Guide to the Records of the Henry C. Frick Educational Commission, 1909-1993
Arrangement
Repository
Heinz History Center
Title
Records of the Henry C. Frick Educational Commission
Creator
Henry C. Frick Educational Commission
Collection Number
MSS#148
Extent
40 cubic feet(78 Boxes)
Date
1909-1993
Abstract
The Henry C. Frick Educational Commission has provided scholarships for public school teachers and has funded educational programs in Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington, Greene, and Fayette Counties since 1909. These records, the bulk of which are grant files, include correspondence, newsclippings, grant proposals and reports, budgets, printed materials, and other sundry items providing comprehensive documentation of the educational programs funded by the Frick Educational Commission from 1944 to 1989. Some of the Commission's activities prior to 1944 are also well-documented in these records, particularly the summer conference, scholarship program, and the early administrative functions of the Commission.
Language
The material in this collection is in English.
Author
This guide to the collection was originally prepared by: Susan J. E. Illis on May 1, 1995. Revisions occurred to the finding aid as a part of the encoding process in Fall, 1999.
Sponsor
This finding aid has been encoded as a part of the Historic Pittsburgh project a joint effort of the University of Pittsburgh and the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Funding for this portion of the project has been donated by the Hillman Foundation.
History of the Henry Clay Frick Educational Commission (1909-)
The Henry C. Frick Educational Commission has provided scholarships for public school teachers and has funded educational programs in Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington, Greene, and Fayette Counties since 1909. The Commission was founded as the Educational Fund Commission anonymously by industrialist Henry Clay Frick, who desired to improve the quality of public school education. Frick appointed his longtime friend and noted astronomer, John A. Brashear, to administer the $250,000 fund for a five-year trial period. Brashear served as President of the Board of Trustees, and other board members included the Honorable Joseph Buffington, Dr. George W. Gerwig, W. Lucian Scaife, Charles F. Scott, Charles Reisfar, Jr., the Honorable John D. Shafer, and Clifford B. Connelley, with Martha C. Hoyt serving as corresponding secretary. In 1916, pleased with the success of the experiment, Frick added another $250,000 to the Commission's endowment and permitted his involvement to be revealed. Thus, the Commission was renamed as the Henry C. Frick Educational Commission.
Not long afterward, on December 2, 1919, Henry C. Frick died in New York. His will provided for an additional $3,000,000 for the Commission. The Commission's first president, John A. Brashear, died only four months later, on April 8, 1920. He was succeeded by W. Lucian Scaife who served as president until 1924. Miss Helen Clay Frick, Henry Frick's only surviving daughter, accepted Brashear's place on the board of trustees, serving on the board until her death in 1984. Other subsequent trustees have included educational leaders, business people, and other prominent citizens. Initially, trustees were chosen from educational and political leaders throughout the state, but in more recent years, the Board has been drawn from local community leaders. Board members have included James C. Rea, Alexander P. Reed, George D. Lockhart, John G. Bowman, Herbert L. Spencer, Ralph Munn, Albert C. Van Dusen, David Bergholz, Doreen E. Boyce, Henry Clay Frick II, David Henderson, Lloyd Kaiser, Sandra J. McLaughlin, and Edward D. Eddy. The Commission has typically been administered by a two-person paid staff. Martha C. Hoyt served as corresponding secretary from 1910-1940, and was succeeded by her former secretary Mary H. Kolb, who served as secretary from 1937-1940, executive secretary from 1940 to 1959, and executive director from 1960-1971. Edythe E. Hardtmayer was employed by the Commission from 1946 until 1980 as secretary, assistant director, and finally, associate director. Margaret D. Wilson served as assistant director from 1969-1971, and executive director from 1972 until the mid-1980s when she was succeeded by Jane Burger. Jane Burger directed the Commission until 1993.
