Virginia gildersleeve biography

  • Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (October 3, – July 7, ) was an American academic, the long-time dean of Barnard College, co-founder of the International Federation of University Women, and the only woman delegated by United States to the April San Francisco United Nations Conference on International.
  • Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve, born in New York in , began her undergraduate studies at Barnard College in , just six years after its founding.
  • Gildersleeve was born and raised in New York City, where her family's whiteness, wealth, education, and connections, lifted her into prominence.

    • •

    Gildersleeve, Virginia Crocheron (–)

    Outstanding educator and dean of Barnard College, during the years of its greatest development, who was also U.S. delegate to the UN conference held at San Francisco in , thereby holding the highest political appointment then given to an American woman. Born Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve on October 3, , in New York City; died in Centerville, Massachusetts, on July 7, ; daughter of Henry Alger Gildersleeve (a judge) and Virginia (Crocheron) Gildersleeve; attended Brearley School; graduated Barnard College, A.B., ; Columbia University, A.M., ; Columbia University, Ph.D., ; never married; lived with Elizabeth Reynard (a professor of English at Barnard); no children.

    Was an instructor in English, Barnard College (–07, –10), assistant professor (–11), and professor and dean (–47); served as U.S. delegate to United Nations conference on international organization in San Francisco ().

    Selected publications:

    Government Regulation of the Eliz

    •

    A Complicated Legacy

    The Insider: A Life of Virginia C. Gildersleeve, a new biography by Nancy Woloch ’61, excels at a challenging task: It takes the life of a little-known, complex, and often obstreperous woman and makes it into a riveting story.

    Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (–) served as dean of Barnard College from until her retirement in Born into a prosperous New York family, Gildersleeve was a consummate insider. She went to Brearley, a prestigious Manhattan girls school, and then Barnard, graduating in and returning there to teach after graduate school. That positioned her to accept the nomination to the dean’s role when a protracted search failed. Her father’s friendship with Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia, helped.

    Gildersleeve transformed Barnard from a small commuter college to a member of the Seven Colleges Conference—an organization she founded in A masterstroke of marketing, the Seven Sisters raised Barnard’

  • virginia gildersleeve biography

    • •

    The Insider: A Life of Virginia C. Gildersleeve bygd Nancy Woloch

    Virginia C. Gildersleeve left her most prominent mark on New York City as the influential dean of Barnard College, a position she held from to Without her “strong leadership,” wrote a colleague in the s, Barnard would likely “have disappeared as an independent college for women long ago” ().

    In The Insider, Nancy Woloch offers a compelling biography of Gildersleeve, an important and difficult subject whose legacies are tangled up in many of the essential currents of US history of gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion. Not only was she known to be a stubborn, occasionally self-obsessed personality (just like many high-achieving men); Gildersleeve also took positions that were controversial then and now appear indefensible. Research has also been primarily limited to a highly untrustworthy autobiography. Based on extensive archival research, The Insider puts Gildersleeve squarely on the map of tw