Barbara
Spofford Morgan (July 15, 1887 - April 1, 1971) was an American educator,
essayist on religion and a specialist in mental testing.[1]
She is the mother of John
Spofford Morgan.Queer Places:
Manor House Inn, 69 Maple Ave, Norfolk, CT 06058, Stati Uniti
The Spence School, 22 E 91st St, New York, NY 10128
Bryn Mawr College (Seven Sisters), 101 N Merion Ave, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Jekyll Island Club, 371 Riverview Dr, Jekyll Island, GA 31527
Shepard Morgan House, 132 E 79th St, New York, NY 10075, Stati Uniti
Center Cemetery, Norfolk, CT 06058, USA
Barbara
Spofford Morgan (July 15, 1887 - April 1, 1971) was an American educator,
essayist on religion and a specialist in mental testing.[1]
She is the mother of John
Spofford Morgan.
Barbara Spofford was born on July 15, 1887, in New York City,[1] the daughter of Charles Ainsworth Spofford, a director of the Northern Pacific Railway, and Ellen Boardman. They moved to Norfolk, Connecticut, to give their daughter a better environment, and in 1898, built The Alders (now known as the Manor House), a Victorian Tudor-style mansion, designed by E.K. Rossiter.[2] Later Barbara and Shepard Morgan lived on Mountain Road, Norfolk.[1] Spofford was the granddaughter of Ainsworth Rand Spofford,[3] Librarian of the United States Congress from 1864 to 1897.[4]
She was educated at Miss Spence's School in New York City,[5] and then attended Wycombe Abbey School in England where her father was working on a government commission.[5][6] In 1905, she was presented at court in the presence of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.[7] Morgan attended Darmstadt University in Germany[5] and in 1909 Bryn Mawr College. After college, she made a world tour.[8][1]
On February 20, 1912,[9] she married Shepard Ashman Morgan (1884-1968),[10] president of the Chase National Bank and author of The History of Parliamentary Taxation in England and Reminiscences of Shepard Ashman Morgan (1950).[1][11][12] The Morgans were members of the Jekyll Island Club, a Southern haven for America's millionaires.[13]
In 1926, while her husband was economic advisor and later finance director of the Office for Reparation Payments in Berlin, Germany, she enrolled at the Friedrich Wilhelm University,[14] where she received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1928, the first American woman to achieve such a distinction. Her doctoral thesis was The Individual in American Education.[15]
Manor House, Norfolk
132 E 79th St
Central Cemetery, Norfolk
Morgan was the author of The Backward Child, a Study of the Psychology and Treatment of Backwardness; A Practical Manual for Teachers and Students (1914),[16] Frienly Shepherdess (1933),[17] Individuality in a collective world (1935),[18] Skeptic's search for God (1947) (reissued in 1949 as Man's restless search).[1] She also contributed articles to The Atlantic,[19] the North American Review,[20] and The Baltimore Sun.[21]
From 1910 to 1911, she directed the psychological clinic of the Neurological Institute of New York. In 1911, she was featured in a full-page article in The New York Times: "Teaching Backward Children Their A-B-C's by Dancing, Where ordinary methods fails, Miss Barbara Spofford resorts to a novel plan of her own to instill the alphabet into youthful minds".[22] From 1916 to 1918 she lectured on mental testing at the New York University[23] and from 1914 to 1920 she had a private practice in mental testing in New York City.[1]
Morgan was governor of the Women's Municipal League, a field worker for the North American Civil League for Immigrants and an activist for the benefit of the Randalls Island Hospital for Mental Defectives. She was a trustee of the Public Education Association and a governor of the Cosmopolitan Club.[1]
In 1970, she donated The Papers of Ainsworth Rand Spofford to the Library of Congress.[24][25] Morgan died on April 1, 1971, in Canaan, Connecticut.[1]
In 2011 Barbara Spofford's son, John Spofford Morgan (November 13, 1917 – April 28, 2015), was highlighted by the New York (magazine) for having married his partner of 64 years, Louis Halsey (1923 – October 10, 2014), in 2011. The Morgans (father, mother, son and son-in-law) are buried in Norfolk Center Cemetery, in Norfolk, Connecticut, with Spofford's family.[26][27] It was Morgan that, in 2004, inscribed Ainsworth Rand Spofford's tombstone at Rock Creek Cemetery; until that time, it had remained blank.[28] John Spofford Morgan attended Harvard University, A.B. in 1939.[29][26] During World War II Morgan and Halsey both served in the Navy on different oceans. Morgan was on a Navy destroyer in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.[30][26] Later Morgan worked as an economist. Morgan was a classic music lover and was on the board of the InterSchool Orchestras of New York.[26] Halsey was an hairdresser at the Westbury Hotel.[31] In 1947 Morgan attended Columbia University for his Master's in International Affairs.[26] It was at this time that he met Halsey, at the New Verdi on West 72nd. Halsey said it was "Love at first sight", while instead Morgan admitted it was a slower thing for him.[31] They married on November 11, 2011, at 11:11, at their apartment in East 10th Street.[31] Halsey died on October 10, 2014.[32] Spofford died six months later on April 28, 2015.[26]
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