and Norah Hamilton Art.[6] Landsberg was to become Margaret Hamilton's lifetime companion.[2][7]

After the Sorbonne, while Hamilton was a student at Johns Hopkins University, Landsberg became the Reference Librarian at the Reynolds' Library, Rochester, New York.[6]

Career

In 1899 Clara Landsberg became a resident at Hull House, where she was in charge of the adult education (evening school) programs from 1900 to 1920,[8] and shared a room with Alice Hamilton.[3][9] Landsberg and Ethel Dewey interviewed each new student, and each was carefully placed according to his attainments and later was graded upon reports made by the teachers.[10] For the most part of her time at Hull House, Landsberg taught German at the University School for Girls.[2] Hilda S. Polacheck, a Polish immigrant, later said about Landsberg: "She opened new vistas in reading for me. In her class we would be assigned a book, which we were to read during the week and then discuss the following session of the class. The class met once a week. I not only read the assigned books but every book I could borrow. Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, Louisa May Alcott, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, and many others now become my friends. The daily monotony of making cuffs was eased by thinking of these books and looking forward to evenings at Hull House."[11]

In her 1912 Twenty Years at Hull-House with Autobiographical Notes, Jane Addams said she was grateful to Landsberg "for the making of the index and for many other services".[12]

In May 1914, Landsberg, together with Louise DeKoven Bowen, joined Addams and Mary Rozet Smith in Naples, and the four women travelled together to Sicily and Rome. Landsberg and Smith sailed back to the United States in June.[9] In 1933, together with Alice Hamilton, went on a trip to Germany to protest the discharge of Jewish doctors.[3][9][2]

Landsberg eventually left Hull House to teach Latin at Bryn Mawr School, where Edith Hamilton was headmistress. Margaret Hamilton also became a science teacher at Bryn Mawr School and took over as headmistress in 1933 before retiring in 1935.[2]

Personal life

Alice Hamilton considered Clara Landsberg part of the Hamilton family, "I could not think of a life in which Clara did not have a great part, she has become part of my life almost as if she were one of us."[2]

Landsberg, the Hamilton sisters and Edith's companion, Doris Fielding Reid, spent their retirement years in Hadlyme, Connecticut, at the house they purchased in 1916.[13][2]

Landsberg died in Lyme[14] in 1966, and is buried with Margaret Hamilton at Cove Cemetery in Hadlyme, Connecticut, in the same cemetery as Hamilton's mother (Gertrude) and her sisters (Alice, Norah, and Edith), and Doris Fielding Reid.[15][5]

Legacy

The Clara Landsberg papers consisting of correspondence addressed to Clara Landsberg are preserved at the Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago.[3]

Clara Landsberg at Find a Grave

References
  1. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925
  2. Sicherman, Barbara (2003). Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters. University of Illinois Press. p. 435. ISBN 9780252071522. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  3. "Clara Landsberg papers". UIC. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  4. WILE, ISAAC A. (1912). THE JEWS OF ROCHESTER (PDF). HISTORICAL REVIEW SOCIETY. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  5. "Miss Landsberg Succumbs at 93 - 12 Apr 1966, Tue • Page 7". The Post-Standard: 7. 1966. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  6. Annual Reports of the Alumnae Association of Bryn Mawr College, 1898-1901. Bryn Mawr College. 1898. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  7. Singer, Sandra L. (2003). Adventures Abroad: North American Women at German-speaking Universities, 1868-1915. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 75. ISBN 9780313323713. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  8. Hudson, David Paul (2016). Unsettling Service: Rhetorical Education in the Chicago Settlement House Movement, 1890-1968. Retrieved 5 January 2018 – via ProQuest.
  9. Joslin, Katherine (2004). Jane Addams: A Writer's Life. University of Illinois Press. p. 271. ISBN 9780252029233. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  10. Hull House Year Book (PDF). 1916. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 January 2018. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  11. Polacheck, Hilda Satt. I Came a Stranger: The Story of a Hull House Girl (PDF). Dena J. Polacheck Epstein. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  12. Addams, Jane (1912). Twenty Years at Hull-House with Autobiographical Notes. The MacMillan Company. p. Preface. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  13. Hardwick, Lorna; Harrison, S. J. (2013). Classics in the Modern World: A Democratic Turn?. OUP Oxford. p. 138. ISBN 9780199673926. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  14. Connecticut Death Index, 1949-2012
  15. Scott Wilson. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons. 2 (3d (Kindle Edition) ed.). McFarland and Company, Inc. p. Kindle Location 19508.
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