After the initial formation of the Educational Fund Commission, the trustees considered several proposals for distributing the funds, ultimately choosing a suggestion from Pittsburgh Public Schools teachers. Beginning in 1910 and continuing for many years, the Commission primarily provided summer scholarships for continuing study among experienced teachers in the city of Pittsburgh. Awardees have attended summer school at regional colleges and universities that offer advanced degrees in education, including the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, Grove City College, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania, as well as national universities such as Columbia, Harvard, and Cornell Universities. In 1932, the scholarships were suspended for a year so that the Commission could fund a summer meal program for Pittsburgh Public School students. During the depression years, the Board of Education provided funds for meals for underprivileged students, and by 1932, the situation had grown so impecunious that the Board of Education sought additional funding for the summer months. For that year only, the summer scholarships were curtailed so that the Commission could give $50,000 to the Board of Education to provide meals for children. The Commission also hosted a summer conference for teachers who met the same requirements as the scholarship program. The summer conferences were held first at Margaret Morrison College (now part of Carnegie-Mellon University), then at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College), and finally at Wilson College (Chambersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania) until the program was discontinued in 1965. The summer conferences focused on broadening the teachers' understanding of current social and political issues. While the conferences were held on the urban campuses in Pittsburgh, from 1916 until the early 1950s, the themes centered on social work and welfare, Americanization, and child development. In these early years, the conference was called the Social Service Course for Teachers. Later political developments resulted in the expansion of the conference focus to include international affairs and citizenship, and from 1953 to 1965, these world affairs conferences were held on the rural Wilson College campus. Because of increasing costs, the trustees elected to discontinue the conferences in 1965 in favor of shorter sessions with in-depth studies. In 1975, the Commission discontinued the summer scholarship program for teachers, primarily because many school districts offered tuition remission for their teachers, and this outside support was no longer necessary. The Commission's Board of Trustees favored programs with more direct effect on public school pupils, such as teachers' in-service days and student assemblies.
Henry Frick's 1916 Deed of Gift established a priority system for granting scholarships, with first priority being given to teachers in the city of Pittsburgh, second to Allegheny County, and third to other areas in Western Pennsylvania, but until 1941, financial assistance was given almost exclusively to teachers and programs in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. In 1941, the Commission formally extended its granting area to include independent school districts throughout Allegheny County and in 1952, the geographic territory was further expanded to the neighboring counties of Westmoreland, Washington, Greene and Fayette. Grants have never been given outside this five county area. In addition to furnishing funds for individual teachers to continue their own studies, the Commission has given financial support to individuals and organizations to present programs in schools. One such program, the Frick Enrichment Series, provided after-school programs in the humanities for urban, rural, and suburban secondary students. Started in 1958 as the Humanities Seminars in Westmoreland County schools, the program continued until 1976 in schools throughout the Commission's granting area. Presenters for this series, administered entirely by the Commission, included local and national professors, authors, world affairs experts, artists, and actors.
Another longtime program supported by the Commission, the Educational Camping Project, afforded sixth-graders in the Pittsburgh Public Schools the opportunity to spend three autumn days at Camp Kon-O-Kwee, a Y.M.C.A. camp located along the Connoquenessing Creek in Fombell (Butler County), Pennsylvania. The Commission's support (1966-1976) replaced federal funds withdrawn in 1966. A similar program was sponsored from 1966 to 1973 at Camp Achievement, a summer camp in Normalville (Fayette County), Pennsylvania. Inner-city youth were eligible to spend one week enjoying the camp's recreational facilities, as well as receiving some academic tutoring. A favorite project of Miss Helen Clay Frick, who provided additional support from her own income, was administered by the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society from 1971-1982. The Humane Society hired an educator to give assemblies and lectures to school groups and senior citizens groups on proper pet care.
In addition to many other long-term programs, the Frick Educational Commission also maintained lengthy associations with organizations, such as public radio and television station WQED, Gateway to Music, Inc., and the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, as well as school districts, intermediate units, and academic institutions. The Commission provided many small grants for very specific, short-term programs and projects, such as in-school assemblies by experts on a variety of disciplines, in-service days, and conferences to supplement teacher education in a wide range of areas. The early alliance with the Pittsburgh Public Schools was not forgotten as the Commission widened the scope of grant giving. The Pittsburgh Public Schools continued to receive financial support for many programs, including an archival survey of the district's records, conducted in the early 1980s by Dr. Carolyn S. Schumacher.
