Abstract
Margaret Naumburg was the charismatic and forceful founder of Waiden School in New York City. She went on to become an acknowledged leader in the “new school” movement, and later, the founder of art therapy in the United States. As art educator Judith Rubin says in her memorial tribute, “had she done nothing more than to found the Waiden School (1914), a place where freedom and discipline in all of the arts were fostered and were considered central to normal children’s healthy development… Dayenu! (‘It would have been enough!’).”1 This chapter examines Margaret Naumburgs life and times, her educational philosophy and its implementation in the Children’s School (Waiden School), and her leadership qualities and style.
Keywords
- York City
- Experimental School
- Progressive Educator
- Nursery School
- Lower School
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Notes
Judith Rubin, “DAYENU: A Tribute to Margaret Naumburg,” Art Therapy 1, no. 1 (October 1983): 4.
Patricia Buoye Allen, “The Legacy of Margaret Naumburg,” Art Therapy 1, no. 1 (October 1983): 6.
Robert Holmes Beck, “American Progressive Education, 1875–1930” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, June 1942), p. 166. Robert Holmes Beck interviewed Margaret Naumburg on 15 March 1941, and Florence Cane on 2 February, 1941, in New York City. See also Blythe Hinitz, “Margaret Naumburg (1890–1983): A Childhood Educator Who Brought Freudian Theory to the Early Childhood Classroom” (paper presented at the 22nd World Congress of the World Organization for Early Childhood Education [OMEP], Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 August 1998).
Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education 1876–1957 (New York: Vintage Books [Random House], 1961), p. 211.
Margaret Naumburg, The Child and the World: Dialogues in Modern Education (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928), pp. 31–32.
Patricia Albjerg Graham, “Community & Class in American Education, 1865–1918,” in Studies in the History of American Education, eds. H. J. Perkinson and V. Plannie (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1974), pp. 173–174.
Robert H. Beck, “Progressive Education and American Progressivism: Margaret Naumburg,” Teachers College Record 50 (1958–1959): 202.
Margaret Naumburg, “Maria Montessori: Friend of Children,” The Outlook vol. 105 (13 December 1913): 798–799.
Margaret Naumburg, “The Dalcroze Idea: What Eurhythmics Is and What It Means,” The Outlook 106 (17 January 1914): pp. 127–131.
Rosenfeld, Port of New York, p. 118; Alvie Nitscheke and Elizabeth Goldsmith, “The Waiden Nursery School,” in Twenty-Eighth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: Preschool and Parental Education, ed. Guy M. Whipple (Bloomington, Ill.: Public School Publishing Company, 1929), p. 226; Hutchins, “Biography,” p. iii; and Margaret Naumburg, “Statement of Philosophy,” [n.d.], TMs, p. 7, Naumburg Papers, box 13, folder 788. In The Child and the World, Naumburg refers to
Franklin B. Sanborn and William Torrey Harris, A. Bronson Alcott: His Life and Philosophy, 2 vols. (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893). Alcott was a major figure among the transcendendentalists.
Laurel Tanner, Dewey’s Laboratory School: Lessons for Today (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), p. 26.
Lucile C. Deming, “The Children’s School,” Experimental Schools, bulletin (New York: Bureau of Educational Experiments, 1917), Naumburg Papers, box 15, folder 837. Reprinted in Experimental Schools Revisited: Bulletins of the Bureau of Educational Experiments, Charlotte Winsor, ed., (New York: Agathon Press, 1973), p. 48; Naumburg, “The Waiden School,” p. 335.
Margaret Naumburg, “How Children Decorate Their Own School,” in Creative Expression: The Development of Children in Art, Music, Literature, and Dramatics, 2d ed., ed. Gertrude Hartman and Ann Shumaker (Milwaukee: E. M. Hale and Company, 1939), pp. 50–51. (Originally published in Progressive Education [1926].)
Schauffler, Marjorie Page, ed., “Schools Grow: A Self-Appraisal of Seven Experimental Schools” TMs draft (photocopy), pp. 2–3 (New York: Associated Experimental Schools, 1937) RG, 2.5 box 2, folders 6 and 7. City and Country Archives, New York, N.Y.
Susan Semel, “Introduction,” in “Schools of Tomorrow,” Schools of Today: What Happened to Progressive Education, eds. Susan F. Semel and Alan R. Sadovnik (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), p. 18.
Sue Bredekamp and Carol Copple, eds. Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs, revised ed. (Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1997).
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© 2002 Alan R. Sadovnik, Susan F. Semel
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Hinitz, B. (2002). Margaret Naumburg and the Walden School. In: Sadovnik, A.R., Semel, S.F. (eds) Founding Mothers and Others. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05475-3_4
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