BALDWIN | 125th Anniversary Celebration

The greeting to Baldwin's visitors alerts them to the
importance of the Residence building, erected in 1890.
Photos by JTMarlin.

May 22, 2014–My wife Alice attended The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pa., graduating in 1962. She was a boarder.

Her mother, a graduate of Barnard College, looked for the most academically excellent boarding school for girls within driving distance of their home on the Jersey Shore.

Baldwin is reputed to be the most academically challenging of the girls' schools in the Philadelphia area.

A few years after Alice graduated, the boarders' dormitories were converted into teaching and office areas and Baldwin is now all day students.

This year is Baldwin's 125th anniversary (its Quasquicentennial, don't you know).  I joined Alice at the celebration.

George Thomas on Frank Furness

Appreciation of Furness is expected to lead to
restoration of Baldwin's main building.

The school's main building, the Residence, is of unusual architectural and historical interest. It is widely viewed as the most significant surviving building of prominent Philadelphia architect Frank Furness.

The main speaker at the celebration was Dr. George E. Thomas, author of  Frank Furness: Making Architecture in the Age of Great Machines.” Thomas was principal organizer of the 2012 Philadelphia-wide celebration of the centennial of Furness’s death. Thomas is a partner in CivicVisions, a consulting firm, and teaches at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. He has studied the work and life of Furness for nearly half a century.

The Residence marks the special time for Philadelphia when its location in the midst of a major coal- and iron-producing state made it a center of industry and the engineering. New industries centered on steel (like the Jackson & Woodin factory in Berwick that grew into a major railway-car enterprise) created demand for train stations and other new buildings.

Baldwin celebrates its anniversary with fireworks behind
the main building, the Residence, designed by Furness.

Furness approached design problems with an eye first for how space will be used, and with no shame in the steel he used.  The Residence's central tower of the Residence has been likened to a castle, but Thomas argues that Furness's concept was more like a lighthouse to orient travelers coming to the area by train. The original purpose of the Residence in 1871 was as a hotel for the Pennsylvania Railroad. So was the current building that replaced it in 1890.

Thomas describes the pathbreaking nature of Furness's architecture by contrasting it with New England and New York. He argues that the architecture of New England was, with some exceptions, about history. Like the people who settled New England, the style of architecture was imported from England and the residents of New England found no reason to change it.

The main staircase at Baldwin's main building. It is supported by steel beams
 that remain, properly for their style, exposed.

The New England communities were centered around a church or two and the houses were built the same way. Some modest innovation occurred in institutional buildings in Boston and Cambridge.

Although the Pilgrims left England because they did not want to conform to the Church of England, they ended up being highly conformist once they got here.

New York, other than the East End of Long Island, which still marched to the tune of New England, was different. It was nourished by news that came with goods and passengers in the busy port at the mouth of the Hudson.

The Philadelphia Main Line is abuzz with stories about the
main building. "Baldwin Looks Back at its 125-year history."

New Yorkers were up to date on the latest fashions in Europe. They experimented with different styles of architecture. The northwest part of the state came under the influence of Chicago architects, but New York City and the area around it was fashion-driven.

What distinguished the architecture of Furness and a few colleagues in Philadelphia was that they neither adhered slavishly to traditional architecture, nor went for the latest architectural or design fashion.

Instead, Furness looked for ways to make use of new industrial techniques and materials. Rather than hide the steel behind plaster, he left it bare, covered only with paint. Many architects in the 20th century followed his example.

Harvard and Penn Professor George E.
Thomas with Alice Tepper Marlin.

Thanks to a tip passed on in a post-tennis-game chat with Dr. Tom Gouge, I looked up a 1979 book that contrasts Frank Furness with his contemporary in Boston, Henry Hobson Richardson. Written by Philadelphian Edward Digby Baltzell (1915-1996), it is entitled Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia: Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership. A notable quote from the book is that when a Puritan hanged a Quaker, both were happy.  Baltzell is also credited with popularizing the term WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). Baltzell says that both Furness and Richardson:

...were “romantics at heart; both had architecture in their bones and were never theorists like Olmsted, Wright or Sullivan. But Richardson was gregarious and forward-looking; Furness was a curmudgeon who fled from his critics and the crowd to his country estate. … Richardson was a success from the beginning whereas Furness is now only coming back into vogue. [At the time of the book's writing, Furness was being resurrected by the Philadelphia school of “romantic brutalists” and in 1973 by James O’Gorman of Boston.] (E. Digby Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia, 1979, p. 329.) 

As a result of the new reverence for Furness, Baldwin's mistakes (there is no other word that would express the feeling of Furness's admirers), in covering over the steel girders as it redecorated its interior, will be reversed. The plan is to restore the steel beams to the architect's original vision.

Baldwin's "Circle of Achievement"

Alice accepts award from John Dewey, parent of two recent
Baldwin students and Chair of Baldwin's Board of Trustees.

Every 25 years, Baldwin recognizes a batch of its alumnae who are role models for its students. Alice was elected to this "Hall of Fame" as part of the 125th Anniversary celebration.

I must say, as I listened to the descriptions of what each of these women has achieved, this is genuinely based on merits. The women in this Circle of Achievement belong there.

The Circle of Achievement award.

There is no attempt to limit the number of awards in a particular class. The class of 1970 was clearly a vintage year, with three nominees. On the other hand, there are long stretches of years in which no one was given an award. That is the way it really happens.

The award itself is handsome indeed. Baldwin is a classy place. This is the formal statement on its website about the award from the school. It is for

The inductees into the Baldwin Circle of Achievement. Alice Tepper Marlin
 is fourth from the left in the front row. Baldwin's Head of School, Sally 
Powell, is in red at the center of the row.

service to the school, exemplification of Baldwin's core values, or their outstanding personal accomplishments.  