Early in its history, in 1911, the Commission supported a Vocation Bureau, directed by Annie E. McCord. The Vocation Bureau was an experimental program designed to investigate students' reasons for dropping out of school to find work and what opportunities were available to them. The Bureau conducted a survey among children and young adults who had left grade school and high school, along with their parents. In addition to the director, the Bureau was staffed by a secretary and trained investigator, as well as volunteers from the Irene Kaufmann Settlement and local colleges and universities. After the survey was completed in 1913, the Bureau was taken over by the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Teachers who received early scholarship funds to either pursue their own education or to attend the Social Service courses formed organizations. Two of these were the Phoebe Brashear Club and the Martha Howard Frick Club. The Phoebe Brashear Club was formed in 1911 by twelve teachers who had received Commission monies to attend summer school at Harvard University. The Club, named in honor of Dr. John Brashear's wife, raised funds for scholarships for needy students, contributions to the Brashear Settlement on the South Side and its camp, the Claudine Virginia Trees Camp (Evans City, Pa.), and other projects to improve the lives of children. Membership in this club, expanded to include any teacher who received Frick monies, was at times as high as 2000. The Martha Howard Frick Club, named in honor of Henry C. Frick's daughter who died as a young girl, was formed by a group of Allegheny County teachers who had attended the 1949 summer conference at Pennsylvania College for Women (Chatham College). Like the Phoebe Brashear Club, the Martha Howard Frick Club raised funds to give scholarships to high school seniors who planned to pursue degrees in education. The Herbert Burnham Davis Loan Fund was created as a memorial to the longtime principal of the H. C. Frick Training School for Teachers. The Fund gave loans to students at the training school who would not be able to complete the program without financial assistance, and later made loans to students pursuing degrees in education. These organizations maintained a close association with the Commission.
The Commission remained a vital and nationally recognized educational foundation throughout the 1980s. In 1993, the Commission announced its affiliation with the Buhl Foundation. As a result of the affiliation, the Commission was renamed the Henry C. Frick Educational Fund of the Buhl Foundation. The Frick Educational Fund is being administered by Dr. Doreen Boyce, executive director of the Buhl Foundation. The savings in administrative costs will permit the remainder of the endowment to be used to support educational programs as Henry Frick intended when he founded the Commission in 1909.
Scope and Content Notes
The Henry C. Frick Educational Commission Records, the bulk of which are grant files, include correspondence, newsclippings, grant proposals and reports, budgets, printed materials, and other sundry items providing comprehensive documentation of the educational programs funded by the Frick Educational Commission from 1944 to 1989. Some of the Commission's activities prior to 1944 are also well-documented in these records, particularly the summer conference, scholarship program, and the early administrative functions of the Commission.
Arrangement
Four series have been designated, including Administrative Materials, Grant Files, People Involved with the Commission, and Related Organizations.
The Henry C. Frick Educational Commission Records are housed in seventy-eight archival boxes.
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
These materials were received in three accessions and were combined into one body of records in 1995.
Acc# 1981.0050 Gift of the Henry C. Frick Educational Commission, (Records, primarily documenting the Summer Conferences). 1981
Acc# 1993.0225 Gift of the Henry C. Frick Educational Commission, (Records).1993
Acc# 1995.0131 Gift of the Buhl Foundation, (Additional records including ledgers, slides, and photographs).1995
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Susan J. E. Illis on May 31, 1995.
Revision and rearrangement for the encoded version of the finding aid provided by Susan M. Allen on October 13, 1995.
Conditions Governing Use
Property rights reside with the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or publish, please contact the curator of the Archives.
Subjects
Corporate Names
Allegheny Conference on Community Development (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Allegheny Intermediate Unit (Allegheny County, Pa.).
Camp Achievement (Normalville, Pa.).
Camp Kon-o-Kwee (Fombell, Pa.).
Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Chatham College (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Fayette-Greene-Washington Intermediate Unit 1.
Frick, Henry C. Training School for Teachers (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Gateway to Music, Inc. (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Herbert Burnham Davis Loan Fund (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Martha Howard Frick Club (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Phoebe Brashear Club (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Pittsburgh Public Schools.
University of Pittsburgh.
WQED (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Wilson College (Chambersburg, Pa.).
Personal Names
Boyce, Doreen E.
Brashear, Dr. John A. (1840-1920).
Brashear, Phoebe (1843-1910).
Burger, Jane.
Buffington, Judge Joseph (1855-1947).
Eddy, Edward D.
Frick, Helen C. (-1984).
Frick, Henry C. (1849-1919).
Hardtmayer, Edythe E.
Hoyt, Martha C.
Kolb, Mary H. (1906-1978).
Lockhart, George D.
McLaughlin, Sandra J.
Munn, Ralph.
Rea, James C.
Scaife, W. Lucian.
Spencer, Herbert L.
Sustar, Colonel J. J.
Van Dusen, Albert C.
Wilson, Margaret D.
Geographic Names
Allegheny County (Pa.) -- Education.
Fayette County (Pa.) -- Education.
Greene County (Pa.) -- Education.
Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- Education.
Washington County (Pa.) -- Education.
Westmoreland County (Pa.) -- Education.
Other Subjects
Americanization
Arts -- Pennsylvania -- Allegheny County.
Community and School -- Pennsylvania -- Allegheny County.
The grant files include correspondence, grant proposals, reports, budgets, annual reports of the applicant organization, newsclippings, program schedules, and printed materials relating to the programs or projects sponsored. Also included at the front of most files is a grant proposal record, tracking the grant application's progress and including information such as contact person, type of request, special grant conditions, and summary. The Grant Files not only contain comprehensive information on the grants awarded, but the lists of files serves as an extensive list of non-profit organizations in the Pittsburgh area during this time period. Many non-profit and arts organizations whose everyday business was not educationalsought grants from the Commission to create educational programs for school-age children. The transition of the Commission's granting priorities to focus on community involvement, leadership, and rectifying societal problems, such as drug and alcohol problems, teen pregnancy, and counseling services, is clear in the second subseries. The deadline for grant applications was in October and decisions were made by the Board of Trustees in their December meetings for grants to be sponsored during the next calendar year. The proposals themselves frequently contain questions and comments made by the Executive Director, particularly on the budgets prepared. The Commission strictly enforced its guidelines and would require the grantees to return funds spent on items or expenses disallowed by the Commission. In addition to correspondence between the Commission and grantee organization, there are also frequently thank you letters and commentaries from people who participated in the programs, and in some cases, evaluation forms completed by participants as well. Information packets, study guides, and other materials produced for a conference or in-service day are also included with the grant files.
Some of the major grant recipients were the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, Gateway to Music, Inc., Frick Enrichment Series, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Reading is Fundamental (RIF), Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Conservation Consultants, and Fayette-Greene-Washington Intermediate Unit #1. In 1978-1979, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development sought funding for a joint program with the Pittsburgh Public Schools and Allegheny Intermediate Unit to improve public education in Allegheny County as an integral part of Pittsburgh's Renaissance II. The Conference also made continuing efforts to improve Pittsburgh's corporate and foundation leadership's contact with public education. The Commission also provided a grant to the Conference for consultants to assist in the formation of a Magnet School Advisory Committeee. The Allegheny Intermediate Unit requested Commission funding for programs ranging from administrator or teacher workshops to curriculum programs for special groups of students. A few of the programs funded by the Commission were a training workshop for teachers responsible for Indochinese refugee students (1976) and a workshop for administrators on ACreating Community Support for Educational Change (1974). The Health & Welfare Planning Association materials in the second subseries document the Commission's support of a mini-grant program to public schools to encourage self-responsibility for health among school children, including diet, nutrition, exercise, smoking, personal & dental hygiene, and child care. The grant files illustrate the Commission's continuing close association with the Pittsburgh Public Schools, for most of the programs they sponsored were held there, including Gateway to Music. Some additional files in this series are not grant files, such as Contracts, Scholarship Announcements and Scholarship Requests; however, the Commission maintained these files with the Grant Files and this order has been retained. The contracts are with lecturers and other seminar presenters for services rendered. In addition, in some cases, there are overlaps in the dates between the two subseries.
Arrangement
The Grant Files have been further subdivided into two subseries for grants given from 1960-1979 and those given from 1980-1985.
Arrangement
The Grant files are arranged alphabetically by folder title within each subseries. Information on grants given prior to 1960 are arranged to the front.