The program distributed at the brunch for the honorees reads:

The Baldwin Circle of Achievement Award recognizes alumnae who have accomplished outstanding success in their chosen professional field or who display an exceptional commitment to Baldwin through consistent long-term support for the School and its mission.

Alice in front of the poster
about her achievements, to
inspire Baldwin students

Here are the current honorees, from the earliest class (1918) to the latest (1986):

1918-1958: Cornelia Otis Skinner ’18*, Marjorie Lindsay Reed ’39, Dorothy Dannenbaum Rudolph ’39,  Suetse Li Tung '46, Margaret "Peg" Fritz Schneider ’50, Abigail Adams Silvers '52*, Charlotte Heuer Watts ’53, Margaret "Peggy" Dewey Hicks '55, Meta Lewis Neilson ’56, Robin Blum Smith '57, Mary Ann Whelan ’57, Gwinnie Heilner Scott '58. 

Alice (left) and Sally Powell, Baldwin's Head of School, 
at Alice's talk on the organization, Social Accountability
 International, that Alice founded and serves as President.

1960-1986: Nancy Corbit Lewars ’60,  Alice Tepper Marlin '62, Margaret Walton Ralph ’64, Elizabeth Atchley Rowland '64, Susan Bunting Larson ’65, Elizabeth Swoope Sweetow ’65, Cynthia Freyman Lepofsky '66,  The Honorable Henrietta Holsman Fore '66, Janet Lee Beach ’67, A. Steffen Wright Crowther '68, Ruth Hochberger, Esq ’68, Margaret "Scottie" Robinson '69, Dola Davis Stemberg ’70, Kathryn Taylor '70, Marjorie Yang ’70,  Paula Boyer Kennedy '74, Carolyn Simpson Scott ’74, Jody Gerson ’79, Alexis Denny Kaufmann '79, Farah Griffin ’81, Alexis Egan McCarthy '81, Mary Dockray-Miller ’83, Rachel Gerstenhaber Stern '83, Stephanie Cohn Schaeffer ’85, Michelle Karbiner-Ball ’86. 
*posthumous

The Portrait of Pamela Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins

We took a look at the portrait by Brigid Marlin of Pamela L. Travers, creator of "Mary Poppins" and the subject of the 2013 movie Saving Mr. Banks. Several years ago we donated it to the Baldwin School lower library. It is nicely marked with two plaques, one with Travers's bio and the other with the provenance of the painting. The location was temporarily crowded by the need to relocate some copying equipment. Someone had an idea for a different place to hang the painting... Stay tuned.

The only extant painting of P. L. Travers, by my sister
Brigid. Alice and I bought it and donated it to Baldwin in
1998. Photo by JT Marlin, posted by permission of the artist.

The portrait itself is not as flattering as the glamorous photos of P. L. Travers when she was an actress in her teens and 20s. But it presents her as a smart, critical, and decent person.

This is a useful antidote to the negative reports about her from the children of the son she adopted, Camillus. They are quoted as saying that P. L. Travers loved no one in her declining years, and no one loved her.

But that was nonsense. She was disappointed in Camillus because he became an alcoholic, following in the footsteps of Camillus's birth father and Travers's own father. Not to mention Camillus's twin brother.

Travers in fact had many friends in London. My sister has testified to that. She has written up her experience painting P. L. Travers, and Travers comes across as, yes, a person with high standards, but also as someone who is very human and warm. (Read the engaging story yourself.)

That is a reason Alice and I thought that Baldwin is a perfect repository for the Travers painting.

Alice and Classmates (1962)

L to R: Alice Tepper Marlin, Cinnamon Liggett Rinzler,
Cathy Higgins and Anne Eglin Allen, all Baldwin '62. This 
and next photo by JT Marlin.

Four classmates from the class of 1962, class of blue, are shown in the photo at left. Others were at the 125th celebration at various times during the weekend.

For example, we went with Fran Headley Hundt, Baldwin '63, to the Chanticleer garden the first afternoon.

Cathy Higgins hosted an event for her classmates at her house in Bryn Mawr, where she proudly displayed some of the orchids she has grown in her greenhouse.

L to R: Alice Tepper Marlin, Cathy Higgins and Cinnamon
Liggett Rinzler looking at Cathy's prize-winning orchids.

Several of her orchids have won prizes. Cathy herself has qualified as a judge of orchid competitions at the end of a rigorous competitive process.

Cathy gave us a tour d'horizon of the Orchidaceae family, orchids to the uninitiated. The family name comes from the Greek word ὄρχις, meaning testicle (I'm not kidding, look it up).

Orchids are the largest family of flowering plants, with the possible exception of the Asteraceae, of which I will say no more, because that's what Cathy did.

Orchids come in a range of possibly as many as 26,000 species. The experts are still checking on possible duplications, as new ones come in every day. There are 800 genera, starting with Bulbophyllum (2,000 species), Epidendrum (1,500 species), Dendrobium (1,400 species) and Pleurothallis (1,000 species).

Baldwin '62 (in 2012) - L to R (names to be added): x, x, Cathy Higgins, x, Cinnamon Rinzler, x, x, x, x, Alice Tepper Marlin, x, x, x, x

So how big is 26,000 species? It's about the same number of species as there are bony fishes, twice the number of bird species, and four times the number of amphibia and mammals. Humans, of course, are a pathetically small share of the mammal species–70 percent of mammals are composed just of rodents, bats, moles and shrews. But homo sapiens uses a vastly bigger share of the world's resources than the other mammals.

All this has a way of putting us in our proper place. And that, I have to say after three days at the school, is very Baldwin.