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Scope and Contents
Materials pertaining to People Involved with the Commission primarily include correspondence, newsclippings, and publicity materials. These individuals include board members, employees, and persons who presented programs through the Frick Enrichment Series and other projects. Much of the correspondence deals with the specifics of arranging assemblies, choosing dates, making transportation plans, etc., but because the Commission had such a low turnover in staff, individuals who had long-term associations with the Commission often discussed some personal matters in their letters. Therefore, the reader gains a more intimate familiarity with some of the people involved with the Commission. The correspondence often also communicates the presenter's impressions of their programs, audiences, and sometimes complaints concerning the setting or scheduling of the programs. Newsclippings are of articles not only about the person's actual involvement with the Commission's activities but also their general professional and social activities. In some cases, posthumous articles about individuals were clipped, explaining why some files on individuals date long after that person's death. Newsclippings pertaining to family members of the individuals are also sometimes included. The files maintained for the Commission's trustees include materials related to the Commission's business that are duplicated elsewhere in the records, such as meeting minutes and agendas, as well as newsclippings and other biographical information about the trustee. Files for Commission employees were kept only after that person's departure from the Commission and include items such as obituaries, memorials, and carbon copies of correspondence sent with pension checks. Some of the prominent local people represented include Dr. John A. Brashear, Edward D. Eddy, Jr., Helen C. Frick, George D. Lockhart, Ralph Munn, and James C. Rea. The materials pertaining to trustee and longtime Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh director Ralph Munn include considerable information on the library and advances Munn initiated during his tenure. Of particular note is material regarding Helen Clay Frick, including personal correspondence with Miss Frick, information on the Frick Art & Historical Center and the Frick Art Museum in New York City, and newsclippings concerning both Miss Frick and her father. There are numerous newsclippings documenting a lawsuit brought by Miss Frick against a scholar who wrote a critical biography of Frick. The correspondence clearly shows the high regard the Commission members had for Miss Frick.
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Scope and Contents
The Related Organizations include materials from the Phoebe Brashear Club, Herbert Burnham Davis Loan Fund, Henry C. Frick Training School for Teachers, Vocation Bureau, Monday Luncheon Club, the Martha Howard Frick Club, and other miscellaneous organizations related to the Commission. The Phoebe Brashear Club materials include extensive meeting minutes and scrapbooks with photographs, newsclippings, programs, and newsletters, documenting the Club's fundraising activities and the individuals and organizations that benefitted from the Club's generosity. The general materials include yearbooks, informational brochure, and prints of Phoebe Brashear. Both incoming and outgoing, the correspondence documents the Club's early activities, particularly their 1914 activity of transporting inner-city children to local parks during the summer. Also included is correspondence documenting the fundraising and publication of a booklet containing biographies of John and Phoebe Brashear, as well as a brief history of the Club, in honor of the centennial of Brashear's birth. The minutes include officers' reports, granting of scholarships, and gifts of carfare to students who would not be able to afford to go to school without even this minor assistance. For some years, the minutes of the Executive Board are intermingled with the general meeting minutes. The minutes from 1911-1925 also include meeting minutes for the John Brashear Chapter of the Phoebe Brashear Club. The minute books sometimes also doubled as scrapbooks, and as a result, there are clippings, programs, and correspondence pasted onto pages of the minute books. The scrapbooks include mementoes from the Club's social activities (place cards, name tags), programs, newsclippings, and some correspondence.
The Herbert Burnham Davis Loan Fund materials include correspondence and financial records, primarily documenting repayment of loans. These loans were often in small amounts, to cover ordinary expenses such as books, carfare, and meals. The general materials relating to the H. C. Frick Training School for Teachers include a 1934 report prepared by the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools and includes a history, program of studies, applicant selection, reasons for the school's continuation, and ideas for the future. Also included are a few yearbooks and programs for alumnae reunions. The Martha Howard Frick Club materials include meeting minutes, programs, and a small amount of correspondence. The correspondence primarily includes meeting notices and correspondence between Commission offices and the Club regarding meeting dates, times, and programs. Primarily a social organization, the club's meeting minutes document the planning of meetings and social outings. Included with the Monday Luncheon Club materials are correspondence, history, membership lists, and newspaper articles on prominent member Sara Soffel.
The Vocation Bureau materials are a particularly rich resource for documenting the social history of an industrial area. Materials include correspondence, financial reports, historical materials, proposals, and reports. The correspondence, primarily outgoing, is mostly to John Brashear, requesting payment for office expenses and salaries. Of particular note are reports Annie McCord prepared after attending national conferences of vocation bureaus and her proposals for an Advisory-Employment Bureau for Women and Girls (1913). Also included is a report on the first eight months of the Bureau's activities. This includes survey results gathered from children who had dropped out of school. The Surveys of Industrial Plants, conducted after the Vocation Bureau had ended its association with the Commission, provide information on plants in other industrial cities, including Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia. These surveys were conducted almost exclusively by public school teachers and contain first person impressions of the work and working conditions in the factories visited. Materials in the miscellaneous related organizations include a 1956 list of Jaycee Chapters in Allegheny County, deed of trust for the John A. Brashear Fund (1916), meeting minutes from the Girls Service Club and Family Low Cost Budget Study, miscellaneous materials from the Greater Pittsburgh Council on Adult Education, and other sundry items.